Introduction: Prison Crowding and Inmate Homicide
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When prisons are overcrowded, they can sometimes be left with no other choice but to move some inmates to other local facilities to ease that prison crowding. These facilities can relieve some of the pressure on the overcrowded prison, but can add stress to the transferred inmates. When inmates are moved to local facilities to ease prison crowding then the inmates contact with staff decreases, and their contact with other inmates increases. This can be good for inmates, but it can also have negative affects. The increased interaction between inmates can increase stress levels and frustration leading to violence.
I chose the two variables of the number of inmates moved to the local facilities solely to ease prison crowding and the number of deaths of inmates resulting from homicide by other inmates. This will test if there is a relationship between how overcrowded the prison is, forcing them to move inmates to local facilities, and the overall number of homicides committed by inmates. If the crowding of the prison increases, causing the prison to move inmates, will the number of homicides also increase? Is there a positive relationship between the number of local facilities solely to ease prison crowding and the number of deaths of inmates resulting from homicide by other inmates?
RQ: Is there a positive relationship between the number of local facilities solely to ease prison crowding and the number of deaths of inmates resulting from homicide by other inmates?
H0: There is no relationship or a negative relationship between local facilities to ease prison crowding and the number of deaths resulting from homicide by other inmates.
Ha: There is a positive relationship between local facilities to ease prison crowding and the number of deaths resulting from homicide by other inmates.
Pearson's correlation coefficient: .694
alpha: .05
P-Value: .000
REJECT THE NULL
The study shows that there is a positive relationship between the number of local facilities solely to ease prison crowding and the number of deaths of inmates resulting from homicide committed by other inmates.
I found my information at this link:
National Prisoner Stats:
https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/NACJD/studies/34540?q=crowding+in+prison&archive=NACJD
#Comments: 4
Thank you for posting your project on IGoR!
Does this mean that your analysis suggests that it's better to keep prisons more crowded than to move prisoners? Or is it that there are more facilities to ease crowding when crowding is worse, and it's the crowding that increases risk?
There are more facilities to ease crowding when crowding is worse, and it's the crowding that increases the risk. If crowding wasn't a problem, they wouldn't have to transport prisoners to other local facilities to ease that crowding.
Thanks for clarifying.
By the way, please let me know if you have any suggestions about how to improve the IGoR wiki and/or if there are specific things you disliked about it or found problematic.
Thanks for your feedback.
Hi Miranda, you need to explain the connection between your variables and prison overcrowding more thoroughly.