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Identifying both individual and environmental effects on inmate misconduct is important for the protection of staff and inmates as well as for the effectiveness of facility programming. Self-report data collected from 9,828 male inmates housed in 204 state facilities in 1991 and 10,022 male inmates within 203 facilities in 1997 were examined to assess both inmate and environmental effects on assaults, drug/alcohol offenses, and other nonviolent offenses. Findings included consistent inmate-level effects of age, prior incarceration, prearrest drug use, and program participation. Offense-specific results included the positive effects of an inmate's race and ethnicity on the odds of assaults versus negative effects on drug/alcohol offenses and the greater relevance of environmental effects on assaults versus drug/alcohol offenses.

Drawing from micro- and macro-level theories of social control, the authors examined inmate and facility effects on the prevalence of assaults and nonviolent rule infractions committed by female inmates housed in state correctional facilities during 1991 and 1997. Analyses of national samples of more than 2,200 women confined in roughly 40 facilities produced results favoring a control perspective. Characteristics of both inmates (e.g., family status, history of physical or sexual abuse, drug use immediately prior to incarceration, and mental ill health) and facilities (e.g., crowding and security level) were relevant for understanding differences among female inmates in the odds of both assault and nonviolent misconduct.

Work stress has been linked to a number of negative outcomes for employees and organizations. Drawing from the Job Demand-Control (-Support) model, we examined the influences of work stress among more than 1,800 prison officers working in 45 prisons across Ohio and Kentucky. Multilevel analyses revealed that individual factors such as experiencing victimization and greater job demands were related to more stress among prison officers, whereas perceived control over inmates and support from coworkers and supervisors were associated with less stress. Facility violence was also linked to higher levels of officer stress across prisons.

The importance of order maintenance in prisons has generated numerous studies of the correlates to inmate misconduct. Very few of these studies, however, have focused specifically on the correlations between inmates' race/ethnicity and prison rule breaking. Race and ethnicity could be relevant to an understanding of prison rule breaking if inmates bring their ecologically structured beliefs regarding legal authority, crime and deviance into the institutional environment. Using data from two nationally representative samples of males incarcerated in state facilities, we examined the individual-level effects of an inmate's race and ethnicity on his likelihood of engaging in various forms of misconduct during incarceration, as well as the contextual effects of the racial/ethnic composition of inmate and correctional staff populations on levels of rule breaking. Findings reveal that the effects of an inmate's race and ethnicity differ by offense type, and the racial/ethnic composition of inmates and correctional staff have both main and conditioning effects on levels of misconduct. Implications of these results are discussed within a social control framework.

Inmate misconduct creates problems for other inmates as well as correctional staff. Most empirical assessments of the correlates of inmate misconduct have been conducted at the individual level; however, a facility's level of misconduct may be of equal importance to prison management and state officials because these numbers can reflect order, or lack thereof, within an institution. Prior prison research also has typically been cross-sectional and conducted at one time point. In this study, the relative contributions of facility-and state-level predictors of misconduct, considered elements of the social organization of a prison, are examined across two time points for 512 state-operated prisons housing adult men. Cross-sectional and longitudinal findings reveal that predictors such as the racial composition of the inmates and staff, measures of administrative control, and state-level factors have both static and dynamic effects on levels of violent misconduct.

Deficits in education, employment, and housing as well as the lack of treatment programs pose significant barriers to the successful reentry of inmates released from prison. This research uses a representative sample of inmates released from Ohio prisons to examine the extent to which these factors are associated with recidivism. Furthermore, building on prior research, it examines potential differences in these predictors by gender. The findings provide support for Petersilia's suggestions and indicate that employment, housing, and the completion of some forms of treatment are negatively associated with multiple measures of recidivism. Also, no gender differences in the predictors examined here are detected, suggesting that the factors likely behave in a gender-neutral manner.

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