Individual and Institutional Risk Factors for Misconduct While Incarcerated

• In Event: Potential Factors for Prison Misconduct

Abstract

Inmate misconduct is an issue that policy makers, institutions, and researchers continue working to reduce. Growing inmate populations, limited correctional resources, and concerns for inmate safety drive the desire to prevent inmate misconduct. Among the effects of misconduct are physical injuries, emotional trauma, and increased sentencing. Researchers continue to strive to empirically understand the causal structures driving inmate misconduct and victimization in an effort to prevent future occurrences. Building on an important area of criminal justice research, this paper takes a quantitative approach to assessing risk factors of misconduct while institutionalized. Multilevel modeling was conducted using data from the National Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities (2004). The analyses will assess how individual and institutional level factors, including age, gender race, mental health status, and sentence length, effect the risk for misconduct while incarcerated. Policy implications and directions for future research will be discussed.

Author

• Elias Nader, University of Massachusetts Lowell