Prison violence in Chilean facilities: A first overview

Abstract

Although prison violence has been studied in developed countries, there is little empirical evidence of the phenomenon in developing countries. This article analyzes violence within Chilean facilities, specifically two of its most common manifestations: inmate-inmate violence and guard-inmate. To do so, this study uses both administrative data from Gendarmeria de Chile as well as survey data from the First Survey on Inmates’ Perceptions of Prison Life (Espinoza, Martínez & Sanhueza, 2014). Results show that inmate-inmate violence is more likely to occur in prisons with higher concentrations of young inmates (IRR = 0.786), the proportion of inmates classified with high criminal contagion (IRR = 1.042) and a greater total population (IRR = 1.0008). On the other hand, violence from guard to inmates is more likely to affect men (OR = 3.37) and those who live in private prisons (OR = 1.64); on the contrary, having suffered physical mistreatment from guards is less likely when inmates are visited more often (OR = 0.77), when they knew how to fill out grievances (OR = 0.75), and when inmates had a better perception of prison infrastructure (OR = 0.68). Finally, implications for public policy and new questions are suggested