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The Effects of Prison Crowding upon Infraction Rates

Department of Sociology, University of Massachusetts/Boston, Harbor Campus, Boston, Massachusetts 02125

Tim Carr

Georigia Department of Offender Rehabilitiation, 952 East Tower, Floyd Office Building, Atlanta, Georgia 30334

During the 1970s the prison populations grew at an alarming rate and researchers became interested in the effects of crowding on inmate behavior. Paulus, McCain, and Cox (1975; 1978) and D'Atri and Ostfeld (1975)found empirical evidence physiological changes occurring in crowded prison populations. Other researchers have also uncovered deleterious effects due to crowded prison conditions.

Unfortunately, the work in crowding has lagged behind other areas in corrections and there are few accepted paradigms.This research attempts to expand the current studies and, in doing so, examine the effects of crowding upon several groups ofcriminal offenders. The research is based upon a sample of 21,500 inmates, plus a subsample of 1,300 teenage prisoners. Ananalysis of variance and covariancefound no crowding effectsfor the prison population as a whole. However, strong crowdingeffects were found among young black violent offenders. For this group, crowding was a stronger predictor of infraction ratesthan any of our control variables (age, time served, home county population density, race, or type of crime). We interpret theseresults as artifacts placing high-risk inmates in the largest, most crowded prisons.

Criminal Justice Review, Vol. 9, No. 2, 69-77 (1984)
DOI: 10.1177/073401688400900210


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