Security Threat Management in Prison: Revalidation and Revision of the Inmate Risk Assessment for Segregation Placement

• Author: Ryan M. Labrecque
• Published date: 01 January 2022
• Date: 01 January 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00328855211069150

Security Threat

Management in Prison:

Revalidation and

Revision of the Inmate

Risk Assessment for

Segregation Placement

Ryan M. Labrecque

1

Abstract

Prison officials often rely on restrictive housing to promote institutional safety and

security. However, a growing body of research indicates this type of confinement

has little impact on inmate behavior or institutional order. An alternative approach

involves providing the most dangerous and disruptive inmates with increased case

management services and other proactive programmatic opportunities. The suc-

cess of this strategy requires an ability to prospectively and accurately identify

the most problematic inmates. The results of this study indicate that Risk

Assessment for Segregation Placement (RASP)anditsrevisedOregonversion

(RASP-OR) are valid predictors of segregation placement and institutional miscon-

duct. The policy implications of these findings are discussed.

Keywords

prison, restrictive housing, solitary confinement, risk assessment

Introduction

Above all else, prison administrators strive to ensure institutional safety and

security (Cullen et al., 1993; DiIulio, 1987; Mears & Castro, 2006).This is no

1

University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA

Corresponding Author:

Ryan M. Labrecque, Department of Criminal Justice, University of Central Florida, 12805

Pegasus Drive, Orlando, FL 32816, USA.

Email: ryan.labrecque@ucf.edu

Article

The Prison Journal

2022, Vol. 102(1) 47–63

© 2022 SAGE Publications

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/00328855211069150

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small task considering that more than half (56%) of all state inmates are sen-

tenced for a violent crime (Carson, 2020), and nearly one-fifth (19.1%) are

believed to be members of a security threat group (i.e., a gang; Winterdyk

& Ruddell, 2010). Findings from a nationally representative survey of prison-

ers indicate that nearly one of every five respondents (17.4%) reported

involvement in a fight or being written up for an assault in the previous

year (Beck, 2015).One strategy for increasing safety and promoting order

in prison involves segregating dangerous and disruptive inmates into restric-

tive housing settings (Frost & Monteiro, 2016; Labrecque & Mears, 2019).

1

Despite its promise, several recent reviews of the empirical literature have

highlighted that this type of confinement appears to have little to no influence

on inmate behavior or institutional order (Gendreau & Goggin, 2019;

Labrecque & Smith, 2019a; Morgan et al., 2016; Steiner & Cain, 2016).

Gaining a better understanding of the predictors of institutional rule violations

and restrictive housing placements is, therefore, vital to assist prison author-

ities in developing more effective security threat management practices.

If there was a reliable and reasonably accurate mechanism for identifying

inmate risk for institutional misconduct and segregation placement upon their

entry into the prison system, then this information could be used prospectively

to devise appropriate supervision and treatment plans with the aim of reducing

the occurrence of these adverse events in the first place. Prison officials, for

example, could rely on this information to triage the limited case management

services and other programmatic opportunities available toward the highest

risk inmates. There are good reasons to suspect that this offender management

strategy would help reduce prison misconduct and improve institutional order

(see also Labrecque, 2018a; and Smith, 2016). For one, penological scholar-

ship has documented the effectiveness of treatment programs (e.g., education

classes, employment training, cognitive-behavioral therapy) in reducing insti-

tutional misconduct (French & Gendreau, 2006; Huebner, 2003; Pompoco

et al., 2017; Randol & Campbell, 2017; Wooldredge & Steiner, 2015) and

has shown promise for reducing placements in restrictive housing as well

(Butler et al., 2018; Meyers et al., 2018). More broadly, correctional research

has also demonstrated that therapeutic interventions produce the greatest

improvements in behavior among higher- versus lower-risk offenders

(Andrews et al., 1990; Bonta & Andrews, 2017; Lowenkamp et al., 2006).

Systematic reviews of the literature have uncovered several inmate back-

ground variables (e.g., demographics, criminal history), institutional experi-

ences (e.g., prior misconducts), and prison characteristics (e.g., custody

level) that are correlated with the perpetration of prison misconduct

(Gendreau et al., 1997; Schenk & Fremouw, 2012; Steiner et al., 2014) and

placement in restrictive housing (Labrecque, 2018b; Steiner & Cain, 2016).

48 The Prison Journal 102(1)