Relationship between prison overcrowding and violence - Essay Example

Relationship between Prison Overcrowding and Violence Literature Review In the criminal justice debate, over the past two decades, prison crowding has occupied a central place. Serous crowding problems in prisons were reported by the Federal Bureau of Prisons and other 46 states in 1987. As the increase in prison populace more and more intense and outweigh the increase in the number of beds, complaints by the administrators and prisoners have increase analogously. A number various alarming issues are emerging as warned by policymakers and scholars, due to this undesirable trend, such as the administrative chaos, unprecedented violence and health issues. Consequently, corresponding emergency measures have been taken, to cater these issues. Many of these states have made noteworthy efforts to expand the number of beds available in prisons by expansion, construction or renovation, whereas considerable steps are taken to limit the number of inmate admissions to the existing prisons. (Lacayo, N. P.) Symptoms of Overcrowding According to Bliech (p.1133-1135) there are certain obvious symptoms or signs which determine the overcrowding of a particular place (in our case; a prison). Those who denounce towering prison populace concentrations hold responsible them for producing augmented strain and aggression and for discouraging managerial efforts to sustain order to offer fundamental services. Many squabble, the existence or nonexistence of these circumstances, conclude whether a prison is swarmed. It is important to note that undesirable prison conditions are not necessarily, the rationale for prison overcrowding. In reality, even after carrying out studies and researches repeatedly, scholars have been actually unable to discover any association between variations in the prison illness or violence levels and the increase in the population's density of the prison. However, this maybe the case that along with overcrowding issues, these conditions and managerial malfunction may exit resulting in failure to provide these services, even then it cannot be said logically that the populations elevation are the primary cause. (Bleich, P.1133-1135) Relationship between Violence and Prison Overcrowding As stated by Gaes and McGuire it has been reported based on the laboratory experiments that crowding and congestion leads to aggression. Linear regression techniques were used in the late 1970's to detect the connection between the customary indicia of antagonism and increasing prison populace for instance the official 'incidents' and convict aggression. Most if these researches were on strong belief that the increasing populations densities in prisons may result in convict violence and hostility and lead to mismanagement in the prison facilities (P. 41-65). Nevertheless, even though some early declarations to the converse, their studies have on the intact failed to ascertain an unequivocal association between spatial concentration, communal concentration, or convict discernment of swarming, and enlargements in prisoner aggression. Most of the studies in this regard, associated the raise in the inmate violence with augment in populace levels of the prison facility. Nevertheless, most of these researches were unable to realize other critical variables in reaching there results such as racial segregation tensions, prison's administration, and inmate age trends. Moreover, studies that were carried out more recently and claim to have incorporated these aspects in their studies seem to elucidate the previous incoherent conclusions. (Freedman, P. 83-88) According to the findings of Robert Leger (P. 167-181) for the notion of overcrowding, ethnic tensions were mainly responsible, particularly in those groupings that are in the minority prisons. He adds that density adds no logical variance to these issues. Moreover, Ekland-Olson (P. 163-176) and quite others recognized that for the deviations in inmate misdemeanors rates, not crowding but the age of the convict population was quite critical. The increase in the stress related incidents were yet noted by another researcher, as he expresses that there was not a single research that directly recognized the notion that current population in the prisons encouraged the increase in the inmate assaults. To maximum, these researches advocated that existing percentage of populations density perform as an intensifier of traumatic circumstances. (Atlas, p. 275-306) Subjective proof further projects the alleged link between inmate aggression and prison population densities. For instance, an inverse relationship between prison violence and populations density was observed at the Texas Prison System. Texas had the most crowded prisons in the nation, during the ten years from 1973 to 1983, with 90 % of all convicts imprisoned in multi-occupant cells that permitted them less room than what was