An Empirical Exploration of the “Pains of Imprisonment” and the Level of Prison Misconduct and Violence

Abstract

Sykes coined the phrase “pains of imprisonment” to describe those deprivations in prison that most prisoners experience as particularly difficult to handle. This study is an empirical exploration of Sykes’ pains of imprisonment and other prison hardships to determine whether or not they are associated with involvement in serious prison misconduct and violence. The research included prisoners’ assessments of these prison hardships on self-report surveys administered to a random sample of 312 prisoners in medium and maximum security facilities as well as disciplinary data for those same 312 prisoners extracted from the prison system’s database. Prisoners who found it particularly difficult to deal with boredom, concerns for their safety, and conflicts with staff were more at risk of serious misconduct and violence. Policy recommendations to lessen the violence are explored.

Keywords

corrections institutional corrections quantitative methods other violent behavior

“Pains of imprisonment” is a concept that was famously coined in Sykes’ (1958) The Society of Captives, a case study of the New Jersey State Maximum Security Prison. In rereading this classic for this study on prison hardships and their possible relationship to violence, it was clear that Sykes’ depiction of prison hardships and prisoner motivations for violence are as relevant today as when he wrote it. Of course, prisons have changed dramatically since 1958 due to increases in crime and incarceration, changes in technology, and the waffling political philosophies that constantly tinker with prison policies and programming. Yet, Sykes’ eloquent explanations conjure the personalities and motivations of today’s prisoners and capture the human experience of living in a contemporary prison. Sykes observed that the most difficult deprivations for prisoners were freedom, autonomy, security, goods and services, and lack of heterosexual relationships. Others have since studied the deprivations of prison or prison stresses and have expanded the concept to include, for example, regrets about the past, concerns about the future, boredom, and so on (Irwin, 2006; Johnson, 2002; Johnson & McGunigall-Smith, 2008; Johnson & Toch, 1988; Maitland & Sluder, 1998; Zamble & Porporino, 1988).

The current research explored prisoners’ pains of imprisonment and whether there was a relationship between these pains and prisoners’ involvement in serious misconduct and violence.¹ Thus, prisoners were surveyed about the difficulty of dealing with various prison hardships (pains of imprisonment) and their disciplinary data were collected. The research was conducted on a stratified random sample of 312 male prisoners in the Rhode Island Department of Correction (RIDOC). Serious prison misconduct and violence, such as escape, assaults, fighting, threatening, and drug trafficking generate high personal costs for the people involved and high monetary and political costs for prisons (Johnson, 2002; Sykes, 1958). It would be important to know what pains of imprisonment, if any, contribute to serious misconduct or violence so that prison administrators can assess the possibility of mitigating some of these pains or, in the least, helping prisoners to better cope with them, ultimately increasing the safety and security of prisons. In a tribute to Gresham Sykes, his concepts and explanation of social interaction in prison will be used in the interpretation of this study’s results to highlight the continuing relevance and brilliance of this classic.

Pains of Imprisonment

Sykes (1958) asserted that the physical pains of imprisonment faced by prisoners were not as dramatic as the physical punishments offenders experienced in the distant past. However, he believed that some of the nonphysical (whether intended or unintended) pains were just as painful as the physical maltreatment they replaced. He noted that “(s)uch attacks on the psychological level are less easily seen than a sadistic beating, a pair of shackles in the floor, or the caged man on a treadmill, but the destruction of the psyche is no less fearful than bodily affliction” (p. 64). Sykes concluded that the pains of imprisonment are real and that taken together they threaten prisoners’ self-image:

… they carry a more profound hurt as a set of threats or attacks which are directed against the very foundations of the prisoner’s being. The individual’s picture of himself as a person of value—as a morally acceptable, adult male who can present some claim to merit in his material achievements and his inner strength—begins to waver and grow dim. Society did not plan this onslaught, it is true, and society may even “point with pride” to its humanity in the modern treatment of the criminal. (p. 79)

Sykes (1958) also pointed to the relative absence of certain behaviors in reaction to these deprivations. These included escape, psychological retreat or withdrawal, physical rebellion, and attempts at peaceful change. Though he acknowledged that there were some escapes, some riots, some mental health breakdowns, and some peaceful protests, those occurrences were the exception and not the rule. Instead, he averred that prisoners’ reactions seemed to lie between two extreme paths. First, prisoners could take a “collectivistic” path where they bound themselves to other prisoners through the ties of mutual support, loyalty, respect, and especially in opposition to the prison administration. Or prisoners could go to it alone and take an “individualistic” path, where they exploited other prisoners and eschewed the rules of the administration simultaneously.

This study assumed that all prisoners experience various hardships related to being in prison. As mentioned, several other researchers have studied the pains of imprisonment, referring to them variously as prison hardships, prison stresses, or strains (MacKenzie & Goodstein, 1986; Maitland & Sluder, 1998; Zamble & Porporino, 1988). They have measured various conditions of confinement in myriad ways including the creation of prison stress or problem scales (e.g., miss family, conflicts with prisoners); fear of victimization scales; conflict with other prisoner and conflict with correctional staff scales; and various perceptual measures of the conditions of confinement. In their longitudinal study of prisoner coping, Zamble and Porporino (1988) found that prisoners were consistent in their delineation of their prison problems both at the beginning and over a year into their prison sentence.

Maitland and Sluder (1998) conducted a study of victimization in which prison stresses and other measures were administered to a nonprobability sample of 111 prisoners in a Midwestern prison. Their 11-item scale listed various problems that prisoners typically encounter during their stay in prison and asked them how hard each was, with responses from not hard to very hard. The problems included missing family or friends, missing certain activities, conflicts with prisoners, regrets about the past, concerns about the future, missing personal possessions, boredom, lack of privacy, excessive noise, lack of proper facilities, and missing freedom. Their study concluded that victims were not only more likely to be White and had “higher levels of fear,” but that they experienced “more severely the ‘pains’ of imprisonment, and (were) less psychologically healthy” (p. 55).

