Q: Can you help me with the problem statement for my study on the quality of services in prison?

Hello Thelgka – Welcome to the forum! We must say, your study sounds both interesting and intense. Anyway, coming to your query, we have quite a few resources on the site on writing a problem statement. We shall refer you to a few of them below. For others, you may look up the site using the appropriate keywords.

To start you off though, note that a problem statement has to discuss three aspects of the problem: the existing state, the desired or ideal state, and how your study will provide suggestions or remedies to help attain the ideal state, or at least, come closer to it. So, in your statement, you’ll need to talk about the existing state of services in prison(s), what the ideal state should be (and why – such as to help prisoners lead a better quality of life even in prison, to help them rehabilitate, and so on), and what possible solutions your study might offer to bridge this gap.

Hope that helps. Here are those resources we promised:

• The basics of writing a statement of the problem for your research proposal
• How to write a problem statement for my research?

And all the best for your study!