“Invisible Deaths”: A Critical Analysis of the Study of Prison Homicide

Abstract

Prison homicide, or homicides that occur between individuals who are incarcerated, has received a dearth of attention in scholarly literature. These homicides have increased over the past several decades with devastating consequences for those housed within prison walls, correctional and administrative staff, the families of those incarcerated, and the communities from which they are removed. Perpetrators of prison homicides often continue to engage in violence despite incapacitation, calling into question the ability of the state to house individuals safely. When fatal violence occurs, victims of these homicides are constructed as deserving of violence. Drawing from critical criminological perspectives of state-sanctioned violence, I argue that treatment of these victims affects the legitimacy of the criminal justice system and public safety.

Keywords

prison homicides critical perspectives victimology

Introduction

“The murdered is not unaccountable for his own murder,

And the robbed is not blameless in being robbed.

The righteous is not innocent of the deeds of the wicked,

And the white-handed is not clean in the doings of the felon.

Yea, the guilty is oftentimes the victim of the injured,

And still more often the condemned is the burden bearer for the guiltless and unblamed.

You cannot separate the just from the unjust and the good from the wicked;

For they stand together before the face of the sun even as the black thread and the white are woven together.

And when the black thread breaks the weaver shall look into the whole cloth, and he shall examine the loom also.”

- Kahlil Gibran On Crime and Punishment

The Study of Homicide

In 2019, Illinois federal prison Thomson Penitentiary opened a Special Management Unit tasked with housing individuals who were identified as engaging in disruptive or violent behavior. By 2023, the facility was closed after a report identified it as one of the deadliest prisons in the United States. The violence was exposed through an investigation conducted by NPR and the Marshall Project. The investigation details one case, that of Bobby Everson, who was nearing the end of his sentence but, as evidenced through communications to family and loved ones, was terrified that he would not make it out of Thomson alive (Thompson, 2022). By November, he was found dead in his cell from blunt force trauma to the head. Subsequent investigations revealed shocking conditions, with at least five suspected homicides of incarcerated individuals in the facility (Thompson & Shapiro, 2022). Several years later, in 2022, the federal prison system in the United States was put on lockdown after violence erupted between gang members at a federal penitentiary in Texas, leaving two incarcerated persons dead and several others wounded (Balsamo & Sisak, 2022). Referring to an investigation into Lewisburg Prison in the United States, one defense attorney commented that it was “not only a violence factory, it was a homicide factory,” where some perpetrators were released into the community after they had committed homicides while incarcerated (Thomasville, 2022).

The stories are countless, and the violence is enduring. Prisons are secure spaces, functioning as total institutions centered on surveillance and control. Yet they are also increasingly dangerous places where some of the most vulnerable are subject to violent victimization. For some, the punishments imposed by the criminal justice system are rendered meaningless as lethal violence within the prison walls results in death sentences.

The criminological research on homicide is extensive. Strong empirical knowledge exists regarding the nature of fatal interpersonal violence, the individuals who perpetrate these acts, and the primary, secondary, and tertiary victims. Books, journals, conferences, investigative units, and working groups are dedicated to the study of and approaches to homicide. Scholarly and practitioner-generated research has explored nearly every type and classification of this criminal behavior, including but not limited to, intimate partner homicide, femicide, mass homicide, familial homicide, gang homicide, confrontational homicide, serial homicide, and sexual homicide. Serial and sexual homicide, statistical anomalies among homicide offenses, are overwhelmingly the focus of much scholarly inquiry and practitioner interest and continue to garner attention from criminologists and investigators. Advances in DNA technology have facilitated the closure of “cold” or unsolved cases of homicides, some that have had no investigative leads for decades. Resources such as investigative genealogy have been utilized to bring justice to many victims and their families, sparking renewed interest in cold cases that once seemed unsolvable. Yet there is one type of homicide that has been largely ignored by criminal justice scholarship—homicides which occur between those individuals who are incarcerated, or prison homicide.

Prisons have been referred to as “death-making institutions” (Foucault, 1979; Kaba, 2021) due to the inherent systemic injustices, inequities, and exercises of power that facilitate and reinforce violent conditions. Mass incarceration has resulted in increased violent and dehumanizing conditions with harmful consequences for those incarcerated, their families, and the communities around them (Wacquant, 2010). Thus, prisons are dangerous, but dangerous for those who are detained in them (Sim, 2021, p. 237). In 2019, there were 143 homicides in state prisons, nearly four times the 39 homicides reported in 2001—a homicide rate 2.5 times greater than in the U.S. population (Carson, 2021). The threat of fatal violence is not contained by the prison architecture—for those who are released from prison, there is an increased likelihood of mortality within the first several weeks of release (Binswanger et al., 2007).

These homicides have received a dearth of empirical attention in the scholarly literature, with only several studies examining this form of violence (see Cunningham et al., 2010; Porporino et al., 1986; Reidy et al., 2020; Reidy & Sorensen, 2017; Sylvester et al., 1977). This is a curious omission, as the most reliable measure of violence has essentially been ignored by the field of criminology and violence researchers (see Sampson & Raudenbush, 1999, p. 621). As Reisig (2002) argued, “Because of the high level of reliability associated with homicide records, the theoretical debate over the proper conceptualization of the role of prison administrative action in terms of inmate quality of life may be advanced by employing inmate homicide as an outcome measure,” (p. 85). Andreas and Greenhill (2010) assert that “to measure something—or at least claim to do so—is to announce its existence and signal its importance and policy relevance” (p. 1). This lack of measurement by a field which is increasingly defined by the ability to measure seems to indicate an indifference to the issue of homicides among those who are incarcerated.

