Abstract
Most prison systems use quantitative instruments to classify and assign inmates to prison security levels commensurate to their level of risk. Bench and Allen (The Prison Journal 83(4):367-382, 2003) offer evidence that the assignment to higher security prisons produces elevated levels of misconduct independent of the individual’s propensity to commit misconduct. Chen and Shapiro (American Law and Economics Review, 2007) demonstrate that assignment to higher security level among inmates with the same classification scores increases post-release recidivism. Underlying both of these claims is the idea that the prison social environment is criminogenic. In this paper we examine the theoretical premises for this claim and present data from the only experiment that has been conducted that randomly assigns inmates to prison security levels and evaluates both prison misconduct and post-release recidivism. The experiment’s results show that inmates with a level III security classification who were randomly assigned to a security level III prison in the California prison system had a hazard rate of returning to prison that was 31% higher than that of their randomly selected counterparts who were assigned to a level I prison. Thus, the offenders’ classification assignments at admission determined their likelihood of returning to prison. There were no differences in the institutional serious misconduct rates of these same prisoners. These results are contradictory to a specific deterrence prediction and more consistent with peer influence and environmental strain theories. These results also raise important policy implications that challenge the way correctional administrators will have to think about the costs and benefits of separating inmates into homogeneous pools based on classification scores.
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Notes
Inmate classification has also been designed to estimate the level of escape risk for inmates, but this prediction may not have the same specification as risk of violence and is secondary to the arguments posed in this paper. However, prison systems that try to maximize the prediction of both of these elements, violence and escape risk, in one equation may be introducing error that limits the predictability of each of these elements separately.
During the data collection for the original study by Berk et al., approximately 20,000 inmates were initially placed in the following types of California facilities: 2.55% in reception centers, 13.82% in community corrections facilities, 25.54% in level I prisons, 31.92% in level II prisons, 21.42% in level III prisons, 4.46% in level IV prisons and 0.29% in special housing units. These assignments were based on security score thresholds established by the CDCR. For 75% of inmates, initial placement in a facility depended solely on their security score. Inmates with scores from 0 to 18 were placed in level I prisons; inmates with scores 19 to 27 were placed in level II prisons; inmates with scores 28 to 51 were placed in level III prisons; and inmates with scores 52 and above were placed in level IV prisons. For the other 25% of inmates, initial placement was based on administrative rules that were based on sentencing and other characteristics of the inmates deemed important by CDCR officials. These administrative rules ‘trumped’ the security score decision rules.
One of the anonymous reviewers of this paper indicated that California had adopted COMPAS for post-release risk assessment and supervision and that we should acknowledge that in our paper. At the time of this study, all the offenders, with the possible, but unlikely, exception of four, had been released to supervision prior to the field testing conducted with COMPAS. During the period of our study, CDCR parole agents used characteristics of the instant offense and the pattern of criminal history to assess risk, but there was no tool to scale this information as is currently being done with COMPAS. This is documented on page 49 of the report by Grattet et al. (2008). Since the prison classification system is also based on criminal history, the level III inmates released from the level III and level I prisons would have had, on average, the same levels of supervision risk.
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Acknowledgments
We are indebted to Richard A. Berk, University of Pennsylvania, and Chris Hawes, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), for their assistance in providing data for this study. Richard Berk was especially gracious in taking the time to insure we obtained and understood the classification data. Chris Hawes went out of his way to tutor us on the way in which the recidivism data in CDCR are collected and the meaning of the sundry codes that make any administrative dataset a challenge to analyze. We are grateful to Ryken Grattet, Jesse Shapiro and Bill Rhodes for extensive feedback, insight, and advice on various topics related to this manuscript. David Weisburd, the editor, and two anonymous reviewers also provided very helpful comments. The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, or the U. S. Department of Justice.
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Gaes, G.G., Camp, S.D. Unintended consequences: experimental evidence for the criminogenic effect of prison security level placement on post-release recidivism. J Exp Criminol 5, 139–162 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-009-9070-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-009-9070-z