Brief History of Research in Prison Misconduct

Early studies on prison misconduct focused on the characteristics of prisoners who had official histories of misconduct, who self-reported misconduct, or who were nominated by staff as presenting discipline problems (Flanagan, 1983). These studies examined prisoner characteristics including age, offense, prior record, length of sentence, time served, education and/or intelligence, marital status, prior employment, race, visits received, and psychosocial indicators (Ellis, Grasmick, & Gilman, 1974; Flanagan, 1980, 1983; Louscher, Hosford, & Moss, 1983; Schnur, 1949; Wolfgang, 1961; Zink, 1958). Because a record of disciplinary infractions was one indication of maladjustment in prison (others included withdrawal into one’s cell, suicide and other forms of self-mutilation, depression, and anxiety) and was used by prison administrators to make many kinds of decisions (movement to lower security, work assignment, parole to name a few), these researchers were interested in differentiating between those prisoners involved in prison misconduct and those who were not.

Research on the characteristics of prisoners who seriously misbehave continues to the present. Four predictors have been consistently associated with misbehavior and violence—age, prior criminal history, prior history of prison misbehavior and violence, and a history of mental health problems (Camp, Gaes, Langan, & Saylor, 2003; Cunningham & Sorensen, 2007; Gaes, Wallace, Gilman, Klein-Saffran, & Suppa, 2002; Harer & Langan, 2001; Lovell, Cloyes, Allen, & Rhodes, 2000; Peck, 2004; Toch, Adams, & Grant, 1989; Wooldredge, Griffin, & Pratt, 2001). Research on other individual predictors has yielded more mixed results—race and ethnicity, the “commitment to convention” variables (marriage, employment, and education level), current offense, time served in prison, prior substance abuse, and gang affiliation (Gaes et al., 2002; Gendreau, Goggin, & Law, 1997; Griffin & Hepburn, 2006; Harer & Langan, 2001; Huebner, 2003; Steiner & Wooldredge, 2008; Toch et al., 1989; Wooldredge et al., 2001).

However, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, researchers began questioning the narrow focus on individual-level factors in prison misconduct research and also questioned the validity of official misconduct as a measure of prisoner behavior. Poole and Regoli (1980) questioned the discretionary enforcement of prison rules by correctional staff and argued that official discipline could reflect staff bias against young offenders, minorities, drug abusers, or others. Around the same time, following an explosive increase in prison populations around the country, other criminologists began studying the effects of overcrowding on prison infraction rates (Ekland-Olson, Barrick, & Cohen, 1983; Gaes & McGuire, 1985; Nacci, Teitlebaum, & Prather, 1977; Walkey & Gilmour, 1981). The research on overcrowding was mixed. Some studies found that overcrowding contributed to prison misconduct and violence (Anson & Hancock, 1992; Gaes & McGuire, 1985; Walkey & Gilmour, 1981); others found its effect on prison misconduct was dependent on variables such as age and type of housing (Nacci et al., 1977; Wooldredge et al., 2001) and others found no association between overcrowding and prison misconduct and violence (Camp et al., 2003; Ekland-Olson et al., 1983; Gendreau et al., 1997). Researchers also studied other prison-level characteristics and found several strong correlates of misconduct and violence including composition of prisoner population, composition of staff, and prison security level (Camp et al., 2003; Wooldredge et al., 2001). Most recently, there have been studies of prisons that examined situational factors affecting prison misconduct and violence (Gaes et al., 2002; Wortley, 2002). Other researchers have adopted a more interactionist perspective studying victimization and the fear of victimization and how these affect prisoners (O’Donnell & Edgar, 1998; Wolff & Shi, 2009).

All of this research was conducted amid a larger debate about prisoner behavior in general and many researchers adopted either the “importation” or “deprivation” model as a framework within which to understand prison misconduct. Essentially do offenders import their tendencies toward violence and misconduct when they enter prison or do the harsh conditions of confinement result in the use of violence to stay safe in the prison? The deprivation model (Sykes, 1958) was not applied to empirical research of prison misconduct until the late 1970s when researchers began studying overcrowding and using the model to begin focusing on prison-level characteristics. Although it was not discussed as the “importation” model until 1970 (Irwin, 1970), early prison research on prison misconduct tested the model by examining the characteristics of prisoners to determine why some got into trouble and others did not. By the mid-1980s, penologists began integrating prison-level factors and prisoner characteristics into their studies of prison misconduct (Gaes & McGuire, 1985; Wright, 1991) and research on prisoner misbehavior and violence has been less focused on the importation/deprivation framework.

The current research fills a gap in the prison misconduct literature in that it focuses on prisoner perceptions of hardships in prison and whether or not those hardships are correlated with serious prison misconduct and violence. This research assumes that these prison hardships (some of which are similar to those discussed in the deprivation model) do exist. However, it asked prisoners to assess the difficulty of dealing with each of these prison hardships. In addition, the current research controlled for five variables: age, prior incarcerations, prior psychiatric treatment, time served, and minority status—the first three of which have been strong predictors of prison misconduct.

However, one must acknowledge that the pains of imprisonment are themselves affected by other variables, including many that are situational and others that are associated with the individual prisoner. There are prison-wide and even housing unit climate concerns that might be caused by a change in prison policy, new administrative or unit staff, a new roommate, overcrowding, tightening of prison budgets, inconsistencies between shifts, or even the introduction of new or the combination of prisoners in a prison or housing unit. Similarly, there are variables associated with individual prisoners that affect their hardships. These include changes in family dynamics (parent dies or wife files for divorce), health concerns, length of time in prison, membership in a gang, eligibility for and participation in programs, and relationships with other prisoners. Many of these same factors can also affect one’s involvement in prison misbehavior. Unfortunately, this study did not differentiate between facilities; although the prison where the interview took place was known, the prisons where the infractions took place were not known and could have included multiple facilities. For example, one prisoner had been surveyed in the segregation unit of medium security, but within 3 months had moved to maximum and then a psychiatric hospital, before being moved to the High Security Center (HSC). These prison-level characteristics, including the gender and racial makeup of both the prisoner population and staff, level of programming, philosophy of administrative staff, and correctional officers can (as outlined above) influence both the pains of imprisonment and the level of misconduct.

Nevertheless this is the first empirical study to focus specifically on perception of the individual pains of imprisonment and their relationship to prison misconduct. The research measured serious and violent misbehavior—that is, misconduct that would likely cause the most disruption and threat to the safety of a prison. Also most studies on prison misconduct have examined prisoners in the general population of the prison often to the exclusion of prisoners in either protective custody or those in segregation due to the difficult access to these prisoners, either logistically or because prison administrators prohibit it. This study included those prisoners in protective custody, those housed in segregation units within the medium and maximum security facilities, and those in the HSC, which is akin to a supermax. No prior studies have measured the hardships of these types of prisoners who are most apt to be involved in serious misconduct and violence.