Punishment and incapacitation have largely been rendered invisible. After an individual is adjudicated, the correctional apparatus assumes control and the individual is subsumed by the prison. Despite the purported goals of incarceration, pain and prison punishment have been central features of the prison experience for centuries (Scott & Sim, 2018, 2020). As Sim (2023) asserts, “If prisons are invisible, psychologically lacerating sites of social control, then deaths inside are even more invisible” (p. 269). Individuals who are incarcerated have been deemed as “death worthy” (Cunningham, 2006). Those who die by homicide while incarcerated are often denied victimhood, a construct value-laden and emotionally and morally charged (Miers, 1989). They are often constructed as dangerous criminals who must have provoked and therefore deserve their own demise. And for the survivors left behind in the wake of this violence, the families and the loved ones who do not know what transpired behind the prison walls, they are often left to grieve in ways which fundamentally differ from those who have lost what are constructed by the system as “blameless” victims.

Additionally, these homicides do not occur in a vacuum. A review of public health literature reveals that incarceration has devastating health effects on the general population, including an association with higher mortality rates (Weidner & Schultz, 2019). The correctional staff and staff working in wellness roles within the prison are at a high risk for exposures to potentially psychologically traumatic events and adverse mental and physical health outcomes (Fusco et al., 2020; Ricciardelli & Power, 2020). The effects of violence and homicides in prison extend beyond the institutions, rippling insidiously through communities.

This article will explore the scholarly literature on homicides that occur in prison, utilizing a critical perspective that posits the criminal justice system is often just as complicit in human suffering and the violation of human rights as the perpetrators (Karmen, 1990).

I will review the ways in which victims of prison homicides are framed and the dangers of this practice—to dismiss these crimes as violence against deserving victims causes serious public safety concerns which perpetuates violence both in the prison and the community. Prison homicide victims, regardless of the actions in which they engaged to facilitate or precipitate the fatal violence inflicted upon them, are victims of state violence and state-sanctioned systemic harms (Sim, 2023). Additionally, I argue that the failure to prosecute these crimes may result in further harm to the larger society, with potentially devastating intergenerational consequences (Murray & Farrington, 2008; Turney, 2014; E. T. Tyler & Brockmann, 2017; Wildeman, 2012). Lastly, I discuss the responsibility of the state in both facilitating and perpetuating this violence and the implications for practice and policy.

Theories of Prison Interpersonal Violence

Violence between individuals who are incarcerated in prisons, termed prison interpersonal violence, includes both attempted and threatened harm toward others in prison (Gadon et al., 2006). Much like violence on the “outside,” there are innumerable reasons why individuals may engage in violence within prisons (Long, 2022). Criminological explanations for prison violence have centered around three factors: individual characteristics of those who are incarcerated, the nature of prison, and the prison administration or governance (Wooldredge, 2020).

Individual-level factors include antisocial personalities and behavior, deviant subcultures, deprivation, segregation, and general strain (Blevins et al., 2010; Steiner & Cain, 2016). These factors are hypothesized to be brought into the prisons, “importing” dangerous and violent characteristics which shape the ways they engage with others (Irwin & Cressey, 1962). This explanation places the onus on the individuals who are housed within the institution, constructing them as dangerous individuals with a propensity for predatory violence.

Deprivation models are focused on the ways in which individuals react to the losses they face when they enter prison. In his seminal work, Sykes (1958) described what he termed the pains of imprisonment, including the deprivation of liberty, goods and services, security, autonomy, and heterosexual relationships. Some have argued that the change in prisons over the past few decades has created additional pains, notably the pains of indeterminacy and uncertainty, psychological assessment, and self-government (Crewe, 2011). In these models, it is the nature of being incarcerated that causes distress for those who are behind the prison walls. Violence is employed as a reaction to the stress of being incarcerated.

An integrationist approach includes aspects of both importation and deprivation models. The prison setting and conditions act as a source of strain on those who are housed within it and the characteristics of the individual influence how they will adapt to and cope with the strain of incarceration (Blevins et al., 2010; Wooldredge, 2020). Violent behavior is one adaptation to the strain of imprisonment, especially likely if one has engaged in violent behavior in the past. Thus, a history of violence and the pains of imprisonment interact to facilitate violence within the institution.

The prison administration utilizes mechanisms to shape behavior, most often through punishment and rewards (Reisig, 2002). The ways individuals are treated by correctional staff, and the way prisons are governed are related to prison misconduct and violence (Liebling & Kant, 2018). In terms of victimization, correctional officers play an integral role in institutional culture as they make decisions about what rules to enforce and how to enforce these rules (Bottoms, 1999; Hepburn, 1985; Irwin, 1980; Liebling, 2004; Lombardo, 1989; Sparks et al., 1996; Steiner & Wooldredge, 2015). The legitimacy of correctional officers is related to how these officers treat those who are incarcerated, and legitimacy increases when they are treated fairly and with dignity (Steiner & Wooldredge, 2015).

Wooldredge (2020), in a comprehensive review of prison culture over several decades, has argued for more integrative and contemporary perspectives of prison violence. In this review, he described how studies of prisons over the past 50 years suggest that environments generate challenges that require adaptations, and these adaptations occur while deprivations are imposed, resulting in cultures that differ from those outside of prison (p. 165). Salient factors have been notably absent from past theoretical approaches, namely elements of prison culture and management that may influence prison violence. Wooldredge’s (2020) review details the features of the prison which can inhibit or facilitate violent offending and increase the risk for victimization, specifically the formal and informal controls within the institution. These can include the architecture of the facility, security levels, and the number of individuals who are incarcerated in a facility.

He presented a multilevel social control–opportunity theory, which incorporated offending and victimization and how prison administration responds to these issues. This framework integrates theories of violence and victimization which move beyond deprivation and importation (p. 182). Violence within prison results from a confluence of factors which operate at differing levels. Wooldredge argues that integrating aspects of control theories, lifestyle, and routine activities theories provides a broader perspective and more logistically and conceptually sound assumptions regarding theories of prison violence. Violence within institutions is not a random occurrence—rather, it is the confluence of specific characteristics at multiple levels that put some individuals at risk of perpetrating violence and others at risk of being victimized (Steiner & Wooldredge, 2019).

