REPORTED HEAD INJURY AND DISCIPLINARY RULE INFRACTIONS IN PRISON

Abstract

We hypothesized that prison residents with brain injuy would have greater difficulty in following prison rules then residents without brain injury. To test grossly for brain injury, we administered a simple structured interview to 129 felons in the Protective Custody and Segregation Unit of a large Midwestern prison. To assess prison rule-following, we counted the disciplinary tickets accrued per day of stay for 41 "reported head injury" (RHI) and 41 reported "no head injury" (NI) residents. The RHI group averaged .2132 and NI residents .1373 disciplinary tickets per day. A t-test (t = 14.10, p < .001) supported the hypothesis of difference in ticket receipt frequency between the groups. Thus, RHI residents were involved in disciplinary infractions nearly twice as frequently as NI residents. While a simple interview must be used with caution, the results of this study have some important implications for resident rehabilitation and prison management.