Method

Participants

The target population was male prisoners 18 years of age or older who were residing within two medium security facilities, the maximum security facility, and the HSC of the Rhode Island Department of Corrections on May 19, 2009. The HSC is a supermax-like facility that houses those prisoners deemed to require close custody, control, and the highest security. The target population was stratified into two groups, based on whether or not they had been found guilty of a Class I Highest Predatory or Non-Predatory disciplinary report (Class I is the highest of RIDOC’s four seriousness levels²) during 2008. Disciplinary reports (dreports) are reports written by correctional staff after prisoners are alleged to have engaged in behavior that is against prison rules and regulations. The Class I Highest Predatory category includes escape, sexual assault, arson, assault and battery, extortion, hostage taking, kidnapping, killing, mayhem, rioting, and robbery. The Class I Highest Non-Predatory category includes many more infractions such as possession of certain types of contraband, disobedience that threatens security, gambling, wearing gang colors, swearing at staff or visitors, and making threats. Since the prisoners with a Class I Highest Predatory or Non-Predatory dreport made up a much smaller proportion (440) of the overall target population (1,888), that group was oversampled.³ Once the population was stratified into these two groups, a random sample of 300 was extracted from each group. Oversampling is appropriate when a study is focusing on a group of people who make up a very small proportion of a population (Toch et al., 1989). The oversampling deliberately samples a much higher proportion of the rare group than the rest of the population. This is done to obtain reasonable estimates about the characteristics of the group. In this case, prisoners with serious dreports made up a small proportion of the prisoner population, so oversampling was warranted. Of the 600 prisoners, 108 prisoners were unable to be interviewed over the course of the study due to being released, paroled, unable to be located, in the hospital, or among the half dozen whom staff believed to be too dangerous or too ill to be surveyed. Of the remaining 492 prisoners, 312 prisoners completed the survey—about half from each of the two stratified groups.⁴ Subsequently, disciplinary data were extracted from the RIDOC database on these 312 surveyed prisoners. Control variables were extracted either from the RIDOC database or from the survey data.

Measures

Serious Prison Misbehavior and Violence

The dependent variable for this study was serious prison misbehavior and violence. The majority of studies on prison misconduct have operationalized it using the number of disciplinary reports for which prisoners were found guilty. There is agreement among researchers that reported incidents of misconduct and violence resulting in dreports represent only a fraction of actual prison misconduct (Bottoms, 1999; McCorkle, 1992). However, most researchers while acknowledging this underestimation of prison misconduct have concluded that it is the best proxy measure of it. One alternative is the use of self-report data elicited through surveys or in-depth interviews (Smith, 1988). However, this method is not as cost effective and relies on prisoners’ memory to recall potentially many separate incidents, resulting in questions about validity. Daggett and Camp (2009) found that official misconduct data were correlated to survey data on prisoners’ perception of prison safety.

As mentioned, most researchers have collected data on the number of dreports for which prisoners were found guilty. The studies have either examined misconduct in general (Wooldredge et al., 2001; Zink, 1958) or aggressive misconduct such as assaults (Ellis et al., 1974; Gaes & McGuire, 1985; Harer & Langan, 2001). A few have studied two or more specific types of infractions, such as assaults and substance abuse–related infractions (Harer & Steffensmeier, 1996) or infractions broken down into several categories including violence, property, drug, security-related offenses (interfering with daily operations), accountability (escapes), and other misconduct (Camp et al., 2003). Gaes and McGuire (1985) took into consideration other factors, namely whether the person assaulted was staff or another prisoner and whether or not a weapon was used, to create four categories of assaultive behavior.

The dependent variable in this study was operationalized into three measures in order to be able to take into account various dimensions of serious misbehavior, including quantity, seriousness, and whether it was violent. One continuous measure (annual misconduct score) takes into account both the frequency and the seriousness of most dreports. Another continuous measure restricts the count to only dreports that are violent since it is possible that prisoners who are violent may have differing characteristics than those that are involved in serious misconduct in general. The third measure divides the sample into two groups (those with a high annual misconduct score and those with a low one) for use in the bivariate analysis. All three measures were created using data extracted from the RIDOC disciplinary database for the sample.

The first measure, hereinafter referred to as the annual misconduct score, took into account both the frequency and seriousness of offenses by assigning more points to more serious categories of dreports received during 2008 and 2009, adding in points for “violent” offenses, summing the points, and then taking the annualized rate for the 2-year period.⁵ Thus:

\begin{aligned} A n n u a l M i s c o n d u c t S c o r e & = (((# h i g h e s t p r e d a t o r y o f f e n s e s — 6) \\ + (# h i g h e s t n o n p r e d a t o r y o f f e n s e s — 5) + (# h i g h o f f e n s e s — 3) \\ + (# v i o l e n t o f f e n s e s a g a i n s t s t a f f o r p r i s o n e r s — 3) \\ + (# o t h e r v i o l e n t o f f e n s e s — 1)) / \\ # d a y s i n c a r c e r a t e d d u r i n g 2008 a n d 2009) — 365 . \end{aligned}

The second measure of the dependent variable was the “annual rate of violent dreports.” Thus:

\begin{aligned} A n n u a l R a t e o f V i o l e n t D r e p o r t s & = (# v i o l e n t D r e p o r t s r e c e i v e d i n 2008 a n d 2009 / \\ # d a y s i n c a r c e r a t e d d u r i n g 2008 a n d 2009) \times 365 . \end{aligned}

A third measure was created for the bivariate analysis. This dichotomous variable divided the annual misconduct score into two groups: the low-level and high-level misconduct groups. Those in the low-level group had an annual misconduct score ranging from 0 to 3; the score of the high-level group was 4 or more. There were no missing data for these dependent variables. (See Table 1 for variable characteristics.)

Table 1.

Variable Characteristics.

