NCJ Number
178043
Journal
Prison Journal Volume: 79 Issue: 2 Dated: June 1999 Pages: 250-268
Date Published
1999
Length
19 pages
Annotation
This study examines whether survey data collected from inmates can be used to create group-level measures of prison conditions.
Abstract
The data analyzed are for inmates at Federal prisons included in the 1997 Inmate Survey. The Bureau of Justice Statistics coordinated inmates' interviews in the Federal prison system and the State systems in 1991 and 1997. In 1997, 4,041 Federal inmates agreed to be interviewed, 3,167 of whom were males. This analysis is restricted to male inmates because there are more of them and thus more prisons that house males. The 3,167 males included in this analysis were housed in 32 different prisons. The analysis examined whether male inmates assessed their conditions of confinement differently and whether any of the differences were due to differences among the prisons. The survey focused on prison safety, noise, and job assignments. This analysis shows that inmate answers to the questions vary in a systematic fashion that lends credence to using survey data from inmates to obtain information about the prisons in which they are incarcerated; however, proper techniques for using survey data have not been practiced in existing evaluation studies that compare public and private prisons. 5 tables, 6 notes, and 19 references