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Victims & Offenders
An International Journal of Evidence-based Research, Policy, and
Practice
ISSN: 1556-4886 (Print) 1556-4991 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uvao20
“Gladiator School: Returning Citizens’ Experiences
with Secondary Violence Exposure in Prison”
Meghan A. Novisky & Robert L. Peralta
To cite this article: Meghan A. Novisky & Robert L. Peralta (2020): “Gladiator School: Returning
Citizens’ Experiences with Secondary Violence Exposure in Prison”, Victims & Offenders, DOI:
10.1080/15564886.2020.1721387
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/15564886.2020.1721387
Published online: 07 Feb 2020.
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“Gladiator School: Returning Citizens’Experiences with
Secondary Violence Exposure in Prison”
Meghan A. Novisky
a
and Robert L. Peralta
b
a
Department of Criminology, Anthropology, and Sociology, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA;
b
Department of Sociology, The University of Akron, Akron, Ohio, USA
ABSTRACT
Prison-based violence exposure is a critical area of study, yet the range
of secondary (witnessed) violence experiences among incarcerated per-
sons lacks comprehensive development in the literature. Drawing on
qualitative data from 30 interviews with previously incarcerated men
and women, we examine the extent of secondary violence exposure
faced by these individuals. We find that secondary violence was fre-
quently experienced in prison and often took the form of witnessing
non-weaponized assaults, weaponized assaults, multi-perpetrator
assaults, and homicide. We document the scope and severity of this
violence and underscore the importance of including witnessed victi-
mization in future prison-based violence research and interventions.
KEYWORDS
Prison experience; violence;
victimization; prisons;
trauma
Introduction and background
Prison officials have a responsibility to protect those they incarcerate from harm. Yet, many
individuals suffer from victimization and are exposed to violence while incarcerated, raising
a variety of ethical concerns regarding the conditions of confinement. A growing body of
research documents the frequency with which persons are victimized while under institu-
tional control. Among a recent U.S. sample of incarcerated men and women, 13 percent had
been victimized in some way during their current incarceration (Teasdale, Daigle, Hawk, &
Daquin, 2016) and in 2015, nearly 25,000 instances of sexual victimization were reported by
incarcerated persons to correctional authorities (Stroop, 2018). Over two percent of prisoner
deaths are also caused by homicide, which exceeds the percentages of deaths attributed to
drugs, alcohol, accidents, and HIV infection (Noonan, 2016).
Though less documented in the literature, there is also evidence that incarcerated persons
witness the victimization of others. Twenty-three percent of the individuals in Johnson-Listwan,
Daigle, Hartman, and Guastaferro’s(2014) sample had witnessed at least one sexual assault
while they were incarcerated, while 16 percent of respondents in Rowell-Cunsolo, Harrison, and
Haile’s(2014) sample reported witnessing sexual assaults in prison and 43 percent reported
hearing them. Respondents in Western’s(2018) qualitative sample spoke of violence often and
described prison as a stressful place due in part to its frequent occurrence, with 80 percent of the
sample reporting they had witnessed violence involving prisoners and 28 percent of the sample
reporting they had witnessed violence involving a correctional officer. Together, this body of
CONTACT Meghan A. Novisky m.novisky@csuohio.edu Department of Criminology, Anthropology, and Sociology,
Cleveland State University, 2121 Euclid Ave TR 1721, Cleveland, OH 44115.
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
VICTIMS & OFFENDERS
https://doi.org/10.1080/15564886.2020.1721387
© 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
research corroborates the conclusions of Edgar, O’Donnell, and Martin’s(2012)multi-methods
prison violence study, as 89 percent of incarcerated persons sampled believed that “violence in
prison is inevitable”(p. 94).