Variables	M	(SD)	Range
Dependent measures
Annual misconduct score	5.59	(15.95)	0–214
Annual rate violent dreports	0.37	(1.01)	0–12
Level of misconduct	1.33		1 low/2 high
Control measures
Age	37.75	(12.44)	18–79
Prior incarcerations	0.58		0 no/1 yes
Psychiatric treatment	0.45		0 no/1 yes
Time served (years)	4.94	(4.35)	0.43 to 22.08
Minority status	0.53		0 no/1 yes
Prison hardships
Missing family	4.47	(0.93)	1–5
Missing activities	3.76	(1.13)	1–5
Prisoner conflicts	2.39	(1.26)	1–5
Regrets about the past	3.96	(1.28)	1–5
Concerns about the future	3.94	(1.23)	1–5
Missing possessions	3.07	(1.39)	1–5
Boredom	3.43	(1.31)	1–5
Lack of privacy	4.17	(1.10)	1–5
Excessive noise	3.52	(1.36)	1–5
Quality of medical care	3.76	(1.33)	1–5
Missing freedom	4.61	(0.90)	1–5
Conflicts with staff	2.66	(1.47)	1–5
Lack of autonomy	3.74	(1.28)	1–5
Quality of food	3.85	(1.23)	1–5
Eating environment	3.46	(1.29)	1–5
Cleanliness of facility	3.43	(1.37)	1–5
Following prison rules	2.36	(1.31)	1–5
Overcrowded conditions	3.34	(1.40)	1–5
Concerns about safety	2.33	(1.35)	1–5

Note. Variables with a range of 0–1 or 1–2 are indicator variables.

Pains of Imprisonment

The pains of imprisonment (the independent variable) were measured using 19 Likert-type scale questions related to the experience of prison. They were based on Maitland and Sluder’s (1998) 11-item prison stress scale used in their 1998 study of victimization and well-being among young offenders in an adult medium security facility. Additional questions were asked based on the researcher’s prior experience in prison, input from others, and feedback from prisoners after conducting a pilot of the survey at the RIDOC. These additional questions addressed prisoners’ living conditions, autonomy, and the ability to follow prison rules. Each question listed various problems that prisoners typically encounter during their stay in prison and asked them how hard each was, with responses from not hard to very hard (Appendix). No specific time frame was delineated in this question, though it was asked in the past tense. These prison hardship measures were incorporated into the self-report surveys; there was very little missing data among these 19 questions (Table 1).⁶

Independent Control Measures

As mentioned previously, there were four personal characteristics of prisoners that have consistently been associated with misbehavior and violence—age, prior criminal history, prior history of prison misbehavior and violence, and a history of mental health problems. Three of the four of these measures—age, prior incarceration in Rhode Island, and a proxy for mental illness—were included as control variables in the multivariate analysis. Although prior history of prison misbehavior had been collected, there were 85 prisoners in this sample who were not incarcerated during that earlier time frame, so this variable was not used in order to preserve a sound sample size. Since access to mental health data was not allowed, a proxy measure of psychiatric treatment before and during incarceration was used (yes/no).⁷ Minority status was included as was time served. Age, time served, prior incarceration (yes/no), and minority status (yes/no) were extracted from the RIDOC database.

The mean age of this sample was almost 38 years. (See Table 1 for variable characteristics.) Fifty-eight percent of the sample had been previously incarcerated in Rhode Island. Forty-eight percent of the prisoners reported that they had either received psychiatric treatment prior to their incarceration or had been transferred to a psychiatric facility during their incarceration. Fifty-four percent of the prisoners in the sample were Black, Hispanic, or another minority.

Procedures and Statistical Analysis

This data collection had two components—a self-report survey and data extracted from the RIDOC prisoner database. The surveys were administered by the researcher to the majority of prisoners in small groups (15–25 prisoners) in a public area of each prison (e.g., a classroom, chapel, and cafeteria). The research and consent form were explained including the fact that participation was voluntary and confidentiality was ensured. After prisoners’ questions were answered, those who did not want to participate in the survey left the area. Survey participants then read and signed the consent form and subsequently filled out the survey.⁸ Prisoners were adequately spaced from each other to ensure privacy. The average survey participant completed the survey in approximately 35–45 min. Prisoners in segregation self-administered the survey.⁹ Subsequently, demographic and disciplinary data were extracted from the RIDOC database on the 312 prisoners who completed the surveys. Poisson regression is appropriate for count data such as dreport data. However, the dependent variables were highly skewed—over one third of the sample had no dreports. Because of this skewness and the overdispersion, negative binomial regression was used because it corrects for these by adding an extra error term gamma (Osgood, 2000).¹⁰

Results

Level of Serious Misconduct and Violence 2008–2009 in the Sample

Analysis of dreports received during 2008 and 2009 revealed a wide range of misconduct among prisoners in the sample. One must keep in mind that this sample overrepresented those involved in serious misbehavior and that the true rate of dreports for the population was much smaller. However, even with the oversampling, still one third (39%) of the sample had not received any serious dreports and almost two thirds (64%) had not received violent dreports. Overall, when one examines the average annual rate of all types of dreports received during the 2008–2009 period, one finds that 26% of the sample had not received any dreports, 35% had received 1, 27% had received 2–5 dreports, and 10% had received between 5 and 49 dreports during this period.

Pains of Imprisonment in the Sample

In the surveys, prisoners were asked to assess the difficulty of a number of issues that they must confront and deal with in prison. Based on the percentage of prisoners who responded with very hard, the three most difficult hardships in prison were missing freedom (76%), missing family (68%), and lack of privacy (56%) (Table 2). Over 40% of prisoners felt that the quality of medical care and the quality of food were very hard to deal with. Almost half of the prisoners also ranked regrets about the past and concerns about the future as very hard. Lack of autonomy, missing activities, excessive noise, cleanliness of the facility, and boredom were rated as very hard by just approximately one third of the respondents. The pains of imprisonment that were rated as very hard by one fifth or less of prisoners were missing possessions, conflicts with staff, the eating environment, overcrowded conditions, conflicts with prisoners, concerns about safety, and following prison rules.

Table 2.

Prison Hardships: Percentage Rated Very Hard by Survey Participants.

