Murder as Importation: An Empirical Study of the Continuity of Homicide Offending From Community to Confinement

Abstract

Prison murder is the most severe form of institutional violence but its exceedingly low prevalence has limited prior research. Recent studies of prison murders make clear that serious, violent, and chronic career criminals are most likely to perpetrate inmate murders with equivocal evidence of the role of prior homicide offending on prison murder. Using retrospective administrative data from 1,005 prisoners selected from the southwestern United States, the current study examined whether homicide offending in the community is itself an importation factor that is useful for understanding prison murder and thus can be used to understand continuity in homicidal offending from the community to confinement context. Rare events logistic regression models found that individuals sentenced for first-degree murder are more likely to perpetrate prison murder. A separate rare events logistic regression model with any type of homicide commitment offense as a predictor provided similar findings suggesting these effects are robust to model specification. Given its gravity and fundamental threat to prison safety and security, we encourage data collection and additional research on prison murder and the inmates that perpetrate it.

Serious, Violent, and Chronic Prison Misconduct: Are the Predictors the Same for Women and Men?

“…More recent penological studies have employed advanced statistical techniques, such as latent class and profile analyses, that can identify unobserved groupings among prisoner samples (Cihan et al, 2017a, b; Morris et al, 2012). Similar to earlier research, these studies document heterogeneity in institutional adjustment with evidence of a small group of prisoners committing the most violence and rule violations, and these individuals tend to have extensive criminal and violence histories prior to confinement (also see DeLisi & Butler, 2020; Reidy & Sorensen, 2017; Reidy et al, 2020; Schenk & Fremouw, 2012; Trulson, 2007). Consistent with the importation model, continued involvement in violent assaults and other disruptive conduct also mostly predicts punitive institutional responses such as administrative segregation and disciplinary segregation (Logan et al, 2017; Trulson & Marquart, 2010).…”

Prison Adjustment Among Military Veterans: The Impact of Traumatic Events, Service History, and PTSD

“…Finally, recent work by Logan et al (2021) noted that veterans scoring higher on the Level of Service Inventory-Revised (LSI-R) were at an increased risk of institutional misconduct and that those with either TBI or PTSD were at greater risk of recidivating post-release, relative to those who had not been diagnosed. That these aforementioned pre-prison variables influence how inmates adapt to incarceration is congruent with the well-known importation theory of inmate adjustment (DeLisi & Butler, 2020; DeLisi et al, 2011; Mears et al, 2013). This theory is predicated on the idea that inmates “import” their past experiences and various sociodemographic characteristics that either assuage or exacerbate the pains of imprisonment (Harer & Steffensmeier, 1996; Irwin & Cressey, 1962).…”

Victimization Among Incarcerated Military Veterans: A Target Congruence Approach

“…As mentioned, a spate of research has indicated that incarcerated people import their social and criminal histories with them into prison such that their experiences during incarceration often mirror their experiences prior to admission (DeLisi et al, 2004, 2010, 2011). Recent scholarship has further demonstrated that serious, chronic offending prior to incarceration is tied to disproportionate levels of prison violence and misconduct (DeLisi & Butler, 2020; Logan, Long et al, 2022), which in turn corresponds with higher levels of victimization. Evidence of the potential victim–offender overlap among incarcerated veterans could also be attributed to differences in age and socioeconomic capital (e.g., educational attainment), both of which are reflected in MnSTARR scores.…”