Prison Homicides

The Bureau of Justice Statistics is responsible for compiling data on how many individuals die while in custody of the state, both deaths that are considered “natural” (illnesses, old age) and “unnatural” (homicides, suicides, overdoses). The Death in Custody Reporting Act (DCRA) was enacted in 2000 as an attempt to count how many individuals die while in custody. The DCRA was later renamed the Mortality in Correctional Institutions (MCI). The MCI collects data on the number of deaths that occur each year, the cause of death, and individual characteristics of the deceased. These statistics are compiled into reports purported to inform correctional policy and reduce the number of deaths in custody. Additionally, while this legislation requires that the relationship between deaths and actions of the facilities be examined, there is no investigation of the correctional management practices. According to the Report of the Attorney General to Congress Pursuant to the Death in Custody Reporting Act (2016), there are significant limitations, particularly costs, in finding consultants and experts to conduct the studies necessary to analyze the data collected and to make recommendations on how to reduce these deaths.

Based on this data, the United States Department of Justice (2021) reported that the overall mortality rate for white incarcerated persons who are housed in federal prisons is three times the rate for Black persons and six times the rate for Hispanic persons and in state prisons, white persons make up over 50% of deaths. Of those incarcerated in state prisons, 3.7% died by homicide, although the report did not include a breakdown of homicide victims by race.

Despite the extensive scholarly research on violence in prison, there have been only five studies dedicated to exploring the characteristics of prison homicide (Cunningham et al., 2010; Porporino et al., 1986; Reidy et al., 2020; Reidy & Sorensen, 2017; Sylvester et al., 1977). Although not the most common form of prison interpersonal violence, homicide is the most serious form of violence, one with consequences extending beyond the walls of the prison.

Extant research on prison homicide has examined the role of prison structure and administration in homicides between incarcerated persons. Certain factors have been identified which facilitate this violence both at the individual and institutional level (Steiner & Cain, 2016). Prisons in which there are conflicts between administration and frontline staff, coupled with high proportions of gang activity, are more likely to experience homicides (Reisig, 2002).

In terms of the dynamics of these homicides, overwhelmingly men are the victims, and in one study which included race, it was reported that the victims were white (n = 621) or Black (n = 512) (Carson, 2021). These homicides are typically committed by single assailants—a younger perpetrator, murdering an older incarcerated person, most often through stabbing or beating the victim in their cell (Cunningham et al., 2010; Reidy et al., 2017). Inmates 55 and older are especially vulnerable victims and are twice as likely to be killed in prisons as the general population (Wang & Sawyer, 2021). Most of these fatal incidents are a result of interpersonal disputes which center around gang involvement, drugs, or an individual’s status within the prison (Reidy & Sorensen, 2017).

Victims and perpetrators of prison homicide share many similarities and characteristics. Cunningham et al. (2010) found that victims and offenders were similar in terms of ethnicity, nationality, physicality, arrests, offense conviction, and length of sentences. The intraracial nature of homicide within the prison is consistent with the literature on race and violent crime generally (O’Brien, 1987). Additionally, they both demonstrated difficulty in adapting to prison – perpetrators had higher rates of prison misconduct and rule violations while victims had more good time losses.

Certain groups may especially be vulnerable to violence, such as individuals who are convicted of child molestation. They may be targeted as victims due to the general animosity toward sexual violence of vulnerable persons, resulting in low status (Long, 2022). The case of Catholic priest John Geoghan garnered international attention when he was killed in his cell by another incarcerated individual, Joseph Druce. Geoghan was suspected of sexually abusing 130 boys and was sentenced to 10 years in a correctional facility. Druce used blunt force trauma and strangulation to kill Geoghan, citing that he had to end the problem of sexual abuse in the church as his motive (Associated Press, 2006). Druce was serving a life sentence for a violent offense.

The motives of individuals who commit prison homicide have been explored, although this research is now dated. Porporino et al. (1987) and Sylvester et al. (1977) provided the motivational contexts in which these homicides occur. Sylvester et al. (1977) demonstrated that when attacks involved a single assailant, the motive was more likely to be interpersonal and the result of some conflict between the victim and the perpetrator. These homicides centered around three main conflicts: sexual identity/behavior, arguments/conflict, and money/debt. In most of the cases studied, it was reported that the victim precipitated their own death. Multiple assailants were less frequent and the motives in those cases were more about maintaining social order within the prison. Building on this empirical evidence, Porporino et al. (1987) examined prison homicides in a Canadian prison and determined that in those cases, motives most often included drugs, revenge, and altercations.

The perpetrators of prison homicides have histories of violence and long and varied criminal histories, both in and outside of the prison (Reidy et al., 2020). These individuals are persistently violent, with high rates of disciplinary infractions and crimes while incarcerated (Cunningham et al., 2010; Reidy & Sorensen, 2017). In a study by Reidy et al. (2020), nearly half of the prison homicide perpetrators were serving a sentence of 30 years or more for a violent crime, over 90% were incarcerated for violent crimes, and these individuals had high rates of serious and assaultive violations while incarcerated. Among these individuals, rates of homicide while in the community are overrepresented, as they were 10 times more likely than those in the general prison population to have been convicted of a prior community homicide (Cunningham et al., 2010; Reidy et al., 2020; Reidy & Sorensen, 2017). While most prison homicide perpetrators have committed violence in the community, a conviction for a community homicide alone is not predictive of the propensity to commit homicides while incarcerated. About 1% or less of incarcerated individuals who have committed a community homicide later commit another homicide in prison (Cunningham et al., 2008, 2016; Marquart & Sorensen, 1989; Sorensen & Cunningham, 2010).

Thus, one consistent finding is that individuals who commit prison homicides are uniquely high-risk for engaging in violent behavior. The most violent individuals within prison are those for whom violence is a part of their criminal career, or their life course generally (Behnken et al., 2011; DeLisi, 2005; Drury & DeLisi, 2011). The violence and criminal actions in which they engage are not reduced by prison walls, rather continues in prison, and simply changes the availability of victims (Behnken et al., 2011; DeLisi & Piquero, 2011; Drury & DeLisi, 2011; Reidy & Sorensen, 2017). Within the prison, those who commit homicide may be individuals who will continue to engage in violence both in the prison and the community (Reidy et al., 2020). If the violence persists despite the setting, it becomes necessary to question what the role of the prison is in reinforcing or facilitating this cycle. Rather than reducing or deterring violent behavior, it appears as though it is displaced—violence changes location as a result of interventions (see Guerette & Bowers, 2009; Johnson et al., 2014).

