High-Risk Inmates: Violence, Suicide, and Prison Safety

Introduction: High-Risk Inmates in a Growing Prison System

In a culture with a growing prison population and an unequal ability of prison infrastructure to add more beds to facilities, there must be a greater emphasis on high-risk prisoners and high-risk prison behaviors. There are several types of high-risk inmates; the two addressed in this paper are those who are violent toward others — such as other inmates and/or prison guards — and those who are likely to do harm to themselves, the most extreme case being suicide. The identified causes of prison violence have been established for more than 30 years, but the ways to deal with such issues are ever evolving and often facility-specific. One issue that has been difficult to overcome is that a general concern for prisoners and their safety is not a popular research topic; for this reason, a great deal of research focuses on protecting the public and, more importantly in correctional facilities, protecting prison employees.

The major surmountable obstacle is that institutions must operate according to guidelines that are more humane than those held by some of the prisoners themselves (Park 278). To understand the four causes or reasons for the occurrence of prison violence, one must look back to the inception of these ideas.

Four Causes of Prison Violence

Foundational work on the reasons for prison violence was conducted in the early 1970s, and for the most part the ideas remain similar today. The reasons violence — and sometimes murder and/or suicide — occur in prisons have similar, if not the same, social functions as they did then. The four groupings are more or less significant depending on the institution, its environment, the type of inmates housed, and regional issues.

This category encompasses violence that occurs as a result of adjustment to the system and all its rules and restrictions. As Park explains:

"Gambling, homosexual interactions, crowded living conditions, poor institutional design, inadequate training and supervision of staff, inmate incompatibilities in lifestyle and cultural or racial identifications, treatment by courts and parole boards, and the inability of a cumbersome bureaucracy to meet human needs — all contribute to an underlying tension present in most institutions. This violence is usually between individuals, although racial violence is apt to involve larger groups. Predators will sometimes form small, relatively temporary alliances for the exploitation of other inmates." (Park 279–280)

This is the violence that stems from adjustment to having little or no external stimulation, allowing individuals to reflect on past deeds, face regrets, and confront internal anger. Park notes that this "continues to be a significant source of assaults on staff at institutions where large numbers of psychiatrically disturbed inmates are managed. The right of inmates to refuse medication must be balanced against the safe and orderly operation of institutions, a task that has not yet been completed in the courts or the legislatures." The challenges posed by mental illness in correctional settings remain unresolved in both legal and legislative frameworks.

This type of violence has largely been overlooked due to changes within the social structure of the nation, having been closely linked to civil rights issues and associated arrests. The new face of this type of prison violence may be linked to terrorism. As Park describes:

"Several murders of prison employees were attributed to such groups in the early 1970s. Prison staff were particularly resentful of the encouragement being given to aggressive inmates by revolutionary activists in the outside community who furnished moral support, legal aid, free literature, and attractive visitors for cooperative prisoners. Curiously, this sort of violent activism has largely disappeared from the prison scene as it has from college campuses, although terroristic acts continue to occur in the community and may even be increasing worldwide. Outbreaks of violence in 1979 directed toward former participants in the prison reform movement of the early 1970s and continuing threats against others suggest that revolutionary-retaliatory violence has not vanished but is waiting for a suitable set of conditions for its reactivation."

Prison gangs have existed for many years and can be based on ideology and/or internal perceptions of protective networks. Violence in these cases is often associated with extreme secrecy as well as planned and directed acts against targeted inmates of rival gangs or those who wish to enter or leave such associations. These conflicts are frequently rooted in race. Park describes the situation as follows:

"The prison gangs that emerged in the late 1960s have maintained their identity for more than a decade and they remain a major source of violence in prisons. A quasi-military type of organization continues to provide the continuity that the old-style predatory alliances lacked and to allow transfer of power when gang leaders are killed or segregated. The tight organization and discipline of these groups enable them to dominate much larger groups of unorganized inmates. Inmates continue to be the primary victims of the gangs, whose activities are the largest source of assaults and deaths in the California system. A major development in recent years has been an escalation of gang activities in several communities, and there have been more gang-related homicides outside of jails and prisons than inside."

Overcrowding as an Environmental Contributor

Having established the reasons why violence so frequently occurs in prison environments, it is important to examine environmental contributors to that violence. One of the most striking — as prisons remain the same size while populations grow — is overcrowding, which creates poor conditions and greater opportunity for inmates to interact in potentially dangerous ways.

Research from Texas found that rates of suicides, violent deaths, disciplinary incidents, and natural deaths for "elderly" inmates (age 50 or older) increased beyond statistical expectancies. Larger prisons in the Texas system (with an average daily population of 1,600) consistently demonstrated higher rates than smaller prisons (averaging 800), a pattern that could not be readily explained by demographic characteristics, housing mode, or average space per inmate. Data from Oklahoma on crowding and violent deaths corroborated the Texas findings. As Carter and Glaser conclude, "the apparent explanation of this data is that sheer population size of an institution exerts a negative influence on its inmates, an influence that is seemingly independent of other factors" (Carter and Glaser 120).