From a public health and correctional management standpoint, the frequency with which
incarcerated persons are subjected to violence is troubling. For one, exposure to traumatic
events, including personal and witnessed victimization, is linked to a multitude of deleterious
health outcomes. Those with histories of trauma have elevated risks for more chronic physical
health symptoms (Flett, Kazantzis, Long, MacDonald, & Millar, 2002), poorer self-rated health
(Kulka et al., 1990), victimization (Grubb & Bouffard, 2015), cognitive deficiencies (Blanchette
& Caparos, 2016), and mental health disorders (Ballard et al., 2015;Haden&Scarpa,2008)
(see Sowder, Knight, & Fishalow, 2018 for a comprehensive review). While violence exposure
as a form of trauma has been overwhelmingly associated with a multitude of health-related
harms, these harms can vary depending on whether the violence exposure is direct (personal
victimization) or indirect (witnessed victimization). Grubb and Bouffard (2015), for example,
analyzed adult survey data and determined that respondents who were sexually victimized as
children (direct violence) were more likely to suffer from adulthood victimization, both
sexually and physically. However, respondents who witnessed parental intimate partner
violence (indirect violence) were more likely to be victimized physically as adults, but faced
no added risks for sexual victimization in adulthood.
The triggering of the health effects detailed above can occur based on disproportionate
exposure to stress among those subjected to traumatic events and contribute to U.S. health
disparities. Specifically, “the experience of trauma creates sensitivity to reminders that continu-
ally reactivates stress, creating multiple recurring ‘acute’stressors that string together”
(D’Andrea, Sharma, Zelechoski, & Spinazzola, 2011, p. 382). The risks for poor health outcomes
are especially pronounced as the chronicity of trauma exposure increases (see Anda et al., 2006;
Felitti et al., 1998; Sledjeski, Speisman, & Dierker, 2008). Exposure to traumatic events such as
personal and witnessed victimization has also been linked to risks for criminal behavior (Eitle &
Turner, 2002;Huang,Vikse,Lu,&Yi,2015; Johnson-Listwan, Sullivan, Agnew, Cullen, &
Colvin, 2013; LaCourse, Johnson-Listwan, Reid, & Hartman, 2019;Smith&Ecob,2007),
maladjustment during incarceration (Meade & Steiner, 2013; Steiner & Meade, 2016), and
mental health symptoms (Johnson-Listwan, Colvin, Hanley, & Flannery, 2010).
Scholars have provided substantial evidence that in-prison experiences are important
predictors of reentry success, including time served (Mears, Cochran, Bales, & Bhati, 2016;
Rhodes, Gaes, Kling, & Cutler, 2018), frequency of sanctioning (Silver & Nedelec, 2018),
receipt of visits (Mitchell, Spooner, Jia, & Zhang, 2016), and violence perpetration (Cochran,
Mears, Bales, & Stewart, 2014). Thus, it is possible that witnessing acts of violence during
incarceration is importantly related to reentry challenges, especially because personal victi-
mization during incarceration is predictive of recidivism risk (Johnson-Listwan et al., 2013;
LaCourse et al., 2019) and fear of victimization (O’Donnell & Edgar, 1999).
What is more, incarcerated men and women often have extensive histories of victimi-
zation and violence exposure prior to their being incarcerated, which exacerbates the
problem of prison violence and highlights the continuing need for a broader under-
standing of the offender-victim relationship (see Day, Casey, Gerace, Oster, & O’Kane,
2018a for an extensive report on incarcerated women’s experience with violence before,
during and after prison). Women’s experiences with intimate partner violence before and
after prison stays (see Day, Gerace, Oster, O’Kane, & Casey, 2018b)offer one of many
2M. A. NOVISKY AND R. L. PERALTA
examples of why it is especially important to challenge the dichotomous classification of
“offenders”versus “victims”that often dominates both the literature and correctional
policies (see also Edgar et al., 2012; Western, 2018).