State-Sanctioned Violence

Violence occurs and promulgates under certain conditions. The environment in which individuals are punished creates a fertile background where violence may flourish. Mass incarceration has been a strategic mechanism of stratification, segregation, and inequality, disproportionately impacting certain groups across race, ethnicity, and class (Massoglia & Pridemore, 2015). Some of public health issues in prisons include serious mental illnesses, suicides, substance abuse and overdose, diseases, aging, serious illnesses, and the effects of solitary confinement (Cloud et al., 2023).

Deaths inside the prison represent a failure of the system itself (Russo, 2019). Some investigations have revealed that prison deaths which are labeled as “natural” or “self-inflicted” are premature and, upon investigation, not natural (INQUEST, 2022). These deaths may be indicative of systemic neglect and indifference, not simply the result of pathological individual factors or choices (Carlton & Sim, 2018). All who are under the state’s supervision should be considered vulnerable (Medlicott, 2001).

Those tasked with supervision of those who are incarcerated may be influenced by perceptions of criminality which inform how they interact with those they manage. Studies of correctional officers have found that the threat of violence while working in prison has become a normalized experience (Ricciardelli et al., 2018). Depictions of incarcerated individuals as dangerous and essentialized others who are inherently different from themselves create an impermeable boundary which is reinforced and internalized (Drake, 2011). This is especially true of violent and deviant individuals who have committed heinous acts of criminality. As Greer and Jewkes (2005) argue, they represent “offenders with whom we actively establish and outwardly maintain the greatest distance, and toward whom we are most punitive and vindictive. They are portrayed in terms of their absolute otherness, their utter detachment from the social, moral and cultural universe of ordinary, decent people,” (p. 20). When those who are incarcerated are designated as “others,” the retributive nature of the public and the support for the state are both increased (Garland, 1996). For some prison staff, this detachment may be self-protective in nature. Emotional distance and maintaining boundaries can be critical to correctional work. Yet there exists among many an institutionalized belief that those who are incarcerated lack full humanity (Medlicott, 2001). This facilitates a culture of violence and a denial of responsibility which allows violence to persist. As Young (2003) explained:

“In order to create a ‘good enemy’ we must be able to convince ourselves that: (1) they are the cause of a large part of our problems; (2) they are intrinsically different from us—inherently evil, intrinsically wicked, etc. This process of resentment and dehumanization allows us to separate them off from the rest of humanity (us) but it also permits us to harden ourselves to deal with the special instance of a threat. We can act temporarily outside of our human instincts because we are dealing with those who are acting inhumanely. This technique of neutralization permits the transgression of our general prohibitions against violence,” (p. 400).

When it comes to the prosecution of those who commit homicides while incarcerated, the decisions of prosecutors appear to be based on the victim’s newsworthiness. High profile cases where the victim was a “well known” criminal often result in prosecution, such as the case of serial homicide offender Jeffrey Dahmer. Dahmer was killed in prison by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver. He had been sentenced to life in prison for a homicide perpetrated in the community and went on to commit two homicides while in prison. For Dahmer’s murder, he received another life sentence.

Attempts to find empirical data on the prosecutorial decision-making in these cases are futile. As part of a collaboration between a large midwestern university’s School of Criminal Justice and the district of a state police organization, the author reviewed cases of homicides that occurred in prison. The victims in these cases were incarcerated at the time of their deaths. These cases were easily identifiable in the “cold case library” which housed the agency’s 55 cold cases—they were the slimmest ones. While other cases may have contained boxes of investigative data, these case files fit neatly into manilla folders. There were eight cases total, spanning from 1986 to 1997. All the cases involved stabbings in public spaces. In seven of the cases, the perpetrators were identified. Seven of the victims were black men. They were serving time for a variety of offenses, including first degree murder (n = 1), armed robbery (n = 3), house arson (n = 1), criminal sexual conduct (n = 2) and receiving stolen property (n = 1).

The leadership of the investigative unit were given the details of these cases, including notification that at least one perpetrator had been released back into the community and had never been held accountable for the life he had taken while incarcerated. In this case, the victim’s last words included the name of the perpetrator. Even with the suspect’s name and information and a potential danger to public safety and state legitimacy, no action was taken. Despite the unit’s purported motto of being “victim-centered and offender-focused,” the three cases that had been selected for reinvestigation involved victims who were young, white women. This prioritization of white women has been documented as a problem endemic in cold case investigation by law enforcement. For example, although the typical murder victim in the United States is a young black man living in a major city, most victims who are selected for cold case investigation using investigative genealogy are overwhelmingly white women (Stern & Zhang, 2021). This is especially compelling given that another investigation of unsolved homicides across 52 cities in the United States revealed that approximately 75% of cases involved black male victims (Rich et al., 2018).

Anecdotally, in the small number of cases reviewed, they were denied prosecution due to the perceived lack of credibility of the witnesses or lack of evidence, despite all these homicides occurring in public spaces within the prison and multiple witnesses. These cases remain labeled inactive, relegated to manilla envelopes on shelves in the closet of a state police agency.

Prison Homicide Victims: From “Social” Death to “Invisible” Death

Prisons often function as “stigma machines” (Sim, 2023). I. Tyler (2020) has described the experience of stigma as “the mechanisms through which power penetrates bodies; machines of inscription set in motion through concerted efforts in order to immobilize, wound, humiliate and/or dehumanize those caught within their grasp,” (p. 260). Thus, individuals who are incarcerated experience “social deaths” through processes which include dehumanization, removing their liberties and rights, and rendering them invisible through incapacitation behind the walls of the prison (Davis et al., 2022, p. 112). This stigma does not end upon release, rather, it follows them beyond the walls from which they emerge (Price, 2015). Black men especially are vulnerable as they are incarcerated at a rate almost six times that of white men (Bronson & Carson, 2019). For those men of color who been incarcerated, they can expect lower mortality gains than individuals of other races and ethnicities (Wildeman, 2012).

