This study is based on official monthly summaries of violations reviewed by the prison discipline committee that were collected over a twenty-month period (September 1978 to May 1980) at the Indiana Reformatory, a maximum security prison for adult male felons.Official prison misconduct records are used to test some of the assumptions inherent in previous research based upon such records. Many of these studies used prison data to measure changes in prisoner behavior, while others used them to indicate changes in the actions and attitudes of prison staff. Analysis of one prison's official discipline records over a 30-month period reveals flaws in both approaches. The same data cannot serve to draw conclusions about both groups though they can provide information about both when supplemented with other research methods. Conclusions drawn from official prison misconduct records are more reliable when used to assess the end of the prison discipline process — assessing discretionary decisionmaking by staff — than at the beginning of the process — evaluating prisoner behavior.[Introduction] /
Background of the Study /
A Case Study of Prison Discipline Records /
Conclusion /
Notes /
References /
Figure