Prisoner Grouping	Total Sample (n = 311)	Low-Level Misconduct (n = 207)	High-Level Misconduct (n = 104)
Type of activity	%	%	%
Missing freedom (N = 311), τ = .03, ρ = .530	76.2	74.8	77.5
Missing family (N = 312), τ = .03, ρ = .550	68.3	67.1	69.4
Lack of privacy (N = 310), τ = .09, ρ = .091	56.1	51.7	60.4
Regrets about the past (N = 306), τ = −.02, ρ = .661	46.7	49.3	44.3
Concerns about the future*** (N = 309), τ = .17, ρ < .001	45.6	37.6	53.1
Quality of medical care (N = 310), τ = .03, ρ = .554	43.9	38.7	48.8
Quality of food (N = 308), τ = .03, ρ = .589	41.9	39.6	44.0
Lack of autonomy* (N = 307), τ = .13, ρ = .013	39.4	31.5	46.8
Excessive noise* (N = 307), τ = .11, ρ = .026	36.5	29.3	43.1
Cleanliness of facility** (N = 309), τ = .14, ρ = .006	33.7	25.2	41.8
Missing activities (N = 310), τ = .01, ρ = .821	33.5	31.8	35.2
Boredom (N = 309), τ = .06, ρ = .255	28.8	23.5	33.8
Eating environment (N = 309), τ = .03, ρ = .560	26.5	24.8	28.1
Missing possessions* (N = 311), τ = .12, ρ = .013	23.2	17.9	28.1
Conflicts with staff*** (N = 310), τ = .28, ρ < .001	21.9	12.7	30.6
Overcrowded conditions (N = 307), τ = .06, ρ = .243	21.5	18.8	24.1
Concerns about safety*** (N = 308), τ = .17, ρ < .001	14.0	8.1	19.5
Following prison rules*** (N = 309), τ = .24, ρ < .001	12.6	6.0	18.9
Conflicts w/ prisoners*** (N = 309), τ = .23, ρ < .001	10.4	6.0	14.6

*ρ < .05. **ρ < .01. ***ρ < .001.

The Pains of Imprisonment by Disciplinary Groupings

Mean comparisons were used to assess the relationship between prison hardships and membership in the high-level or low-level misconduct groups (Table 2). As indicated previously, this dichotomous dependent variable was created by dividing the annual misconduct score into two groups: the low-level and high-level misconduct groups. There were no differences in the responses of the two groups for 8 of the 19 hardships listed in the survey. These included missing freedom, missing family, missing activities, regrets about the past, quality of food, quality of medical care, the eating environment, overcrowded conditions, boredom, and a lack of privacy.

Not surprisingly, surveyed prisoners in the high-level misconduct group were much more likely to report as difficult those issues associated with misconduct compared to those in the low-level group. Specifically, those in the high-level group were more likely to rate conflicts with prisoners, and conflicts with staff as very hard compared to prisoners in the low-level group. The differences were statistically significant for conflicts with prisoners (τ = .23, ρ < .001) and for conflicts with staff (τ = .28, ρ < .001). Prisoners in the high-level misconduct group were also more likely to rate following prison rules as very hard compared to prisoners in the low-level group—again the differences were statistically significant (τ = .24, ρ < .001). Not only did they find conflicts and rules more difficult than their peers, but prisoners in the high-level misconduct group were more likely to rate concerns about their safety as very hard compared to those in the low-level misconduct group. The differences were statistically significant (τ = .17, ρ < .001).

However, other hardships differentiated those who were in the high-level misconduct group from those in the low-level one. Specifically, prisoners with higher levels of misconduct were more likely to rate as very hard concerns about the future, missing possessions, and lack of autonomy. The differences between the groups on all the three of these hardships were statistically significant (τ = .17, ρ < .001 for concerns about the future; τ = .12, ρ = .013 for missing possessions, and τ = .13, ρ = .013 for lack of autonomy). One might expect that those in the high-level misconduct group would rate some of these hardships as more difficult because most of them were locked up in a segregation unit or housed in the HSC when surveyed. However, even when the approximately two dozen who were in segregation or the HSC were removed from the sample, there were still similar differences between those in the high versus low misconduct groups. Interestingly, prisoners in the high-level group were also more likely to rate as very hard the excessive noise in prison and the cleanliness of the facility compared to those with less serious disciplinary records. The differences were statistically significant for excessive noise (τ = .11, ρ = .026) and for cleanliness of the facility (τ = .14, ρ = .006).

An index that grouped together some of the hardships and a global hardships scale were created (not shown). The index mimicked Sykes’ (1958) deprivations of prison, namely, missing possessions (lack of goods and services), lack of autonomy, concerns about safety, missing freedom (lack of liberty), and missing family (absence of heterosexual relationships). This index score ranged from 5 through 25. While the difference between the means of both groups was only −1.43, the differences were statistically different (t = −3.58, ρ < .001). Finally, a global prison hardships scale was created that used all 19 of the individual prison hardships. The Cronbach’s α for the global score was .83. A comparison of the means of this global prison hardships scale that ranged from 19 to 95 revealed an average score of 65 for those prisoners in the low-level misconduct group and 70 for those in the high-level misconduct group. The difference between the two groups was statistically significant (t = −3.64, ρ < .001).

Multivariate Analysis of Serious Misconduct and Violence

The next set of exploratory analyses used negative binomial regression to examine the relationship between all 19 of the prison hardships and both the annual misconduct score and annual rate of violent dreports. This analysis controlled for age, prior incarcerations, prior psychiatric treatment, time served, and minority status. The negative binomial regression of Model A predicting the annual misconduct score from the prison hardships was statistically significant with likelihood ratio χ² = 344.91, df = 24, ρ < .001 (Table 3). All five control variables were related to the annual misconduct score: age, prior incarcerations, psychiatric treatment, time served, and minority status. Both younger prisoners and those who had been previously incarcerated were more likely to have been involved in serious prison misconduct. Curiously, prisoners who had received psychiatric treatment had lower annual misconduct scores. Minority prisoners were also less likely to be involved in serious misconduct.¹¹ Most of the hardships were not related to the annual misconduct score. These included missing family, possessions, activities, and freedom; conflicts with other prisoners; regrets about the past; concerns about the future, lack of privacy, excessive noise, quality of medical care, lack of autonomy, quality of food, following rules, and concerns about safety.

Table 3.

Negative Binomial Regression of Dreport Rates: Prison Hardships and Control Measures.