“Homicide victims” is a term which describes a heterogenous group of individuals who have had their lives taken, often suddenly and violently. The definition and classification of victims and victimization is not an objective process. Only acts that threaten those who make the laws and those in power are described as crimes, and the status of victim is bestowed when the social order has been challenged. (Quinney, 1972). Homicides in prison are not granted the same criminal justice process as those that are committed on the “outside.” There is a general sentiment that among those who are incarcerated and die by homicide, it is the deceased themselves who are the ones to blame, and that they brought this upon themselves (Scraton & Chadwick, 1987; Sim, 2023). Public perceptions of prison violence often include expectations of violent behavior, which contribute to “a view of inmates as incorrigibly depraved” (Cunningham et al., 2010, p. 1). Thus, prisons are expected to be violent places where homicides can occur with impunity.

The stigma of incarceration is not limited to the person who is in prison but also extends to loved ones and family members. When an incarcerated individual is killed in prison, the family suffers a unique grief. As Sim (2023) asserts: “And for the families of the dead, the deep well of grief and loss into which they have been plunged is compounded by the systemic, callous indifference of a compassionless criminal injustice system as they strive, often against impossible odds, to establish the truth about how, when and why their relative died,” (p. 269). Hidden victims is a term which has been used to describe the families of those who are incarcerated, due to the fact they are treated differently by social systems and society generally (Carlson & Cervera, 1992; Martin, 2017). Though they are directly similar to crime victims in that they are state-involved through their loved one and have suffered losses which involve long term consequences, they do not receive the same support and benefits (Raeder, 2012).

Extant research has examined the differences between families who have lost their loved ones to homicide and those who have lost loved ones to the state through capital punishment. King (2004) explored families’ experiences, attitudes, emotions, and coping mechanisms. The similarities between the two groups were striking, and King (2004) notes that, “perhaps these families are mirror images on either side of the homicide, both being thrown into a situation of horror and helplessness,” (p. 209). Both groups experience grief, self-blame, feelings of powerlessness, and social isolation. However, families of individuals killed by the state are often not provided the same status and resources as those families of community homicide victims, and this may be due to notions of responsibility for harm as well as scarce resources. If the state is to provide any benefits or support for individuals who are impacted by violence and who are suffering the loss of a loved one, those who are constructed as “blameless” are more likely to be recipients.

Discussion

Prison homicides are a fatal form of punishment largely accepted and normalized as an expected part of the prison experience (Cunningham et al., 2010). If the prison is unable to prevent or to address violence which occurs, and if this violence is increasing over time, the current carceral system is failing. Reponses to prison violence must be informed by the evidence regarding the causes of violence and effective practices of modifying violent behavior (Meyers et al., 2023).

Those incarcerated individuals who kill other incarcerated individuals are typically categorized as “career criminals” for whom homicide is a crime they commit among many others, regardless of space (Reidy et al., 2017). They have long and assaultive criminal histories and commit high rates of violence regardless of whether they are in the community or incapacitated in jail or prison (Reidy et al., 2017). Perpetrators of prison homicide were overwhelmingly more likely to have committed a homicide in the community (Reidy et al., 2017). While incarcerated, they will often commit many rule and conduct violations, and this misconduct is indicative of a propensity to offend (Trulson et al., 2011). Taken as a whole, it appears current carceral mechanisms fail to address high-risk individuals’ potentiality for violence in a meaningful way which can keep those who are within its’ walls safe from harm. Rather than examining the structural causes of persistent violence, incarcerated persons are constructed as deserving of and responsible for the violence which is perpetrated against them.

Reducing prison violence is a formidable task, and one that will require a shift in how the criminal legal system responds to these individuals with long and extensive criminally violent histories. Rather than accepting violence as a normal reaction to deprivation or as inherent human behavior, we must explore alternative approaches. In examining public health recommendations, several key themes emerge: provide better healthcare to those who are incarcerated, make health and wellness a priority, use the same standards as population health to the carceral setting, coordinate care between the “outside” and inside, and work to reduce the consequences of incarceration (Aspen Institute, 2023).

How individuals are treated while inside the prison affects how they behave. The legitimacy of authority figures is an important factor to consider in reducing prison violence. For those individuals who have previously been incarcerated, served longer sentences, or were previously victimized while incarcerated, they are less likely to perceive correctional officers as legitimate (Steiner & Wooldredge, 2015). These individuals may be at higher risk for both offending and victimization, and specifically focusing on ways to provide interventions or services to build trust may foster a sense of legitimacy. Steiner and Wooldredge (2016) found that legitimacy is related to different types of power utilized by correctional officers to gain compliance, with coercive power, which includes verbal warnings, intimidation, the use of physical punishments, and segregation, being the least effective. Those who rely on expert and positional power are more likely to be perceived as legitimate and trustworthy by those who are incarcerated. Thus, there are practices in which correctional officers may engage which may serve to build legitimacy.

Restorative justice practices may be one method to reduce violent outcomes and giving those who are incarcerated an alternative way to handle and process grievances and conflict, but these practices are often difficult to exercise within the structure of total institutions such as prisons (Nowotny & Carrara, 2018). Programs which emphasize human dignity, healing, and accountability can have appreciable effects on the prison environment (Dholakia, 2023). More access to prison programing, specifically education, is also associated with reductions in violence and successful reentry outcomes (Pompoco et al., 2017). The answer to reducing violence among those who are incarcerated may be in decarceration, or moving from relying solely on the carceral state and investing instead in community-level supports, public health education, and activism to dismantle the structural barriers for some of the most vulnerable members of society harmed by systematic structures of oppression (Cloud et al., 2023). Additionally, decarceration can reduce overcrowding and neutralize some of the stressors and strains on both those who are criminal justice involved and the community.