Other examples of historical violence exposure among incarcerated persons include the
conclusion that between 39 and 50 percent of incarcerated persons experience abuse
during childhood (Bodkin et al., 2019; Meade & Steiner, 2013) and one third are victims
of crime prior to coming to prison in general (Teasdale et al., 2016). Further evidence of
violence exposure can be found in research examining the frequency with which incar-
cerated persons are exposed to potentially traumatic events (PTEs). In Anderson, Geier,
and Cahill’s(2016) sample of 5,008 Black American adults, individuals with a history of
incarceration had experienced an average of 5.15 PTEs, while those without an incarcera-
tion history experienced an average of 3.26.
1
With such elevated exposure to violence, it is
perhaps not surprising that incarcerated persons can report PTSD symptoms that exceed
community samples by up to 10 times (Wolff, Huening, Shi, & Frueh, 2014).
Acknowledging the differences between the experiences of men and women prior to
and during incarceration regarding violence is also relevant (McDaniels-Wilson &
Belknap, 2008). To be sure, the gendered nature of trauma prior to and during incarcera-
tion stems from patriarchal social structures that place women at risk for specific forms of
violence victimization (Gaarder & Belknap, 2004; Salisbury & Van Voorhis, 2009), with
intimate partner violence being a major factor (Day et al., 2018b). Women with criminal
histories and prison stays are much more likely to experience past and subsequent
interpersonal violence (sexual, physical, psychological, and emotional) compared to their
non-criminal and non-incarcerated counterparts (Bonomi, Anderson, Rivara, &
Thompson, 2009), making it all the more important to include the experiences of
women in prison-based research studies.
Given their elevated exposure to violence prior to incarceration, as well as the norma-
tive nature of prison-based violence (Edgar et al., 2012; Michalski, 2017; Sykes, 1958),
persons with incarceration histories are likely especially vulnerable to the impacts of
cumulative trauma exposure over the life course. Since incarceration itself disproportio-
nately impacts minorities, particularly poor, black males (Alexander, 2010; Clear, Rose,
Waring, & Scully, 2003; Western & Wildeman, 2009), and because exposure to traumatic
events such as violence is related to a host of negative outcomes including criminal
behavior, it is important to understand the unique role that prisons play as institutional
sites of violence perpetration and exposure.
An enhanced understanding of the scope and breadth of violence exposure in prisons,
as well as the range of impacts of prison-based violence exposure on returning citizens
2
and the reentry process is necessary for advancing the correctional literature. Currently,
the prison violence literature relies heavily on U.S. government surveys and institutional
reports, which focus largely on predictors of victimization risk and perpetration (Reid &
Johnson-Listwan, 2018). These predictors often include individual-level factors such as
age, participation in gang activity, sentence length, convicting offense, and mental health
status, and institutional-level factors such as population size, extent of racial integration,
institutional security level and type, and reliance on restrictive housing, for example (see
Randol & Campbell, 2017; Sorensen & Reidy, 2019; Steiner, Ellison, Butler, & Cain, 2017;
Steiner, Butler, & Ellison, 2014; Stroop, 2018;; Teasdale et al., 2016 for recent examples).
VICTIMS & OFFENDERS 3
These sources of data are limiting because not all acts of violence result in misconduct
reports and staffhave discretion with regard to how misconducts are processed and
documented (Auty, Cope, & Liebling, 2017). The majority of violence in prisons in fact
underreported (see Byrne & Hummer, 2007; Edgar et al., 2012). There are international
exceptions to these typical data sources, with Australia being an excellent model of relying
on rich one-on-one, in-depth qualitative methods (see Day et al., 2018a), as well as Edgar
et al.’s(2012) multi-methods study on prison violence in England and the U.K. Yet, the
limitations detailed above have left gaps in our understanding of the intricacies of prison
violence, particularly with regard to our understanding of how incarcerated persons
witness and interpret violence (Meade & Steiner, 2013).
