Prison Violence Research Articles

Violência, dependência química e transtornos mentais em presidiários

O presente trabalho realizou uma análise de artigos científicos selecionados nas fontes eletrônicas SciELO, PubMed e Web of Science, no período entre 1998 e 2008. Na elaboração da revisão e na discussão de dados, foram utilizados os descritores: violência (violence); dependência de drogas (drug dependence), transtornos mentais (mental disturbs) e prisioneiros (prisoners). No total, foram encontrados 408 artigos sobre a temática, tendo sido utilizados 60 deles, juntamente com 23 livros e teses que abordam a problemática em questão. A revisão teve por objetivo analisar a relação entre violência, dependência química e transtornos mentais na população carcerária masculina. Os resultados mostraram que o uso abusivo de drogas é um importante fator de risco para a violência e que os transtornos mentais, muitas vezes, acompanham atos violentos. Conclui-se que a violência e a dependência de drogas estão diretamente relacionadas em prisioneiros.

Life and death in the lone star state: Three decades of violence predictions by capital juries

The accuracy of three decades of Texas jury predictions of future violence by capital defendants was tested through retrospective review of the disciplinary records of former death row (FDR) inmates in Texas (N = 111) who had been sentenced to death under this "special issue" and subsequently obtained relief from their death sentences between 1989 and 2008. FDR inmates typically had extended tenures on death row (M = 9.9 years) and post-relief in the general prison population (M = 8.4 years). FDR prevalence of serious assault was low, both on death row (3.6%) and upon entering the prison population (4.5%). None of the assaults resulted in life-threatening injuries to the victims. Violence among the FDR inmates was not disproportionate compared with life-sentenced capital offenders. Consistent with other research, juror expectations of serious prison violence by these offenders had high error (i.e., false positive) rates. The confidence of legislators and courts in the violence prediction capabilities of capital jurors is misplaced.

Understanding Violence in the ‘Society of Captives’: Sykes Meets Bourdieu in Prison

Abstract: Looking at violence in prison from a sociological perspective, Sykes's Society of Captives remains a classic in penology. Influenced by structural‐functionalism, he describes the great influence of the prison structure on its inmates and emphasises the importance of violence for the stabilisation of the prison social order. This article will re‐examine Sykes's assumptions about the relationship between structure and action, referring to Bourdieu and a biographical approach using a case example from a qualitative longitudinal study with male inmates in young offenders' institutions in Germany. It concludes by asking how the meaning of violence in prison changes, looked at from these different theoretical perspectives.

Correlates and Actuarial Models of Assaultive Prison Misconduct Among Violence-Predicted Capital Offenders

Correlates of prison violence and the classification accuracy of an actuarial model were examined from retrospective review of the disciplinary records of former death row inmates in Texas ( N = 111) who had been predicted to commit future violence at trial and subsequently obtained relief from their death sentences between 1989 and 2008. Correlates of “potentially” violent infractions included age (inversely), intellectual capability (inversely), prior violent crime arrest, and gun-only weapon used in murder (inversely). An actuarial scale constructed from the sample was modestly (area under the curve [AUC] = 0.690) associated with combined violence on death row and in the broader prison population, as were scales constructed previously from other samples (AUC = 0.609 to 0.656). Although AUCs for serious assaults in three models were relatively high (AUC = 0.799 to 0.831), low base rates result in these actuarial scales having high false positive rates (e.g., 76%) in identifying offenders who will commit serious prison assaults.

Burnout et victimisations : effets des agressions des personnes détenues envers les personnels de surveillance