When prison homicides occur, investigations are conducted, but there is a lack of data on prosecutorial decision-making in these homicides. So often the cited reasons for the failure of the criminal justice system to respond are “resource scarcity” and “credibility.” Yet a failure to hold perpetrators accountable for these deaths will ultimately result in more violence. Homicides that occur in prison have ripple effects that tear through correctional facilities, affecting other incarcerated persons, staff, and prison culture. Allowing these individuals to commit homicides without legal consequences due to their incarcerated status facilitates a culture of violence that denies victims and engenders risks to society. The lack of accountability of the state to acknowledge the conditions in which this violence is permitted to thrive is increasingly dangerous. The dehumanization of these victims perpetuates harm and facilitates the continuation of violent conditions and practices. And for those left in the wake of this violence, there must be some recourse and restorative practice. As Sim (2023) argued:

Radically changing the system around deaths in prison based on abolitionist praxis which includes prisoners as full human beings whose deaths should not be uniformly dismissed reimagining because they are prisoners. Rather, they should be equally mourned, and their families should be allowed to equally and openly express their grief as families on the outside (p. 270).

The limited state of our knowledge of prison homicide has revealed that violence begets violence, some forms more prominently “visible” than others. Although, as Scheper-Hughes (1996) noted, “The paradox is that they are not invisible because they are secreted away and hidden from view, but quite the reverse. As Wittgenstein noted, the things that are hardest to perceive are often those which are right before our eyes and therefore simply taken for granted,” (p. 889). Structural and systematic violence continues to occur by design, and reducing this violence requires critical analyses of the theoretical approaches to understanding violence and the policies and practices within the carceral system.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Retired Detective First Lieutenant David Minzey for providing his thoughtful comments on the manuscript and sharing his experiences with the investigation of homicides that occur in prisons.

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.

ORCID iD

Karen Holt

Author Biography

Karen Holt, PhD, is an Assistant Professor and criminologist at Michigan State University. Dr Holt’s research focuses on sexual deviance, sexual offending, and sexually motivated violence. She is the primary investigator on a study of the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative to develop offender-focused knowledge and investigation practices.

References

Andreas

Greenhill

K. M.

(2010). Introduction: The politics of numbers. In Andreas

Greenhill

K. M.

(Eds.), Sex, drugs, and body counts: The politics of numbers in global crime and conflict (pp. 1–22). Cornell University Press.

Aspen Institute. (2023). Reducing the health harms of incarceration: A report of the Aspen Health Strategy Group. The Aspen Institute. https://www.aspeninstitute.org/news/ahsg-reducing-health-harms-of-incarceration-report/

Associated Press. (2006). Inmate testifies why he killed child molester priest. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/24/us/inmate-testifies-why-he-killed-molester-priest.html

Balsamo

Sisak

M. R.

(2022). U.S. federal prisons on lockdown after two Texas inmates killed. AP News.

Behnken

M. P.

Caudill

J. W.

Berg

M. T.

Trulson

C. R.

DeLisi

(2011). Marked for death: An empirical criminal careers analysis of death sentences in a sample of convicted male homicide offenders. Journal of Crime and Justice, 39, 471–478.

Binswanger

I. A.

Stern

M. F.

Deyo

R. A.

Heagerty

P. J.

Cheadle

Elmore

J. G.

Koepsell

T. D.

(2007). Release from prison–a high risk of death for former inmates. New England Journal of Medicine, 356(2), 157–165. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMsa064115

Blevins

K. R.

Johnson Listwan

Cullen

F. T.

Lero Jonson

(2010). A general strain theory of prison violence and misconduct: An integrated model of inmate behavior. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 26(2), 148–166.

Bottoms

A. E.

(1999). Interpersonal violence and social order in prisons. Crime Justice Review and Research, 26, 205–281.

Bronson

Carson

E.A.

(2019). Prisoners in 2017. U.S. Department of Justice: Office of Justice Programs.

10.

Carlson

B. E.

Cervera

(1992). Inmates and their wives: Incarceration and family life. Greenwood.

11.

Carlton

Sim

(2018). Deaths in sites of state confinement: A continuum of routine violence and terror. In Read

Santatzoglou

Wright

(Eds.), Loss, dying and bereavement in the criminal justice system (pp. 54–63). Routledge.

12.

Carson

E. A.

(2021). Mortality in state and federal prisons. U.S. Department of Justice. Office of Sponsored Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics. https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/msfp0119st.pdf

13.

Cloud

D. H.

Garcia-Grossman

I. R.

Armstrong

Williams

(2023). Public health and prisons: Priorities in the age of mass incarceration. Annual Review of Public Health, 44, 407–428.

14.

Crewe

(2011). Depth, weight, tightness: Revisiting the pains of imprisonment. Punishment & Society, 13, 509–529. https://doi.org/10.1177/1462474511422172

15.

Cunningham

M. D.

(2006). Dangerousness and death: A nexus in search of science and reason. American Psychologist, 61(8), 828–839.

16.

Cunningham

M. D.

Reidy

T. J.

Sorensen

J. R.

(2008). Assertions of “future dangerousness” at federal capital sentencing: Rates and correlates of subsequent prison misconduct and violence. Law and Human Behavior, 32, 46–63. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-007-9107-7

17.

Cunningham

M. D.

Reidy

T. J.

Sorensen

J. R.

(2016). Wasted resources and gratuitous suffering: The failure of a security rationale for death row. Psychology Public Policy and Law, 22, 185–199. https://doi.org/10.1037/law0000072

18.

Cunningham

M. D.

Sorensen

J. R.

Vigen

M. P.

Woods

S. O.

(2010). Inmate homicides: Killers, victims, motives, and circumstances. Journal of Crime and Justice, 38, 348–358.

19.

Davis

A. Y.

Dent

Meiners

E. R.

Richie

B. E.

(2022). Abolition. Feminism. Now. Hamish Hamilton.

20.

