Prisoner Behavior, Staff Response: Using Prison Discipline Records
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conference paper
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correctional inmatescorrectional officers
corrections
Indiana
prison discipline
prisoner misconduct
prisons
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JC 8406Abstract
Official prison misconduct records are used to test some of the assumptions inherent in previous research based upon such records. Many of these studies used prison data to measure changes in prisoner behavior, while others used them to indicate changes in the actions and attitudes of prison staff. Analysis of one prison's official discipline records over a 30-month period reveals flaws in both approaches. The same data cannot serve to draw conclusions about both groups though they can provide information about both when supplemented with other research methods. Conclusions drawn from official prison misconduct records are more reliable when used to assess the end of the prison discipline process — assessing discretionary decisionmaking by staff — than at the beginning of the process — evaluating prisoner behavior.Description
This study is based on official monthly summaries of violations reviewed by the prison discipline committee that were collected over a twenty-month period (September 1978 to May 1980) at the Indiana Reformatory, a maximum security prison for adult male felons.Table of Contents
[Introduction] / Background of the Study / A Case Study of Prison Discipline Records / Conclusion / Notes / References / FiguresDate
1984-03Publisher
Justice Center, University of Alaska AnchorageType
Working PaperCitation
Schafer, N.E. (1984). "Prisoner Behavior, Staff Response: Using Prison Discipline Records". Revision of paper presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, Chicago, Mar 1984.Collections
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