Prison is typically considered as a dangerous setting partly because of promiscuity and violence, which leads to a whole series of suffering and frustration among prisoners. Due to their occupation, prison guards must ensure the safety of the inmates, their colleagues, as well as any other persons working in prison and in the prison setting. Thus, correctional guards are the "Bumper excitement" of prison violence and suffer from stressful and traumatic events. Indeed, inmates' sufferings and frustration are firstly expressed towards them because they share daily relationships with inmates. In addition, correctional guards are faced with the high inmate suicide risk. One potential consequence of these chronic stressful situations is burnout. Burnout is described as a three-dimensional syndrome composed of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and sense of lack of personal accomplishment. Burnout is a severe psychological suffering, which can lead to depression. It has been initially identified among persons who are working with patients. Nevertheless, research shows that burnout is not a psychopathology of work but of the relationship with others. In other terms, burnout seems to arise when people share stressful, chronic and violent relationships with someone else. Burnout doesn't appear per se in any international classification of mental disorders: clinicians often use the diagnosis of adjustment disorder. Our aim is to assess the impact of victimization on burnout among guards in French prisons. Prison guards were chosen for two major reasons. First, the custodial role of correctional officers is typically described as a stressful occupation, sensitive to burnout. Second, prison is generally considered "dangerous". Indeed, victimizations and aggressions frequently occur. Consequently, we hypothesize that burnout levels will be high for prison guards. We also hypothesize that the intensity of the victimizations (verbal, physical or armed aggression) will heighten burnout levels. Two hundred and thirty-five prison guards were involved. Among these 235 correctional guards, there were 46 women and 188 men, ranging from 22 to 56 years old. Victimizations were very common: more than 87 % had experienced an aggression, whether verbally, physically or armed. They were asked to fill out the French form of the Maslach burnout Inventory (MBI). The MBI is a 22-item self-report measurement that assesses the three dimensions of burnout: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal accomplishment. Items are rated on a 7-point scale ranging from 0 ("never") to 6 ("every day"). We have statistically created a new global level of burnout with the three dimensions. It is called "burnout level". We have assessed two sets of independent variables (VI): demographic VI (age, sex, tenure, level of studies) and correctional VI (penal status of prison, victimizations). Regarding our dependent variables, we have four levels which are (1) global burnout (GB), (2) emotional exhaustion (EE), (3) depersonalization (D), and (4) personal accomplishment (PA). For the purpose of our study, we carried out variance analyses (Anova) in order to compare the averages of our groups of subjects. Further to Anova, we chose the Bonferroni/Dunn post hoc test. The results indicate that demographic variables such as age, sex or level of studies have no significant effect on GB, EE, D and PA levels. Tenure has a significant effect on GB and D levels. Concerning correctional variables, results show that the penal status of prison has a significant effect on GB and EE. Prison guards working with inmates incarcerated for more than 5years report higher GB and EE than their counterparts working with inmates not already convicted. Victimizations have a significant effect on GB, EE, D and PA levels. Prison guards with physical or armed aggressions report higher global GB, EE, D and PA levels than prison guards without aggressions. Furthermore, prison guards with physical or armed aggressions report higher global GB and D levels than prison guards with verbal aggressions. Two major points are highlighted by our study. First, characteristics of prison and inmates are related to burnout among prison guards. Second, victimizations lead to burnout.

Interpersonal inmate violence in French prisons: results of the TARTARE survey

ObjectivesTo describe physical inmate violence in prisons and to determine factors associated with it (being victim and being perpetrator).MethodsAll Inmates of a prison for prisoners awaiting trial (Bordeaux, France) were...

Somewhere over the Rainbow: Improving Violence Risk Management in Institutional Settings

Tackling violence in prisons and forensic institutions is a key role for mental health professionals. Major strides have been made in the last twenty years in the evaluation and management of individual risk factors. However, the understanding of situational—or institutional—risk factors is less well developed. This special section considers PRISM. PRISM is a set of structured professional guidelines for assessing and managing the risk of violence in institutions. In contrast to better known forms of structured judgment approaches the focus of concern is the functioning of the institution, not the individual patient or prisoner. In this introductory paper we describe the development of PRISM, its conceptual and empirical base, and demonstrate and propose a range of applications for the approach. We argue that PRISM can have value in a range of important practical tasks, but also, PRISM can be used to enhance our theoretical understanding of the risk processes that underpin institutional violence.

PRISM: A Promising Paradigm for Assessing and Managing Institutional Violence: Findings from a Multiple Case Study Analysis of Five Scottish Prisons

PRISM: Promoting Risk Intervention by Situational Management (Johnstone & Cooke, 2008) provides a systematic process for evaluating a range of situational risk factors known to influence institutional violence in prisons and secure hospital settings. This paper reports on findings from the first multiple case-study evaluation using this protocol. We applied PRISM in the Scottish Prison Service (SPS). The SPS is a modern prison system. It respects prisoners’ human rights, maintains order and control via humane and dignified means, and works towards the rehabilitation of prisoners and reducing reoffending rates overall. The SPS comprises a national headquarters where relevant policies and protocols are derived but governors and senior management teams are based within the local prisons to ensure the effective running of the organisation. While the SPS can boast decreasing rates of serious violence, there are significant variations across sites. We used PRISM to explore the relevance of situational risk factors to understanding these variations. Results suggested that the protocol was a promising paradigm for assessing risk factors unique to each site as well as showing utility for exposing problems related to the national policies and practices. The risk assessment led to a range of risk management interventions being proposed. The implications of the findings are discussed.