DeLisi

(2005). Career criminals in society. Sage.

21.

DeLisi

Piquero

A. R.

(2011). New frontiers in criminal careers research, 2000–2011: A state-of-the-art review. Journal of Crime and Justice, 39, 289–301.

22.

Dholakia

(2023). Prisons and jails are violent; they don’t have to be. Vera Institute of Justice.

23.

Drake

(2011). The ’dangerous other’ in maximum-security prisons. Criminology and Criminal Justice, 11(4), 367–382.

24.

Drury

A. J.

DeLisi

(2011). Gangkill: An exploratory empirical assessment of gang membership, homicide offending, and prison misconduct. Crime and Delinquency, 57, 130–146.

25.

Foucault

(1979). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Peregrine.

26.

Fusco

Ricciardelli

Jamshidi

Carleton

R. N.

Barnim

Hilton

Groll

(2020). When our work hits home: Trauma and mental disorders in correctional officers and other correctional workers. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 11,1–10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.493391

27.

Gadon

Johnstone

Cooke

(2006). Situational variables and institutional violence: A systematic review of the literature. Clinical Psychology Review, 26(5), 515–534. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2006.02.002

28.

Garland

(1996). The limits of the sovereign state: Strategies of crime control in contemporary society. British Journal of Criminology, 36(4), 445–471.

29.

Greer

Jewkes

(2005). Extremes of otherness: Media images of social exclusion. Social Justice, 32(1), 20–31.

30.

Guerette

R. T.

Bowers

K. J.

(2009). Assessing the extent of crime displacement and diffusion of benefits: A review of situational crime prevention evaluations. Criminology, 47(4), 1331–1368.

31.

Hepburn

J. R.

(1985). The exercise of power in coercive organizations: A study of prison guards. Criminology, 23, 145–164.

32.

INQUEST. (2022). INQUEST responds as new data shows 2021 had highest number of deaths in prison ever recorded. Retrieved September 1, 2023, from https://www.inquest.org.uk/moj-data-jan2022

33.

Irwin

(1980). Prisons in turmoil. Little, Brown.

34.

Irwin

Cressey

D. R.

(1962). Thieves, convicts and the inmate culture. Social Problems, 10(2), 142–155. https://doi.org/10.2307/799047

35.

Johnson

S. D.

Guerette

R. T.

Bowers

(2014). Crime displacement: what we know, what we don’t know, and what it means for crime reduction. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 10, 549–571. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-014-9209-4

36.

Kaba

(2021). We do this ‘til we free us: Abolitionist organizing and transforming justice. (Abolitionist papers, 1). Haymarket Books.

37.

Karmen

(1990). Crime victims: An introduction to victimology. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks Cole.

38.

King

(2004). It hurts so bad: Comparing grieving patterns of the families of murder victims with those of families of death row inmates. Criminal Justice Policy Review, 15(2), 193–211. https://doi.org/10.1177/0887403404263625

39.

Liebling

(2004). Prisons and their moral performance: A study of values, quality, and prison life. Oxford Univ. Press.

40.

Liebling

Kant

(2018). The two cultures: Correctional officers and key differences in institutional climate. In Woolredge

Smith

(Eds.), The Oxford handbook of prisons and imprisonment (pp. 208–232). Oxford University Press.

41.

Lombardo

(1989). Guards imprisoned: Correctional officers at work. Anderson Publishing.

42.

Long

J. S.

(2022). Targeted violence in correctional facilities: The complex motivations of prisoners who kill child sex abusers. Journal of Crime and Justice, 82, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2022.101980

43.

Marquart

J. W.

Sorensen

J. R.

(1989). A national study of the Furman-commuted inmates: Assessing the threat to society from capital offenders. Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, 23, 5–28.

44.

Martin

(2017). Hidden consequences: The impact of incarceration on dependent children. National Institute of Justice, 278, 1–7.

45.

Massoglia

Pridemore

W. A.

(2015). Incarceration and health. Annual Review of Sociology, 41, 291–310.

46.

Medlicott

(2001). Surviving the prison place: Narratives of suicidal prisoners. Ashgate Meyers.

47.

Meyers

T. J.

Testa

Wright

K. A.

(2023). Managing violence: In-prison behavior associated with placement in an alternative disciplinary segregation program. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 48, 250–272. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-021-09634-9

48.

Miers

(1989). Positivist victimology: A critique. International Review of Victimology, 1(1), 3–22. https://doi.org/10.1177/026975808900100102

49.

Murray

Farrington

(2008). The effects of parental imprisonment on children. Crime and Justice, 37, 133–206.

50.

Nowotny

J. J.

Carrara

(2018). The use of restorative practices to reduce prison gang violence: Lessons on transforming cultures of violence. Conflict Resolution Quarterly, 36, 131–144. https://doi.org/10.1002/crq.21237

51.

O’Brien

R. M.

(1987). The interracial nature of violent crimes: A reexamination. American Journal of Sociology, 92(4), 817–835.

52.

Pompoco

Wooldredge

Lugo

Sullivan

Latessa

E. J.

(2017). Reducing inmate misconduct and prison returns with facility education programs. Criminology & Public Policy, 16(2), 515–547.

53.

Porporino

F. J.

Doherty

P. D.

Sawatsky

(1986). Characteristics of homicide victims and victimizations in prisons: A Canadian historical perspective. Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 31, 125–136. doi:10.1177/0 306624X8703100205

54.

Porporino

F. J.

Doherty

P. D.

Sawatsky

(1987). Characteristics of homicide victims and victimizations in prisons: A Canadian historical perspective. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 31, 125–136.

55.

Price

(2015). Prison and social death. Rutgers University Press.

56.

Quinney

(1972). Who is the victim? Criminology, 10(3), 314–323.

57.

Raeder

M. S.

(2012). Special Issue: Making A Better World for children of Incarcerated Parents. Family Court Review, 50(1), 23–35.

58.

