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

• Author: H. Daniel Butler,Matt DeLisi
• Published date: 01 November 2020
• Date: 01 November 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1088767920928106
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1088767920928106

Homicide Studies

2020, Vol. 24(4) 398 –416

© 2020 SAGE Publications

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DOI: 10.1177/1088767920928106

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Article

Murder as Importation:

An Empirical Study of the

Continuity of Homicide

Offending From Community

to Confinement

Matt DeLisi1 and H. Daniel Butler1

Abstract

Prison murder is the most severe form of institutional violence but its exceedingly

low prevalence has limited prior research. Recent studies of prison murders make

clear that serious, violent, and chronic career criminals are most likely to perpetrate

inmate murders with equivocal evidence of the role of prior homicide offending

on prison murder. Using retrospective administrative data from 1,005 prisoners

selected from the southwestern United States, the current study examined whether

homicide offending in the community is itself an importation factor that is useful

for understanding prison murder and thus can be used to understand continuity in

homicidal offending from the community to confinement context. Rare events logistic

regression models found that individuals sentenced for first-degree murder are more

likely to perpetrate prison murder. A separate rare events logistic regression model

with any type of homicide commitment offense as a predictor provided similar

findings suggesting these effects are robust to model specification. Given its gravity

and fundamental threat to prison safety and security, we encourage data collection

and additional research on prison murder and the inmates that perpetrate it.

Keywords

murder, homicide, prison homicide, prisoner, institutional misconduct

Introduction

In terms of its human toll, legal seriousness, fiscal costs, and threats to public safety,

murder is the most severe form of criminal behavior (Alvarez & Bachman, 2003;

1Iowa State University, Ames, USA

Corresponding Author:

Matt DeLisi, Iowa State University, 203A East Hall, Ames, IA 50011-2140, USA.

Email: delisi@iastate.edu

928106HSXXXX10.1177/1088767920928106Homicide StudiesDeLisi and Butler

research-article2020

DeLisi and Butler 399

Brown, 2013; DeLisi et al., 2010; McCollister et al., 2010). In addition to these

direct and indirect consequences, murder occurring within correctional facilities fur-

ther connotes an indictment of the ability of correctional organizations to safely

supervise, manage, and provide treatment and rehabilitation experiences to prison-

ers. Although rare compared with other forms of institutional misconduct, approxi-

mately 1,045 inmate murders have occurred in state and federal prisons between

2001 and 2015. According to data from the Deaths in Custody Reporting Program

(DCRP), which is the only national statistical collection that obtains information

about deaths in adult correctional facilities, about 2% to 3% of all inmate deaths

within prisons are attributable to inmate homicide and between 39 to 90 inmates are

murdered by other inmates each year (Noonan, 2016).1 This equates to one or two

inmate murders each week in state and federal prisons in the United States, an inci-

dence that far exceeds the annual total of executions in jurisdictions that administer

capital punishment.

Prison order and security is measured through the frequency and severity of inmate

misconducts (see DiIulio, 1987; Steiner & Wooldredge, 2008), and prison murder rep-

resents a threat to the safety and security of individuals living and working in prison.

Unlike other forms of institutional misconduct and violence, we know comparatively

less about prison murder in part because its low prevalence results in relatively few

studies containing adequate data for statistical analyses. Most studies of institutional

misconduct and prison violence exclude murder because there are no cases in their

data file or include murder as part of a broader category of violent misconducts

(Adams, 1992; Reidy & Sorensen, 2017; Trulson et al., 2010). Therefore, the identifi-

cation of correlates associated with prison murder may help inform actuarial assess-

ments that identify individuals for appropriate classification placement (e.g., security

housing location). The current study sought to fill this void using official retrospective

correctional data that contained prison murders and employing a statistical technique

that is able to estimate rare phenomena.

Theoretical Background: The Importation Model of

Inmate Behavior

Early penological research assumed a sociological approach and highlighted the

salience of institutional-level factors as crucial for understanding both adaptive and

maladaptive responses to the prison environment. Research in this vein (e.g., Clemmer,

1940; Hayner & Ash, 1940; Sykes, 1958; Weinberg, 1942) posited that various depri-

vations, pains of imprisonment, or prisonization experiences contributed to violence

and noncompliance occurring among inmates. Examples of these structural factors

included overcrowding, poor living conditions and inadequate food, lack of vocational

opportunities and other programming, inconsistent and inequitable enforcement of

prison rules and regulations, and physical and verbal abuse from correctional officers

and administrators. The pain from these depriving environmental milieu mold inmate

responses to custody.