Consensual Sex Between Men and Sexual Violence in Australian Prisons

Estimates of the incidence of sexual coercion in men's prisons are notoriously variable and fraught with conceptual and methodological problems. In 2006-2007, we conducted a computer-assisted telephone survey of a random sample of 2,018 male prisoners in New South Wales and Queensland. Of 2,626 eligible and available inmates, 76.8% consented and provided full responses. We asked about time in prison, sexual experience, attraction and (homo/bi/heterosexual) identity, attitudes, sexual contact with other inmates, reasons for having sex and practices engaged in, and about sexual coercion, including location and number of perpetrators. Most men (95.1%) identified as heterosexual. Of the total sample, 13.5% reported sexual contact with males in their lifetime: 7.8% only outside prison, 2.8% both inside and outside, and 2.7% only inside prison. Later in the interview, 144 men (7.1% of total sample) reported sexual contact with inmates in prison; the majority had few partners and no anal intercourse. Most did so for pleasure, but some for protection, i.e., to avoid assault by someone else. Before incarceration, 32.9% feared sexual assault in prison; 6.9% had been sexually threatened in prison and 2.6% had been sexually coerced ("forced or frightened into doing something sexually that [they] did not want"). Some of those coerced reported no same-sex contact. The majority of prisoners were intolerant of male-to-male sexual activity. The study achieved a high response rate and asked detailed questions to elicit reports of coercion and sex separately. Both consensual sex and sexual assault are less common than is generally believed.

A General Strain Theory of Prison Violence and Misconduct: An Integrated Model of Inmate Behavior

Explanations of prison violence and other forms of misconduct have been dominated by three competing models: (a) the deprivation model, (b) the importation model, and (c) the coping model. We propose that these three seemingly competing models can be integrated within Agnew’s general strain theory (GST). GST enriches the deprivation model by revealing three distinctive categories of strain. GST encompasses the importation model in hypothesizing that criminal cultural values and affiliations will structure the response to the strains of imprisonment. And GST incorporates the coping model in its emphasis on how social support, social capital, and human capital can blunt the effects of potentially criminogenic strains. Finally, GST is sufficiently broad to include factors (e.g., emotions, self-control) in the explanation of prison maladjustment not covered by the three main models of prison inmate behavior. In short, GST offers a general integrated framework for reconceptualizing our understanding of prison violence and misconduct.

An Exploratory Study of the Characteristics of Men Known to Commit Prisoner-on-Prisoner Sexual Violence

For one state correctional system, 1998 through 2006, 121 perpetrators were compared with 121 nonperpetrators. Sexual abuse victimization as a child, a life sentence, and adult sexual assault convictions predicted men’s unwanted sexual touching of other men. History of juvenile robbery and adult sexual assault convictions, more years in prison, and youth characterized men who threatened, attempted, or achieved sexual penetration with another inmate. Individual predispositions appear to be relevant to understanding prison sexual violence and should be examined along with contextual influences. Findings suggest needed areas of future research and have implications for preventing sexual violence in prisons.

Imprisoning men in violence: Masculinity and sexual abuse: a view from South African prisons

This article explores sexual violence in male prisons in South Africa. It focuses on the social meanings and identities that surround sexual violence, particularly the ideas of manhood that shape both the perpetration of sexual abuses and how it is dealt with – or not. The dominant inmate culture endorses prison rape and long-term relationships of sexual abuse, largely through legitimising violence and through replicating societal notions of gender and sexuality. The Department of Correctional Services and its staff have so far failed to meaningfully engage with the problem of sexual violence in prisons, or to provide adequate support for victims. There are indications that the department may be beginning to address the problem, but past attempts to get the issue of sexual violence recognised, provide cautions as to how this should be done. Specifically, there is a need to ensure that damaging and brutal notions of masculinity are challenged rather than accentuated in the process of addressing the problem.