prescribed by the American Correctional Associations i.e. minimum of 60 square feet per inmate. (DiIulio, p. 74-76) Moreover, Texas had one of the country's utmost magnitudes of inmate populations celled in units of 50 and more convicts. Despite these alarming population levels, Texas Prison System maintained a considerably lesser rate of inmate violence as compared to the California, Michigan and other states that had similar populations levels but lower prisons uncertainties. (DiIulio, p. 74-76) Robert M. Freeman (P. 87-89) explains the notion of inadequate levels of inmate controls from Camp and Camp in 1989 in his book 'Correctional Organizational and Management. He expresses that it has been observed that rate of thefts has increased and also the difficulty to control the introduction of contraband in the visiting rooms has increased as a consequence of reduced capability to supervise inmates. A strong relationship between inmate rule violation and crowding was observed by Carr and Clayton (1984). It is quite difficult to maintain a close and strict supervision on the problematic inmates. Especially when these problematic inmates are prone to violence then this problem increases. However, logically it could be implied that inmates prone to violence should be vulnerable to the increase in overcrowding. For instance, as stated by Gaes (1985:95) that inmates are more likely to have high assault rates for the prisons where the housing significantly more inmates than a capacity of sixty square feet per inmate. Moreover as Camps (1989) discusses that in overcrowded prisons there are more chances of the weaker inmates to be victimized by the 'problematic' inmates, thus there are more needs for the protective custody placement, and also that during the 1980's there was considerable increase in the inmate suicide rates in the overcrowded prisons. However all of the literature available is not consistent with the increased levels of violence due to overcrowding. Lillis in 1994 (1n Freeman, P. 88) through carrying out a survey encompassing 41 states, the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the District of Columbia, observed that actually between the years 1983 and 1993 the rate of suicides dropped to 100 from 131, with the overall rate of homicides dropping to 50 in 1993 from 131 in 1983, whereas the assaults on the correctional staff by the inmates reduced to about 5,840 to 6,047. Moreover, the assaults between the inmates themselves reduced to 10,000 from 14,000. Thus it can surely be said that during a ten year period, during which the population of the inmates more than doubled, a significant reduction in reported inmate violence was observed. Furthermore a noteworthy reduction in the number of escapes was observed by both Lillis (1994) and the Camps (1989), during the early 1990's. Therefore it could be analyzed from the discussion above that there is a need of additional research to precisely determine the relationship between inmate violence and overcrowding. However, going through the above literature review I came across the fact that there is no established evidence to determine the relationship between prison overcrowding and violence as a number of other factors are also responsible to affect violence such as race, gender, mental and physical state, capacity and management of the prison. Thus an effort will be made in this study to further elucidate all above factors, which have not been appropriately included by previous researchers, in the context of relationship between prison overcrowding and violence. Works Cited Atlas, Randy. Violence in Prison: An Effect of crowding. Environment and Behavior, Vol. 16, No. 3, (1984). 275-306 Bleich, Jeff. The Politics of Prison Crowding. California Law Review, Oct89, Vol. 77 Issue 5, (1989). 1125, 1989 Cox, Verne C.; Paulus, Paul B.; & McCain, Garvin. Not for attribution: Reply to Bonta. American Psychologist. Vol 41(1), (Jan 1986).101-103 DiIulio, John J. Governing Prisons: A Comparative Study of Correctional Management. Simon & Schuster, (1990). 74-76 Freedman, Jonathan L. Crowding and Behavior. New York: Viking Press, (1975). 83-88 Freeman, Robert A. Correctional Organization and Management: Public Policy Challenges, Behavior, and Structure. Elsevier, (1999). 87-88 Gaes, Gerald G., & McGuire, William J. Prison Violence: The Contribution of Crowding Versus Other Determinants of Prison Assault Rates. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Vol. 22, No. 1, (1985). 41-65 Lacayo, Richard. Our bulging prisons, Time, may 29, 1989 Leger, Robert G. Perception of Crowding, Racial Antagonism, and Aggression in A Custodial Prison. Journal of Criminal Justice. vol. 16, issue 3, (1988). 167-181 Sheldon Ekland-Olson., Laurence, Cohen. & Dennis Barrick. Prison Overcrowding and Disciplinary Problems: An Analysis of the Texas Prison System. 19 Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, (1983). 163-76 Read More