California's Inmate Classification System: Predicting Inmate Misconduct

Abstract

The goal of this article is to provide insight on the predictive value of California's inmate classification system. The authors argue that the current system is based heavily on an inmate's sentence length and that such an indicator provides little or no predictive value for inmate misconduct and is therefore not meeting the policy objectives assigned to classification and risk assessment. The authors use a large data set (N = 13,000) based on incident reports from 1992 to 1994 to test the hypothesis that the length of an inmate sentence is positively related to the rate of serious misconduct. The findings show that an inmate's sentence length is not related to infraction rates during incarceration and that a multivariate analysis produces negative coefficients.

The Effects of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Disorders on Institutional Misconduct Among Female Inmates

“…Age at incarceration has generally been found to be the most robust individual-level predictor of misconduct; younger inmates are more likely to engage in disruptive behavior (Fernandez & Neiman, 1998;Flanagan, 1983;Gaes & McGuire, 1985;Gaes, Wallace, Gilman, Klein-Saffran, & Suppa, 2002;Goetting & Howsen, 1986;Jensen, 1977;Jensen & Jones, 1976;Jiang & Winfree, 2006;McCorkle, 1995;Myers & Levy, 1978;Steiner & Wooldredge, 2009;Toch & Adams, 1986;Toch et al, 1989;Welsh et al, 2007;Wooldredge, Griffin, & Pratt, 2001;Zamble & Porporino, 1988).…”

“…Some studies found African-Americans to be disproportionately involved in prison misconduct (Fernandez & Neiman, 1998;Goetting & Howsen, 1983, 1986Toch et al, 1989). Gover, Perez, and Jennings (2008) suggested that the effect may be gender specific: nonwhite females, on average, had a higher number of infractions than white females, but the effect of race was nonsignificant among male inmates.…”

“…In addition, individuals with higher educational attainment should be better able to think critically, which would make them more inclined to fully assess and appreciate the consequences of their actions (Harer & Langen, 2001). Indeed, several researchers have found that inmates with higher levels of education are less likely to engage in misconduct (Adams, 1977;Fernandez & Neiman, 1998;Gover et al, 2008;Toch et al, 1989). The effect of educational attainment, however, may depend on the measure of misconduct.…”

“…Some have found that inmates who were employed prior to incarceration had lower rates of institutional misconduct when compared with inmates who were unemployed (Fernandez & Neiman, 1998;Goetting & Howsen, 1986). Toch and Adams (1986) found that inmates who were unemployed prior to their incarceration were twice as likely to have misconduct incidents as those who were employed.…”

The Association of Administrative Segregation Placement and Other Risk Factors with the Self-Injury-Free Time of Male Prisoners

“…In general, records of prison misconduct tend to be more extensive for ill-educated relatively young prisoners who began their criminal careers relatively early (Chapman, 1981;Chowanec, Josephson, Coleman, & Davis, 1991;Fernandez & Neiman, 1998) and this is also true of SIB prisoners (Lanes, in press b). Noted, though, is that being housed at a maximum security facility may result in an individual incurring a greater number of prison misconducts (Fernandez & Neiman, 1998;Scott & Gerald, 2005) due to facility security level, size, and population characteristics (e.g., more violent offenders than non-violent ones) (Frazee, 2003).…”