Reidy

T. J.

Sorensen

J. R.

(2017). Prison homicides: A multidimensional comparison of perpetrators and victims. Journal of Forensic Psychology Research and Practice, 17, 99–116. doi:10.1080/15228932.2017.1278147

59.

Reidy

T. J.

Sorensen

J. R.

Bonner

H. S.

(2020). Prison homicide: An extension of violent criminal careers? Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 35(23/24), 5676–5690.

60.

Reisig

M. D.

(2002). Administrative control and inmate homicide. Homicide Studies, 6, 84–103.

61.

Ricciardelli

Power

Medeiros

D. S.

(2018). Correctional officers in Canada: Interpreting workplace violence. Criminal Justice Review, 43(4), 458–476. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734016817752433

62.

Ricciardelli

Power

N. G.

(2020). How “conditions of confinement” impact “conditions of employment”: The work-related wellbeing of provincial correctional officers in Atlantic Canada. Violence and Victims, 35, 88–107. https://doi.org/10.1891/0886-6708.VV-D-18-00081

63.

Rich

Mellnik

Kelly

Lowery

(2018). Murder with impunity. Homicide database: Mapping unsolved murders in major U.S. cities. Washington Post.

64.

Russo

(2019). Caring for those in custody. Retrieved September 1, 2023, from https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/caring-those-custody

65.

Sampson

R. J.

Raudenbush

S. W.

(1999). Systematic social observation of public spaces: A new look at disorder in urban neighborhoods. American Journal of Sociology, 105, 603–651.

66.

Scheper-Hughes

(1996). Small wars and invisible genocides. Social Science & Medicine, 43(5), 889–900.

67.

Scott

Sim

(2018). Prisons: Dangerous for whom? https://ccseljmu.wordpress.com/2018/09/20/prisons-dangerous-for-whom/

68.

Scott

Sim

(2020, March). Coronavirus and prisons: The need for radical alternatives. New Socialist. https://newsocialist.org.uk/coronavirus-and-prisons-need-radical-alternatives/

69.

Scraton

Chadwick

(1987). “Speaking ill of the dead”: Institutionalised responses to deaths in custody. In Scraton

(Ed.), Law, order, and the authoritarian state (pp. 212–236). Open University Press.

70.

Sim

(2021). “Help me please”: Death and self-harm in male prisons in England and Wales. In Coyle

Scott

(Eds.), The Routledge international handbook of penal abolition (pp. 119–130). Routledge.

71.

Sim

(2023). Death, trauma, and grief: The case of the prison. Mortality, 28(2), 269–283.

72.

Sorensen

Cunningham

M. D.

(2010). Conviction offense and prison violence: A comparative study of murderers and other offenders. Crime and Delinquency, 56, 103–125.

73.

Sparks

Bottoms

Hay

(1996). Prisons and the problem of order. Oxford University Press.

74.

Steiner

Cain

C. M.

(2016). The relationship between inmate misconduct, institutional violence, and administrative segregation: A systematic review of the evidence. NCJ 250320. In Restrictive housing in the U.S.: Issues, challenges, and future directions. U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice.

75.

Steiner

Wooldredge

(2015). Examining the sources of correctional officer legitimacy. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 105, 679–704.

76.

Steiner

Wooldredge

(2016). The exercise of power in prison organizations and implications for legitimacy. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 106(1), 125–166.

77.

Steiner

Wooldredge

(2019). Understanding and reducing prison violence: An integrated social-control opportunity perspective. Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge.

78.

Stern

Zhang

(2021). The victims left behind by genetic genealogy. The Golden State Killer Case Changed Policing, for White Victims. The Atlantic.

79.

Sykes

(1958). The society of captives: A study of a maximum-security prison. Princeton University Press.

80.

Sylvester

S. F.

Reed

J. H.

Nelson

D. O.

(1977). Prison homicide. Spectrum.

81.

Thomasville

(2022). Five things to know about one of the deadliest prisons. The Marshall Project. Retrieved May 2022 from Key takeaways from our investigation into federal prison deaths at Thomson: NPR.

82.

Thompson

(2022). How the newest federal prison became one of the deadliest. Heard on all Things Considered. The Marshall Project.

83.

Thompson

Shapiro

(2022). How the newest federal prison became one of the deadliest. The Marshall Project.

84.

Trulson

C.R.

DeLisi

Marquart

J.W.

(2011). Institutional misconduct, delinquent background, and rearrest frequency among serious and violent delinquent offenders. Crime & Delinquency, 57, 709–731.

85.

Turney

(2014). The consequences of paternal incarceration for maternal neglect and harsh parenting. Social Forces, 92(4), 1607–1636. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/sot160

86.

Tyler

E. T.

Brockmann

(2017). Returning home: Incarceration, reentry, stigma, and the perpetuation of racial and socioeconomic health inequity. Journal of Law Medicine & Ethics, 45(4), 545–557. https://doi.org/10.1177/1073110517750595

87.

Tyler

(2020). Stigma: The machinery of inequality. Zed.

88.

United States Department of Justice. (2021). Mortality in state and federal prisons 2001-2018 statistical tables. Office of Justice Programs. Retrieved from: Mortality in State and Federal Prisons, 2001–2018 - Statistical Tables (ojp.gov)

89.

Wacquant

(2010). Class, race & hyperincarceration in revanchist America. Daedalus, 139, 74–90.

90.

Wang

Sawyer

(2021). New data: State prisons are increasingly deadly places. Prison Policy Initiative. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2021/06/08/prison_mortality/

91.

Weidner

R. R.

Schultz

(2019). Examining the relationship between U.S. incarceration rates and population health at the county level. SSM - Population Health, 9, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2019100466

92.

Wildeman

(2012). Imprisonment (and inequality in) population health. Social Science Research, 41(1), 74–91.

93.

Wooldredge

(2020). Prison culture, management, and in-prison violence. Annual Review of Criminology, 3, 165–188. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-criminol-011419-041359

94.

Young

(2003). Merton with energy, Katz with structure: The sociology of vindictiveness and the criminology of transgression. Theoretical Criminology, 7(3), 389–414.