共和分回帰・誤差修正モデルによる受刑者間暴力に対する収容率の効果の検証

This research examined the effect of prison population densities (PPD) on inmate-inmate prison violence rates (PVR) in Japan using one-year-interval time-series data (1972-2006). Cointegration regressions revealed a long-run equilibrium relationship between PPD and PVR. PPD had a significant and increasing effect on PVR in the long-term. Error correction models showed that in the short-term, the effect of PPD was significant and positive on PVR, even after controlling for the effects of the proportions of males, age younger than 30 years, less than one-year incarceration, and prisoner/staff ratio. The results were discussed in regard to (a) differences between Japanese prisons and prisons in the United States, and (b) methodological problems found in previous research.

Gewalt im Strafvollzug: Prävalenz, Erscheinungsformen und Risikofaktoren

When comparing different studies on prison violence, it must be taken into account that correctional facilities vary considerably among one another. Studies conducted in Switzerland have shown that every one inmate in four is violent at least once during incarceration. These violent acts differ in regard to manifestation and a specific characterization of violence according to type, target, implication and trigger appears to be necessary. Existing criminal prognostic instruments are not suitable for estimating the risk of violent behavior in prisons. Therefore, the development of specific models is essential. International studies have identified various risk factors. However, due to the aforementioned differences in facilities, these predictors can only partly be transferred to a Swiss setting.

Capital jury decision-making: The limitations of predictions of future violence.

The U.S. Supreme Court in Jurek v. Texas (1976) affirmed that capital juries are able to identify those capital offenders who will commit serious violence in the future. The capability of capital juries to accurately make these judgments as a means of deciding which capital offenders should receive the death penalty has been widely endorsed in both statute and case law, as well as embraced by jurors. A growing body of research on rates and correlates of prison violence, however, points to this confidence being misplaced. Prior investigations of the accuracy of these capital jury predictions, though limited in number, have found alarming error rates. The current study retrospectively reviewed the post-trial (M = 5.7 years) prison disciplinary misconduct of federal capital offenders (N = 72) for whom juries considered dangerousness as an aggravating factor at sentencing. These jurors' predictive performance was no better than random guesses, with high error (false positive) rates, regardless of the severity of the anticipated violence. In light of prior studies, it is concluded that juror predictions of future violence lack sufficient reliability to play a role in death penalty determinations.

Relational Violence in Women's Prison: How Women Describe Interpersonal Violence and Gender

Using data from interviews with former female inmates, I focus on how women describe aggression and violence in prison. Interviewees outline the connection between prison violence, gender, and interpersonal relationships. Similar to in previous studies on adolescent girls, women describe ostracism and rumors as a form of aggression. Furthermore, they detail how some inmates fight over correctional officers as the only men in their lives. I define this form of aggression as relational violence, which is commonly described as adolescent behavior. This article broadens the current work on gender and inmate conflict by focusing on violence used by adult female offenders. Moreover, it extends understanding of inmate culture by allowing interviewees to verbally construct the social reality of prison violence from their perspective to evaluate how they connect violence to gender roles.

Once a Killer, Always a Killer? Prison Misconduct of Former Death-Sentenced Inmates in Arizona

Whether death-sentenced inmates represent the “worst of the worst” in terms of prison violence is the focus of this investigation. Capital offenders in Arizona who obtained relief from their death sentences during the modern era (1975–2005) were identified (N = 80) and their demographic characteristics and disciplinary records retrospectively reviewed for their years on death row (M = 6.4) and their subsequent years in the general prison population spent (M = 13.1). Consistent with other studies, prevalence rates of post-relief disciplinary infractions were inversely related to severity. Only 3.8% committed a prison assault with great bodily injury and only one in 100 killed again in prison. Predictive factors were limited: race, years on death row (inversely), assaultive misconduct on death row, and age at death penalty relief (inversely). A risk scale based on the latter three factors was moderately successful in classifying these offenders into three risk categories.

Individual and Institutional Characteristics Related to Inmate Victimization

This study examines the effect of inmate and institutional characteristics on inmate victimization during incarceration. In addition, it examines whether factors related to inmate victimization varies by perpetrator type, specifically inmate versus staff victimizer. Self-reported data from 247 male and female inmates confined to eight correctional institutions are collected, including questions regarding their experiences of staff-on-inmate and inmate-on-inmate victimization. Results show that similar institutional-level variables predict both types of inmate victimization; however, there are some differences between outcomes based on inmate-level characteristics. The authors address possible explanations for the results and suggest several policy implications to reduce the incidence of prison violence.