Variable Description	Annual Misconduct Score			Annual Rate Violent Dreports
	Model A			Model B
	b	(SE)	IRR	b	(SE)	IRR
Intercept	−1.29	(1.36)		−113.22***	(2.98)
Control measures
Age	−0.07***	(0.01)	0.93	−0.16***	(0.05)	0.85
Prior incarcerations	1.11***	(0.26)	3.03	1.53	(0.82)
Psychiatric treatment	−0.50*	(0.24)	0.61	0.18	(0.63)
Time served	0.00**	(0.00)	1.00	0.00	(0.00)
Minority status	−0.88**	(0.28)	0.41	−1.04	(0.65)
Prison hardships
Missing family	0.19	(0.15)		−0.75	(0.39)
Missing activities	−0.09	(0.12)		0.19	(0.34)
Prisoner conflicts	0.23	(0.12)		−0.17	(0.33)
Regrets about the past	−0.16	(0.11)		−0.57*	(0.25)	0.56
Concerns about the future	−0.10	(0.10)		−0.69*	(0.27)	0.50
Missing possessions	0.14	(0.10)		−0.22	(0.27)
Boredom	0.35***	(0.10)	1.42	0.94**	(0.34)	2.56
Lack of privacy	0.08	(0.11)		0.83	(0.44)
Excessive noise	−.06	(0.09)		−0.11	(0.23)
Quality of medical care	0.17	(0.10)		−0.35	(0.23)
Missing freedom	0.31	(0.21)		23.55	(0.00)
Conflicts with staff	0.29**	(0.09)	1.34	0.35	(0.23)
Lack of autonomy	0.03	(0.10)		0.32	(0.30)
Quality of food	−0.08	(0.12)		0.13	(0.32)
Eating environment	0.65***	(0.15)	1.91	0.36	(0.44)
Cleanliness of facility	−0.57***	(0.13)	0.56	−1.11**	(0.39)	0.33
Following prison rules	−0.15	(0.10)		−0.98**	(0.33)	0.37
Overcrowded conditions	−0.27**	(0.10)	0.76	0.49	(0.31)
Concerns about safety	0.21	(0.11)		0.94**	(0.31)	2.56
Likelihood ratio χ²	344.91*** (N = 262; df = 24)			91.25*** (N = 262; df = 24)
Log likelihood	−375.15			−76.46

Note. The incidence rate ratios (IRR) were only calculated for those variables where the analysis revealed statistical significance.

*ρ < .05. **ρ < .01. ***ρ < .001.

Three hardships had significant positive relationships to serious prison misconduct. Prisoners who rated conflicts with staff as very hard were more likely to have higher annual misconduct scores (a one-unit increase in the difficulty of conflicts with staff resulted in an expected 34% increase in the annual misconduct score). Boredom was also related to more serious disciplinary problems. That is, a one-unit increase in the difficulty of dealing with boredom was associated with an expected 42% increase in the annual misconduct score. Interestingly, prisoners who found it very difficult to deal with the eating environment were also more likely to be involved in serious infractions; they had an expected 91% increase in the annual misconduct score for every unit increase in their difficulty with their eating environment. Two prison hardships had inverse relationships with serious prison misconduct. Those who found it very difficult to deal with the cleanliness of the facility and the overcrowding were less likely to be involved in serious prison misconduct.

In the next set of analyses, the negative binomial regression of Model B, predicting the annual rate of violent dreports from the prison hardships, was statistically significant with likelihood ratio χ² = 91.25, df = 24, ρ < .001. Of the control variables, only age was statistically significant indicating that younger prisoners were more likely to be violent. Two of the hardships, boredom and concerns about safety, had strong statistically significant positive relationships to violence. Prisoners who rated boredom as being very difficult for them were more likely to be involved in prison violence. Specifically, a one-unit increase in one’s difficulty dealing with boredom was associated with an expected 156% increase in one’s annual rate of violent dreports. Those prisoners who were very concerned about their safety had annual misconduct scores that were also expected to be 156% higher for each unit increase.

Four hardships had inverse relationships to violence. Prisoners who found their regrets about the past and concerns about the future to be very difficult to cope with were less likely to be violent. Similarly, those who were very concerned and worried about following prison rules were also less likely to be violent. Finally, prisoners who had found it difficult to deal with the cleanliness of the facility were less likely to be involved in violence.

Discussion

It is not surprising that prisoners rated Sykes’ (1958) first stated pain of imprisonment—missing freedom—as most difficult. The next two most difficult prison hardships to endure were missing their family and the lack of privacy. Prisoners rated two of Sykes’ pains of imprisonment—lack of autonomy and missing activities/possessions—somewhere in the middle of the list of hardships. The least difficult prison hardships for most prisoners to endure were concerns about their safety, conflicts with prisoners, and following prison rules. This could be interpreted as a testament to the relative perceived safety and order in the prisons in Rhode Island. Ultimately, the majority of prisoners did not find it comparatively difficult to deal with prison rules, ensure their own safety, or manage interactions with other prisoners.

Deprivation of Security

The multivariate analysis indicated that concerns about one’s safety were positively associated with the annual rate of violent dreports. Caution must be used in interpreting this finding since temporal order is unknown. It could be that prisoners become involved in violence in self-defense or in a preemptive strike if targeted. On the other hand, it could be that prisoners become concerned about their own safety after having perpetrated violence on other prisoners. Either way this potential cycle of violence is a problem with which the prisoner and prison must contend.

In viewing the list of prison hardships, not only did the entire sample rate concerns about safety in the bottom three, but prisoners in the high-level misbehavior category also rated them among the bottom three hardships. Yet, this difficulty is related to increased violence. A return to Sykes’ (1958) categorization of different types of prisoners and their role in perpetrating violence is instructive. There is no doubt that some of the prisoners involved in violence might not perceive concerns for safety as a problem, instead fulfilling the argot roles given to them by Sykes, namely “the wolves,” “the gorillas,” and “the toughs” (pp. 90–103). Both the wolf and the gorilla prey on weaker or scared prisoners, taking that which they desire, the sexual act in the first case and material goods in the second. “Toughs” direct their assault and misery on other prisoners, for as Sykes explains, “[f]requently fighting with a certain cold ferocity and swift to seek revenge for the slightest affront, the tough is regarded by other inmates with a curious mixture of fear and respect” (p. 103).

