A growing body of research—much of which has focused on male inmates—suggests that religion ameliorates many pains and problems of imprisonment. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects ...

“The Rock I Cling To”: Religious Engagement in the Lives of Life-Sentenced Women

Security designation tools are a key feature of all prisons in the United States, intended as objective measures of risk that funnel inmates into security levels—to prison environments varying in degree of intrusiveness, restriction, dangerousness, and cost. These tools are mostly (if not all) validated by measuring inmates on a set of characteristics, using scores from summations of that information to assign inmates to prisons of varying security level, and then observing whether inmates assumed more risky did in fact offend more. That approach leaves open the possibility of endogeneity—that the harsher prisons are themselves bringing about higher misconduct and thus biasing coefficients assessing individual risk. The current study assesses this potential bias by following an entry cohort of inmates to more than 100 facilities in the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and exploiting the substantial variation in classification scores within a given prison that derive from systematic overrides of security-le...

Endogeneity in Prison Risk Classification

This article presents an ethnographic account of my day-to-day experiences as a survey researcher in men’s prisons in the United States. I outline challenges I encountered in the field and share personal reflections on interviewing people who are incarcerated. I then put forth a series of implications and suggestions for those who plan to conduct similar studies. Researchers’ firsthand accounts of the data collection process and research settings are crucial because they provide instruction for other scholars. Yet, these aspects of doing research are conventionally ignored in survey researchers’ scholarly publications. Accordingly, this article presents an examination of my work as a survey researcher through an interpretive frame, calls for reflective approaches to conducting quantitative research, and provides a primer on doing research in prison settings.

An ethnographic account of doing survey research in prison : descriptions, reflections, and suggestions from the field / James Sutton.

A Test of the Reliability and Validity of the Life-Events Calendar Method Using Ohio Prisoners

Offenders sentenced to terms of life imprisonment pose special challenges for correctional systems. The Correctional Service of Canada collaborated with nongovernmental agencies to develop programmatic interventions to better prepare this population to survive their prison sentences and transition to the community. This study describes the characteristics of the Canadian lifer population and illustrates how the LifeLine program, first introduced in 1991, has contributed to low rates of recidivism using National Parole Board statistics from 1994 to 2009. The fact that so many life-imprisoned offenders make a successful transition to the community suggests that not only is this program effective, but that the risk to public safety has been carefully managed. Implications for the management of this growing population of offenders are discussed.

Marianne Fisher-Giorlando

Papers

Book Review: Profiles From Prison: Adjusting to Life Behind Bars