PRISON OFFICER LEGITIMACY, THEIR EXERCISE OF POWER, AND INMATE RULE BREAKING*

• Date: 01 November 2018
• Author: BENJAMIN STEINER,JOHN WOOLDREDGE
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12191
• Published date: 01 November 2018

PRISON OFFICER LEGITIMACY, THEIR EXERCISE

OF POWER, AND INMATE RULE BREAKING∗

BENJAMIN STEINER1and JOHN WOOLDREDGE2

1School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Nebraska, Omaha

2School of Criminal Justice, University of Cincinnati

KEYWORDS: inmates, prisons, rule breaking, legitimacy, power

Prison officers are directly responsible for transmitting penal culture and prison pol-

icy to the confined, yet few studies of officers’ impact on inmate behavior have been

conducted. We examined the effect of inmates’ perceptions of officer legitimacy on rule

breaking within prisons, as well as the effects of officers’ reliance on different power

bases on rates of rule breaking across prisons. The findings from bi-level analyses of

data from inmates and officers from 33 prisons revealed that inmates who held stronger

views regarding officer legitimacy committed fewer nonviolent infractions but that per-

ceived legitimacy did not affect the number of violent offenses inmates committed. We

also examined a subsample of inmates encountered by officers for a rule violation and

found no relationship between perceived legitimacy and subsequent rule breaking, al-

though stronger perceptions of procedural justice related to the incident did directly

and indirectly (through perceived legitimacy) coincide with lower odds of nonvio-

lent misconduct. At the prison level, we found that prisons in which officers exercised

their authority more lawfully and fairly (positional power) or by relying more on their

skills and expertise (expert power) had lower rates of violent or nonviolent rule viola-

tions. Prisons in which officers relied more on coercion had higher levels of nonviolent

infractions.

Deviations from the formal rules of conduct in a prison include behaviors considered

crimes if committed by the general population (e.g., assaults) and acts that interfere

with the daily prison routine (e.g., disrespecting an officer; DiIulio, 1987; Eichenthal and

∗This study was supported, in part, by grants from the National Institute of Justice (Award #2007-IJ-

CX-0010) and the National Science Foundation (Award #SES-07155515). The opinions, findings,

and conclusions expressed in this presentation are those of the authors and do not necessarily

reflect those of the Department of Justice or the National Science Foundation. The authors also

wish to thank Guy Harris, along with Brian Martin and Gayle Bickle, with the Ohio Department

of Rehabilitation and Correction, and Ruth Edwards and Tammy Morgan, with the Kentucky

Department of Corrections, for their assistance with the collection of the data for this study.

[The copyright line for this article was changed on 6 September 2018 after original online

publication.]

Direct correspondence to Benjamin Steiner, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Uni-

versity of Nebraska, Omaha, 6001 Dodge Street, 218 CPACS, Omaha, NE 68182-0149 (e-mail:

bmsteiner@unomaha.edu).

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which per-

mits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

C2018 The Authors. Criminology published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of American Society of

Criminology. doi: 10.1111/1745-9125.12191

CRIMINOLOGY Volume 56 Number 4 750–779 2018 750

LEGITIMACY, POWER, INMATE RULE BREAKING 751

Jacobs, 1991; Wooldredge, 1994). The smooth operation of the daily routine is synony-

mous with “good order” in a prison; rule violations are disruptive to both the safety and

the social order of penal institutions (Bottoms, 1999; DiIulio, 1987; Irwin, 1980). Inmates

who violate prison rules also have higher odds of recidivism after their release (Cochran,

2013; Cochran et al., 2014; Huebner, DeJong, and Cobbina, 2010; Ostermann, 2011), and

so understanding the sources of offending in prison is relevant to both institutional and

public safety.

Empirical and practical interests in the causes and correlates of inmate rule breaking

have generated numerous studies on the subject. The findings from these studies have

underscored the relevance of inmate characteristics (e.g., age), features of prison environ-

ments (e.g., crowding), and management practices (e.g., use of disciplinary housing) for

predicting rule breaking (Bottoms, 1999; Steiner, Butler, and Ellison, 2014). Few scholars

have considered the potential influence of prison officers, and Stichman and Gordon

(2015) noted the contradiction in ignoring officer factors in related research (especially

regarding inmate threats to safety, as they examined) given their vital role in managing

prisoner populations. This gap in the literature is striking because prison officers are

responsible for directly transmitting prison policy and penal culture to the confined

(Garland, 1990; Lipsky, 1980; Vuolo and Kruttschnitt, 2008). How officers exercise

their power over inmates can influence inmates’ perceptions regarding the legitimacy

of their authority, not to mention regarding the legitimacy of prison rules (Bottoms,

1999; DiIulio, 1987; Hepburn, 1985; Lombardo, 1989; Wooldredge and Steiner, 2016).

Differences in how prison officers exert their power and perceptions of their legitimacy

may influence inmates’ willingness to comply with prison rules, which ultimately affects

prison order (Bottoms, 1999; Hepburn, 1985; Sparks, Bottoms, and Hay, 1996).

Despite the theoretical connections between the actions of prison officers and inmate

behavior, researchers have not empirically assessed these ideas. Using data on inmates

and officers from 33 prisons across Ohio, we examine the effect of inmates’ perceptions

of officer legitimacy on rule breaking within prisons, as well as the effects of officers’

reliance on different power bases on rates of rule breaking across prisons.

PRISON OFFICER LEGITIMACY AND INMATE RULE

BREAKING

Themes that have emerged from research on inmate deviance include significant

differences in rates of rule breaking across prisons and the relevance of management

practices for explaining these differences (Bottoms, 1999; Camp et al., 2003; DiIulio,

1987; see also Useem and Kimball, 1989, for their organizational perspective on prison

riots). Prison administrators develop these practices and related policies, but prison

officers translate them into action (Garland, 1990; Liebling, Price, and Shefer, 2011;

Lipsky, 1980; Lombardo, 1989). As a result of their legal authority, prison officers are the

visible representation of the formal rules of conduct and, for the most part, determine

how the rules are enforced (Liebling, Price, and Shefer, 2011; Lombardo, 1989; Sparks,

Bottoms, and Hay, 1996; Vuolo and Kruttschnitt, 2008). Officers’ treatment of inmates

during their routine encounters related to rule violations could influence inmates’

perceptions regarding the legitimacy of rules and the officers’ authority (Bottoms, 1999;

Hepburn, 1985; Irwin, 1980; Liebling, 2004; Lombardo, 1989; Sparks, Bottoms, and Hay,

1996; Steiner and Wooldredge, 2015).