Although these labels have changed over time and from location to location, prison staff and prisoners would no doubt recognize these personalities in contemporary prisons. One should probably update this list of troublemakers to include “state-raised youth” and gang members. The former are those prisoners who become enmeshed in the justice system at such an early age—those youths who grew up mostly in foster care, lived in juvenile residential programs, and served time in juvenile correctional facilities before graduating to adult prison. Though state-raised youth make up a small minority of any prison, they are responsible for a larger percentage of disruption and dangerousness in the prison, according to all who have studied them (Irwin, 1970; Johnson, 2002; Lovell et al., 2000; Wright, 1991). Similarly, researchers have discovered gang affiliation to be associated with higher rates of prison violence (Gaes et al., 2002; Griffin & Hepburn, 2006; Huebner, 2003). Both the state-raised youth and the gang member might take on one or more of Sykes’ argot roles.

One would not interpret the violence of these personalities (wolf, gorilla, tough, state-raised youth, gang member) to be the result of stress caused by the concern for one’s safety. However, it is doubtful that all prison misconduct and violence is volitional for all prisoners. Clearly, those 15–30% of the high-level misbehavior group who did rate conflicts with staff and their concern for their safety as very hard are likely to experience the lack of security and the presence of violence as stress. With regard to the deprivation of security, Sykes writes:

An important aspect of this disturbingly problematical world is the fact that the inmate is acutely aware that sooner or later he will be “tested”—that someone will “push” him to see how far they can go and that he must be prepared to fight for the safety of his person and his possessions. If he should fail, he will thereafter be an object of contempt, constantly in danger of being attacked by other inmates who view him as an obvious victim, as a man who cannot or will not defend his rights. (1958, pp. 77–78)

Thus, it is not surprising that many prisoners experience fear given, as Sykes (1958) has pointed out that “the individual prisoner is thrown into prolonged intimacy with other men who in many cases have a long history of violent, aggressive behavior” (p. 77).

However, more recent research on victimization and fear of victimization has found that the less frequent but more spectacular acts of prison violence (murder, serious assault, and sexual assault) have overshadowed the perniciousness of the more mundane but routine victimization in prison and its effects (O’Donnell & Edgar, 1998; Wolff & Shi, 2009). O’Donnell and Edgar (1998) found that the routine victimization “shapes the social ethos of prisons. The potential for assault, theft and verbal abuse grinds down prisoners and shifts their attitudes about the boundaries of acceptable behavior” (p. 277). This is also not unlike what happens in those neighborhoods where street culture reigns. While Anderson (1999) does discuss how some violent altercations on the street do lead to death, it is more the constant threat of verbal abuse, theft, and simple assault that shapes the attitudes and ethics of those who live by the street culture and weigh down on those “decent” folks who must constantly navigate an unpredictable course. Thus, the pervasiveness of a street culture or worse, a culture of violence in prison affects all prisoners—even the larger group of prisoners who “just want to do their time” but who are sometimes ensnared into “doing business”—in reaction to assaults, threats, or repetitive verbal abuse.

It would not be surprising then that these prisoners must, at some point in their incarceration, get involved in a scuffle in response to those tests. However, those prisoners who perceive their concerns for safety as very hard are probably those who make easy prey—prisoners who are physically weak, have mental health problems, turn state’s evidence, are incarcerated for heinous crimes, or who find themselves on the wrong side of a gang grudge. These prisoners, though likely to lose any fights, would still receive dreports for participation in them and might preemptively strike at others in anticipation of violence. Thus, the deprivation of security might not explain the serious misbehavior of that small group of prisoners who are predators. However, it does explain the response of an equally small group with specific individual fears and the larger group of prisoners who know that they must respond aggressively to attacks by predators or be forever labeled as prey.

Boredom

Difficulty dealing with boredom was also positively associated with both serious prison misconduct in general and prison violence in particular. Again, caution must be used in interpreting this finding since temporal order is undetermined. Although it makes sense that prisoners with little to do might be more inclined to be involved in serious misconduct and violence, it is possible that some of the prisoners interviewed in segregation might have been bored as a result of their misconduct. Nevertheless, boredom in prison may result in too much time to dwell on one’s current and potential problems, rumination about negative past events, too much time to think about and carry out acts of misbehavior and violence, lack of opportunity to engage in constructive activities that might result in increasing prisoners’ self-esteem, and lack of participation in activities that might otherwise improve the lives of prisoners. This is especially true for prisoners housed in segregation or supermax-like facilities and could contribute to a continuing cycle of violence. Although Sykes did not delineate boredom as a pain of imprisonment, he alludes to it throughout his treatise in discussing the lack of freedom, lack of amenities, lack of autonomy, lack of work opportunities, and the struggle of prison administrations to maintain order in an institution where its captives have too much time to plan and carry out activities that threaten that order.

Wright (1991) conducted a study of prison adjustment that measured the effects of individual characteristics along with environmental differences and the congruence of the two. One of his major findings was that increased activity and more support for self-improvement programs resulted in reductions in disruptive behavior. More recently, Steiner and Wooldredge (2008) found that prisoners who participated in programming and who worked more hours were less likely to be involved in prison assaults, substance abuse, and other types of prison misconduct. These findings are relevant for all prisoners but especially for young prisoners who might choose to mimic their street life existence while in prison, spending their time hanging out in the yard, focusing more on the behavior of others (prisoners, staffs, and visits) with little regard for their own self-improvement.

Other Hardships

Three of the hardships associated with misbehavior and violence had to do with conditions of confinement. Prisoners who had difficulty contending with the level of cleanliness in the prison were less likely to be involved in serious prison misconduct and violence. Perhaps it reflects that a person worried about the cleanliness probably feels relatively safe thus able to focus on a somewhat more mundane, though still legitimate concern. Prisoners who found the overcrowding difficult to deal with were less likely to be involved in serious misconduct overall. Those assessing overcrowding as difficult might spend less time in prison areas that are crowded but where trouble most often occurs, like the yard and the gym, and thus are less likely to become involved in disputes that so often take place in those areas. One condition of confinement, the eating environment, was positively related to the annual misconduct score. Perhaps this reflects the potential danger associated with going into the general cafeteria and eating. Prisoners can avoid the yard, the gym, and other public areas of the prison, but they must eat and so cannot avoid the potential conflicts that might arise in the prison cafeteria.

