John Wooldredge

INMATE VERSUS ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS ON PRISON RULE VIOLATIONS

Identifying both individual and environmental effects on inmate misconduct is important for the protection of staff and inmates as well as for the effectiveness of facility programming. Self-report data collected from 9,828 male inmates housed in 204 state facilities in 1991 and 10,022 male inmates within 203 facilities in 1997 were examined to assess both inmate and environmental effects on assaults, drug/alcohol offenses, and other nonviolent offenses. Findings included consistent inmate-level effects of age, prior incarceration, prearrest drug use, and program participation. Offense-specific results included the positive effects of an inmates race and ethnicity on the odds of assaults versus negative effects on drug/alcohol offenses and the greater relevance of environmental effects on assaults versus drug/alcohol offenses.

Inmate Lifestyles and Opportunities for Victimization

Inmate-on-inmate crime poses a serious threat to the goals of institutional corrections. Research to date on inmate victimization suggests that demographic and background characteristics (such as age and the seriousness of the offense incarcerated for) are important predictors of victimization risk during incarceration. Yet, the relative importance of demographics versus institutional lifestyles for predicting inmate victimization has never been examined. This article presents the results of a study designed to test the applicability of lifestyle theory to an understanding of victimization in correctional institution domains. Results support lifestyle theory as a viable explanation of victimizations involving physical assaults by other inmates as well as those involving theft of personal properties. The implications of these results are discussed.

Inmate Experiences and Psychological Well-Being

This study examined how inmate psychological well-being is influenced by participation in institutional programs, frequency of visitation with outsiders, and experiences with victimization during incarceration. Participants were 581 adult inmates from three Ohio correctional facilities. Support was found for the hypotheses that healthier attitudes correspond with greater program participation, more frequent visitation, and no experience with victimization. The policy implications of these findings are presented.

Inmate crime and victimization in a southwestern correctional facility

Victimization among inmates of a correctional facility poses significant problems for the successful control and treatment of inmates. This article presents results from a study of several possible influences on an adult male inmates likelihood of committing personal crime, his likelihood of committing property crime, and his likelihood of being victimized by personal crime or property crime in a medium-security correctional facility located in the southwestern United States. Results suggest that the characteristics of offenders and victims differ in several respects. These characteristics are presented along with their implications for policies designed to reduce inmate victimization.

CORRELATES OF DEVIANT BEHAVIOR AMONG INMATES OF U.S. CORRECTIONAL FACILITIES

ABSTRACT Deviant behavior (i.e, rule infractions and assaults) among inmates of U.S. correctional facilities can threaten the security of those facilities, enhance feelings of insecurity and deprivation among inmates, and hinder the success of treatment programs. For these reasons it is important to identify possible influences on an inmates likelihood of deviant behavior during incarceration. This essay presents an integration of the findings from quantitative studies of the topic to date. Vie policy implications of these findings and methods of improving related research are discussed.

Individual and Environmental Effects on Assaults and Nonviolent Rule Breaking by Women in Prison

Drawing from micro- and macro-level theories of social control, the authors examined inmate and facility effects on the prevalence of assaults and nonviolent rule infractions committed by female inmates housed in state correctional facilities during 1991 and 1997. Analyses of national samples of more than 2,200 women confined in roughly 40 facilities produced results favoring a control perspective. Characteristics of both inmates (e.g., family status, history of physical or sexual abuse, drug use immediately prior to incarceration, and mental ill health) and facilities (e.g., crowding and security level) were relevant for understanding differences among female inmates in the odds of both assault and nonviolent misconduct.

Reconsidering Domestic Violence Recidivism: Conditioned Effects of Legal Controls by Individual and Aggregate Levels of Stake in Conformity

Social scientists examining whether stake in conformity conditions the deterrent effect of arrest for domestic violence recidivism have applied criminological theory to an important criminal justice issue. We extend this research with a discussion and multi-level analysis of the possible interplay between court dispositions and (a) an offenders stake in conformity, and (b) the proportion of “higher stake” residents in an offenders census tract of residence. The prevalence of re-arrest for intimate assault (misdemeanor and felony) is examined for 3110 suspects of misdemeanor intimate assault in Cincinnati. Findings reveal a significant main effect involving higher re-arrest likelihoods for arrested suspects with no formal charges filed against them. Results for the conditioned effects of court dispositions reveal significantly lower re-arrest likelihoods for higher stake offenders undergoing a counseling program (a predicted relationship), and significantly lower re-arrest likelihoods for lower stake offenders serving probation and/or jail (opposite to the predicted relationship). At the neighborhood-level, sentences of probation and/or jail correspond with significantly lower re-arrest likelihoods for offenders living in neighborhoods with more residentially stable populations (as predicted). We discuss the implications of our study for future research.

Severity of Dispositions and Domestic Violence Recidivism

The effects of court dispositions on rearrest for domestic violence was examined for a sample of adults arrested for misdemeanor domestic violence in Hamilton County (Cincinnati), Ohio. Arrestees were tracked for one year after their sentences, if any, had been served. Qualitatively, more severe sentences (e.g., jail combined with probation versus either probation or jail) corresponded with lower recidivism likelihoods. Also, these sentences appeared most effective for persons with greater stakes in conformity (i.e., those less transient in terms of residence and employment and those living in neighborhoods with higher socioeconomic status).

Lifestyles of the old and not so fearful: Life situation and older persons' fear of crime

Based on a survey of 1,448 elderly residents of Dade County (Miami), Florida, the impact on fear of crime of status characteristics, victimization experience, and various measures of life situation was assessed. The analysis yielded four main conclusions. First, in contrast to much academic and popular commentary, the elderly did not appear to have high levels of fear. Second, evidence exists that victimization experience increases, but is not the main determinant of fear. Third, the inclusion of life situation variables markedly improved the explained variance for both measures of fear of crime, thus supporting the utility of this line of inquiry. Fourth, consistent with previous studies, dissatisfaction with neighborhood and vulnerability were important correlates of fear of crime.

The relevance of inmate race/ethnicity versus population composition for understanding prison rule violations

The importance of order maintenance in prisons has generated numerous studies of the correlates to inmate misconduct. Very few of these studies, however, have focused specifically on the correlations between inmates’ race/ethnicity and prison rule breaking. Race and ethnicity could be relevant to an understanding of prison rule breaking if inmates bring their ecologically structured beliefs regarding legal authority, crime and deviance into the institutional environment. Using data from two nationally representative samples of males incarcerated in state facilities, we examined the individual-level effects of an inmate’s race and ethnicity on his likelihood of engaging in various forms of misconduct during incarceration, as well as the contextual effects of the racial/ethnic composition of inmate and correctional staff populations on levels of rule breaking. Findings reveal that the effects of an inmate’s race and ethnicity differ by offense type, and the racial/ethnic composition of inmates and correctional staff have both main and conditioning effects on levels of misconduct. Implications of these results are discussed within a social control framework.