Feelings of Safety Among Male Inmates

• Author: Jing Shi,Nancy Wolff
• DOI: 10.1177/0734016809333343
• Published date: 01 September 2009
• Date: 01 September 2009
• Subject Matter: Articles

404

Criminal Justice Review

Volume 34 Number 3

September 2009 404-427

© 2009 Georgia State University

Research Foundation, Inc.

10.1177/0734016809333343

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Authors’ Note: This study was supported by the Office of Justice Programs (Grant No. OJP-2004-RP-BX-

0012) and the National Institute of Mental Health (Grant No. P20 MH66170). Please address correspondence

concerning this article to Dr. Nancy Wolff, Center for Behavioral Health Services & Criminal Justice Research,

Rutgers University, 176 Ryders Lane, New Brunswick, NJ 08901; e-mail: nwolff@ifh.rutgers.edu.

Feelings of Safety Among

Male Inmates

The Safety Paradox

Nancy Wolff

Jing Shi

The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick

“Safety paradox” refers to the paradoxical phenomenon in which prisoners feel safe in osten-

sibly unsafe places --prisons. A general model of feeling safe was used to better understand

the role of individual and environmental factors on inmate perception of safety inside prison.

We tested theoretically derived hypotheses of vulnerability, victimization, and social disorder,

under the assumption of rationality. Using survey data from approximately 7,000 male inmates

residing in 13 adult prisons within a single state correctional system, hierarchical linear mod-

els were estimated to predict probabilities of feeling safe from specific types of harm and

perpetrators. Findings support hypotheses of differential impact and the seriality of victimiza-

tion, interprison variation, and social disorder impact but not vulnerability hypotheses.

Localized social relations and recent victimization experiences had the largest individual and

collective impact on feeling safe against harms inside prison (n = 137)

Keywords: inmate safety; victimization; social disorder; vulnerability

Anthony Bottoms (1999) used the term “safety paradox” to describe the paradoxical

findings that even though prisons are dangerous and violent places (Gibbons &

Katzenbach, 2006; Human Rights Watch, 2001), the people residing there, for the most

part, report feeling safe. Rationally, the opposite would be expected. Indeed, much of the

early prison research advanced the notion that fear and anxiety were the dominant feelings

among inmates (Bowker, 1980; Carroll, 1974; Irwin, 1980; Lockwood, 1980; Parisi, 1982;

Toch, 1977; Wooden & Parker, 1982). According to Toch (1977), “[i]nmates are threatened

in prison . . . feel chronically unsafe . . . and may feel unsettled, tense, unsure, and hurt”

(p. 176). Feeling unsafe inside prison makes rational sense if the elevated rates of violence

and victimization characterizing these environments (Beck & Harrison, 2007; Wolff, Blitz,

Shi, Bachman, & Siegel, 2006; Wolff, Blitz, Shi, Siegel, & Bachman, 2007) are combined

with the expectation that elevated crime and victimization rates heighten feelings associated

with fear of harm (Baumer, 1985; Skogan, 1987). And therein lies the key issue underpinning

Wolff, Shi / Feelings of Safety Among Male Inmates 405

the safety paradox: the implied direct relationship between prevalence of crime (and,

hence, victimization) and feelings of safety.

Empirical research on feelings of safety inside prison settings is strikingly limited and

largely descriptive (Camp, 1999; Crouch & Marquart, 1990; Edgar, O’Donnell, & Martin,

2003; Hemmens & Marquart, 1999; McCorkle, 1992, 1993a, 1993b). Most research on

prison performance focuses on predicting crime (Wooldredge, 1994), victimization (Wolff,

Shi, Blitz, & Siegel, 2007; Wolff, Shi, & Siegel, 2009; Wooldredge, 1998), and misconduct

in prison (Camp, Gaes, Langan, & Saylor, 2003; Wooldredge, Griffin & Pratt, 2001). The

models used to explain these outcomes include characteristics of the individual and

environment and recognizing that physical and social aspects of the environment can

directly and indirectly affect both the opportunities and motivations for negative behavior

(Bottoms, 1999).

The right to safety inside prison is constitutionally guaranteed and protected. People

deprived of their liberty through criminal sentencing, must be kept safe while incarcerated

according to the legal interpretation of the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. More

specifically, the U.S. District Court ruled against the Texas Department of Corrections in Ruiz

v. Estelle (1980) for failing “to furnish minimal safeguards for the personal safety of the

inmate” (p. 26). Fourteen years later, in Framer v. Brennan (1994), the U.S. Supreme Court

affirmed lower court rulings that, under the Eighth Amendment, departments of corrections

must “take reasonable measures to guarantee the safety of the inmates” and that it is the

“prison official’s duty . . . to ensure reasonable safety.” In combination, social concern for the

conditions under which prisoners live is motivated by the human rights of people and, as a

consequence, is measured in terms of safety from potential harm, not fear of it.

Researchers have not rigorously studied feelings of safety inside prisons. We address this

gap first by describing the various theoretical frameworks used to explain perceptions of safety

and harm in correctional settings, emphasizing factors that predispose, socialize, and localize

general feelings of safety. General and specific hypotheses are summarized next. These

hypotheses are tested using a data set that includes a sample of approximately 7,000 male

inmates housed in 13 different prison facilities within a single state correctional state system.

The findings and discussion sections focus on the factors that predict feelings of safety of

inmates, highlighting the role of direct and indirect victimization, disaggregated by type of

victimization and its seriality, and perceptions of social disorder within the environment.

Victimization and Feelings of Safety Connection:

The Theory and Evidence

Studies of prison-based deviance (crime, victimization, and misconduct) and feelings of

safety have focused on characteristics of the inmate (before and while institutionalized) and

the environment. More specifically, deviance inside prison has been explained using a

variety of criminological theories, including the importation model (deviance is imported

from the community through the individual), the deprivation model (deviance is a

consequence of the extreme conditions inside the prison), the (mis)management model

(deviance is produced by the inadequacies and incompetencies of the prison staff), and the