DETAILING CHANGES IN STATE PRISONS, 1974 –2000, AND EXPLAINING SOCIAL UNREST AS A FUNCTION OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE, INSTITUTIONAL CHARACTERISTICS, AND POLITICAL CONTEXT
Open Access
- Author:
- Richards, Nicole
- Graduate Program:
- Sociology
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- August 02, 2004
- Committee Members:
- John David Mccarthy, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Lee Ann Banaszak, Committee Member
Roger Kent Finke, Committee Member
D Wayne Osgood, Committee Member - Keywords:
- disturbances
prisons
interpersonal violence
assaults
collective unrest
riots - Abstract:
- Motivated by the growing prevalence of incarceration in America in recent decades, this comprehensive study of prison institutions focuses on interpersonal and collective unrest in prisons; social structure of prison populations; living conditions in prisons, and the political context in which these institutions are nested. Data on some 700 state prisons from 1974 to 1995 is employed to answer the two central research questions: 1) how have the social structure, institutional characteristics, and the political context of prisons, as well as interpersonal and collective unrest inside these institutions changed over the past several decades and 2) how do social structure, institutional characteristics, and political context affect prison interpersonal and collective unrest. The theoretical strategy employed involves synthesizing dominant theoretical approaches in criminology literatures with approaches in sociology literatures in order to develop explanations of two dimensions of prison social unrest, interpersonal conflict between individual inmates and prison staff and collective action by groups of inmates. To explain prison interpersonal conflict, I draw upon the importation, deprivation and social disorganization theories. I integrate inmate-balance, administrative-control, breakdown and state-centered theories to explain collective unrest. As a consequence, I identify the social structure of a prison population and the institutional characteristics of a prison as predictors of interpersonal conflict. For collective conflict, social structure, institutional characteristics and political context were identified as predictors. I utilized both descriptive analyses and multilevel growth curve models to account for interpersonal and collective unrest in prisons. I conclude that interpersonal conflict worsened for inmates as individual prisons have become increasingly unable to protect those being confined in these institutions from being sexually and physically assaulted or even murdered. According to the longitudinal data, individual prisons have changed significantly in their mean rates of disturbances and fires but not in their probabilities of a riot. Despite record numbers of inmates being housed in state prisons and expanding costs, a number of inmate programs continue to operate in these institutions. Inconsistent trends exist in both the median earning of guards relative to the median income of families in a state and the stability of the executive leadership of state prison systems. In describing the political context within which prisons are nested, I found that the mean number of groups in a state that are organized around issues relating to prisons has remained relatively stable from 1984 to 1995, despite the substantial increase in both the number of inmates and prisons. Also, as may be expected state total expenditures for prisons have increased steadily. When accounting for prison violence, the findings indicate that models that include both predictors of social structure of the prison population and characteristics of institutions best explains interpersonal conflict between inmate and staff and among inmates. Similarly, composite models that include predictors of social structure, institutional characteristics and the political context within which prisons are nested are identified as the most salient explanation of collective conflict within prisons.