Kivonat:
Interpersonal relationships of prisoners are of key importance from the aspect of their
reintegration. We focus our attention on non-kin, primarily friendship ties on a sample of young
Hungarian males convicted for the first time, for a relatively short period of up to 3 years. In our
longitudinal qualitative research, 80 offenders from eight penal institutions were interviewed
while serving their sentence and 31 of them could also be reached 6 months after they left the
prison. We analyse what significance prisoners attribute to their friendship ties, how these
change during the prison sentence, which factors influence their sustainment or dissolution,
weakening or strengthening.