Inmate Assaults on Prison Staff

Most of the extant literature on prison violence has explored inmate-on-inmate assaultive behaviors rather than inmate-on-staff assaults. In addition, the bulk of this past literature considered only one level of an analysis, the inmate or the prison, while ignoring the importance of prison context on inmate behavior. This study enhances past research by combining both inmate- and prison-level data into a multilevel model predicting the likelihood of inmate-on-staff assaults. Self-report data from more than 1,000 inmates and 30 prisons revealed that, at the inmate level, age and aggression were the most robust predictors of inmate-on-staff assaults. In terms of contextual effects, inmates housed in prisons with a greater proportion of non-White inmates and a larger staff-to-inmate ratio were more likely to assault prison staff members. Policy implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

<i>Feminism and War: Confronting US Imperialism</i> (review)

Reviewed by: Feminism and War: Confronting US Imperialism Mary Jo Klinker (bio) Feminism and War: Confronting US Imperialism Edited by Robin L. Riley, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, and Minnie Bruce Pratt (London: Zed Books, 2008) Feminism and War: Confronting US Imperialism aims to "make visible the ways in which the USA has gendered, racialized, and sexualized its practice of imperialist wars—that is, wars being waged through military and economic policy to advance and consolidate the profit-driven system of capitalism" (3). The collection of essays, engendered by the 2006 Feminism and War Conference in New York, is broken into four sections: Feminist Geopolitics of War, Feminist Mobilizing Critiques of War, Women's Struggles and the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Feminists Organizing Against Imperialism and War. Through poetry, story, and essay, the text makes clear that "this is the time for feminist revolutions" (McFadden 66). The book is most powerful when examining systemic oppression in U.S. society and its connection to the larger geopolitical context of U.S. imperialism. Angela Davis argues that we must "place state violence, war, prison violence, torture, [and] capital punishment on a spectrum of violence" (25) in order to understand the complexity of U.S. militarism. Nellie Hester Bailey connects the systemic inequality of gentrification and the feminization of poverty as unrecognized forms of war. She explains that "gentrification is class warfare waged against poor and working-class people of color. This catastrophe is directly linked to U.S. imperialist war, and is happening not only in Harlem but throughout the country" (236). While much of the text specifically analyzes the brute force of militarism utilized to uphold U.S. hegemony, Breta Joubert-Ceci theorizes that neoliberalist policies of privatization and deregulation are also a war front. She argues that the U.S. dominated institutions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank have proliferated capitalism to violently exploit Latin America's resources and labor, as well as the global South. The authors attempt to reclaim the importance of feminism to anti-war movements after the Bush administration co-opted feminist rhetoric to excuse the imperialist endeavor in Afghanistan. Jennifer Fluri argues that the Afghanistan war had nothing to do with confronting Islamic patriarchy. In reality these efforts entail the imposition of U.S. governmental discourses on human rights, proliferated through the systemic destruction of people in order to ensure military superiority and impose a "free" market structure (Fluri 155). Similarly, Elizabeth Philipose states "Muslims and Muslim states are held as the example par excellence of misogyny in the Western imagination, an imagination that provokes the colonialist narrative that white men, in their enlightened masculinity, have the duty to save brown women from brown men" (113). The third section analyzes the continued neocolonialism that results from U.S. [End Page 59] imperialism in Iraq and Afghanistan. An integral component of analysis is the critique of what Shahnaz Khan terms "colonial feminism." She argues that "Western" values, like democracy and freedom, have been used in the rhetoric of the "war on terror." This process has been fueled by the idea of saving women. Reiterating Chandra Mohanty's important theories of the monolithic construction of Third World women as victims and First World women as liberated or liberators, she analyzes the conditions of women's lives in Afghanistan since the beginning of the war on terror. Despite claims in the United States that the war has been won, Khan argues that there is a misunderstanding of the history and geopolitics of the Middle East. Upon further analysis, it becomes apparent that these women have not reached equality; rather they have been pushed further into economic exploitation through sex work and poverty. Isis Nusair furthers this argument through the lens of Edward Said's Orientalism to discuss the sexual violences at Abu Ghraib, which were masculinized violence constructed to systemically dominate through continued assumptions of orientalist logic (182). The final section speaks to the radical potentialities of feminists organizing against war. As Leslie Cagan points out, war is the antithesis of feminist principles because, "all of the values of feminism are contradicted—if not rendered impossible to achieve—by the realities of war and the...