Three other hardships were negatively associated with violence; those prisoners who were deeply troubled by regrets about the past, concerns about the future, and being able to follow rules were all less likely to be violent. It makes sense that there are some prisoners who regret the actions that led them into prison and thus, while in prison, are concerned about doing the right thing by following rules. These prisoners might also be concerned for not only their future in prison, but their future upon release. Sykes (1958) categorizes as “alienative” all of the responses of prisoners in negative argot roles (e.g., wolves, rat, gorilla, etc.) (p. 106). In contrast, he labels those prisoners whose responses are considered more “cohesive” as “real men.” The real man term “is often extended to cover social roles which involve loyalty, generosity, sexual restraint, and the minimizing of frictions among inmates as well as endurance with dignity” (p. 107). These types of prisoners would be concerned about following rules, more anxious about their future, and rue past deeds.

Finally, one variable that was associated with more misbehavior in the bivariate and multivariate analyses might be considered tautological. It is not surprising that prisoners who found conflicts with staff to be very hard would be involved in serious misbehavior and violence. Conflicts with staff were associated with an increase in the annual misconduct score, but not an increase in violence. This might be indicative of poor communication skills, poor coping skills, anger issues, and prisoners’ inability to ignore or minimize conflicts with staff. While they were unlikely to let their conflicts with staff progress to actual violence, they were probably more likely to be disrespectful and threatening to staff, while disregarding prison rules.

In the end, one must ask, do prison hardships cause misconduct and violence? Just four of the hardships, concerns about safety (fear), boredom, conflicts with staff, and concerns with the eating environment were positively related to either serious misconduct in general or violence in particular when age, prior incarcerations, prior psychiatric treatment, time served, and minority status were controlled. All four are dynamic factors that prisons could attempt to address as described below. More research needs to be undertaken to understand the circumstances under which these factors lead to serious misconduct and violence. Though quantitative research methodologies would help in untangling the paths from these variables to misconduct, qualitative methods would be essential to unraveling their underlying dynamics.

Recommendations

Prisons could address the misconduct associated with boredom by helping to fill prisoners’ days with constructive activities, including work, education, treatment programming, and other prison activities. This was one of the six recommendations by the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons to prevent prison violence (Gibbons & Katzenbach, 2006). Specifically, the Commission recommended the promotion of productivity and rehabilitation and that prisons should “invest in programs that are proven to reduce violence and to change behavior over the long term” (2006, p. 12).

Although the majority of RIDOC prisoners reported that they felt relatively safe, there were a small number of prisoners who did not. In addition to ensuring that an atmosphere of violence will not be tolerated in the prison as a whole (especially the cafeteria), prison officials need to address the individual concerns of that small number of prisoners. In particular, more attention needs to be given to maintain the safety of those prisoners who might be more vulnerable—prisoners with mental health problems, prisoners who are weak, those who have given states’ evidence against another prisoner in the courtroom, those whose crimes were particularly heinous, and those on the wrong side of gang disputes. Solutions include more protective custody, transfer to other states, the creation of niches in the form of special population housing units for certain prisoners at risk (mentally ill, elderly prisoners, sex offenders), and better training for staff so that they can identify these inmates in a timely manner.

Limitations

There were several limitations in the research design and implementation of this study that potentially reduces the generalizability and strength of the findings. First, the cross-sectional nature of this study and the fact that no time frame was referenced in the prison hardship questions does not permit inferences regarding temporal ordering of the study variables. For example, did prisoners have a difficult time being bored because they had committed violence and ended up in segregation or did their boredom and lack of constructive activities result in violence? Second, no comparison was conducted between those prisoners who participated and the 30% who were contacted and refused to participate. Thus, one cannot rule out the possibility of some sampling bias. Third, the use of prisoner self-reports depends on the truthfulness of those being interviewed. The instructions reiterated that truthfulness was very important and that respondents should not answer any question that they did not want to answer truthfully nor try to determine what answer would best serve the study’s outcome. Fourth, surveys were administered mostly to groups of 15–25 prisoners, but some were administered individually or to smaller groups, depending on security level, numbers to be interviewed in a unit, and staff recommendations. One might question whether prisoners answered differently if they had been in a group of 5 versus a group of 15. However, the researcher was careful to explain the project, the confidentiality, and the parameters of participation in the same exact manner to all participants. Fifth, the operationalization of the dependent variable has two potential problems. As mentioned previously, using dreports as the measure of serious prison misconduct and violence likely underestimated the level of misconduct. However, since this study was limited to very serious or violent misbehavior, it is less likely that it went undetected or that staff chose to address it informally especially in Rhode Island where correctional officers practice direct supervision. Also the annual misconduct score was made up of several categories of infractions multiplied by various factors to measure both the seriousness and frequency of misconduct. Thus, it is unclear how the variation in the negative binomial regression can be apportioned to the individual components of the annual misconduct score because a full sensitivity analysis was not conducted. Sixth, because a proxy for mental health problems was used, the variable does not distinguish between different forms of mental health illnesses; give information about the intensity of the problems; nor delineate between those receiving and not receiving treatment at the time of the survey. Though the creation of the variable (using four types of treatments received prior to incarceration and only admittance to a psychiatric hospital during incarceration) may have underestimated the true number of mentally ill prisoners in the sample, it was deemed preferable to the larger overestimation that would have resulted from the inclusion of other types of treatment during incarceration. Seventh, the model could not control for security level where dreports were received eliminating an important source of variance in the level of misconduct. In addition, the need to maintain sufficient statistical power in the model resulted in other personal characteristics not being included in the model. Finally, other situational and prison-level factors were also not included, possibly resulting in a model that is not fully specified.

Conclusion

This study explored the relationship between Sykes’ pains of imprisonment (and other prison hardships) and serious prison misconduct and violence. These exploratory results demonstrated that prisoners who rate boredom, conflicts with staff, and concerns for one’s safety as very hard were strongly associated with serious prison misbehavior and violence. Several hardships (overcrowding, quality of food, regrets about the past, concerns about the future, and following rules) were negatively associated with misconduct.

Sykes (1958, p. 22) pointed out the irony of how the conditions of confinement, which are supposed to control and eventually lead to a constructive life outside of prison, can exacerbate and prolong some prisoners’ criminality. In his words, “(s)ubjected to prolonged material deprivation, lacking heterosexual relationships, and rubbed raw by the irritants of life under compression, the inmate population is pushed in the direction of deviation from, rather than adherence to, the legal norms” (p. 22). Prison administrators and penologists should continue exploring which pains of imprisonment, if any, can be mitigated or countered to decrease involvement in serious prison misbehavior and especially violence.

Footnotes

Appendix

Author’s Note

Parts of this article were extracted from my dissertation. Otherwise, it has never been published.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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