Since we know far less about the intricacies of prison violence itself, our goal for this
study is to detail how returning citizens describe their experiences as witnesses of prison
violence. We use data from in-depth interviews with 30 men and women who recently left
prisons in a Midwestern U.S. state and analyze their accounts to document the range of
violent incidents they were exposed to during their periods of confinement. Our examina-
tion contributes to the literature by offering further insights into the normative nature of
prison-based violence exposure, its forms, and how such experiences may threaten not
only successful reentry, but the overall legitimacy of imprisonment as a sanction.
Theoretical framework
There are at least two theoretical perspectives thatcould help inform the criminological relevance
of witnessing violence during periods of incarceration. Social Learning Theory (SLT) argues that
behavioral tendencies, such as antisocial behavior, are learned based on observations of others
(Akers et al., 1979). According to Bandura (1971,p.5),“most of the behaviors that people display
are learned, either deliberately or inadvertently, through the influence of example.”Thus, if
individuals learn based on modeling, environments rich with violence are theoretically likely to
be criminogenic, as such behaviors create risks for imitation. Related to prisons, risks for
misconduct (during incarceration) and recidivism (post release) would thereby be elevated if
violence is displayed often. For example, in their multi-methods study on prison violence, Edgar
et al. (2012) found that over time incarcerated participants in their sample learned to victimize
and bully other prisoners as a preemptive strategy to avoid being victimized themselves,
perpetually increasing the overall risks for violence within the prisons. There is additional
support for this theoretical possibility in the literature (see Pratt et al., 2010 for a meta-
analysis), with the preponderance of evidence suggesting that exposure to violence and aggres-
sion during incarceration increases the probability of violent offending among those exposed to it
(Hochstetler & DeLisi, 2005; Reid & Johnson-Listwan, 2018; Steiner & Meade, 2016).
General Strain Theory (GST) could also suggest that witnessing violence during periods
of incarceration would increase risks for misconduct and recidivism. According to GST,
exposure to stressors or “strains”can trigger negative emotions such as anger, frustration,
and anxiety (Agnew, 1992). Such emotions can then lead to crime when criminal behavior
becomes a means of coping, particularly when experienced strains “(1) are seen as unjust;
(2) are seen as high in magnitude; (3) are associated with low social control; and (4) create
some pressure or incentive to engage in criminal coping”(Agnew, 2001, p. 326). This is
because these types of strains are more likely to intensify negative emotions that tax an
individual’s coping mechanisms and cognitions (Agnew, 2001).
4M. A. NOVISKY AND R. L. PERALTA
If witnessing the victimization of others is conceptualized as a form of strain, then,
environments with high victimization rates are theoretically likely to be criminogenic because
they are more likely to lead to negative emotions and therefore criminal coping among those
who witness the violence, particularly when the victimization witnessed meets any of the four
criteria detailed above. For example, among Johnson-Listwan et al.’s(2013)sampleof
1,613 persons recently released from state prisons, those who experienced higher degrees of
strain via personal and witnessed victimization and threats were significantly more likely to be
reincarcerated. Zweig, Yahner, Visher, and Lattimore (2015) found comparable results in their
sample of 711 incarcerated persons in that those who were physically assaulted or threatened
while incarcerated were more likely to experience hostility and depression and commit new
offenses post-release. Many respondents in Porter’s(2019) qualitative study experienced the
strain of constantly living in fear while in prison, which raised their anxiety and led some to
obtain weapons which were prohibited.
Materials and methods
Data collection
Data were gathered from semi-structured, qualitative interviews with 30 returning citizens
over a 6 month period from the fall of 2017 to the spring of 2018. Interviews were designed to
collect information on the incarceration experience in general, but more specifically on the
extent and impact of trauma exposure during incarceration, which we operationalized as (a)
witnessing physical violence and injuries (the focus of this paper); and (b) personal and
witnessed unmet health-related needs (reported in other papers). Due to the very sensitive
nature of the data we sought to collect, we decided to conduct our interviews in a community
corrections setting versus an institutional corrections setting.We believe this strengthened the
ethical nature of the study by reducing the likelihood that respondents would feel coerced to
participate. By completing community-based interviews, we also hoped to reduce any poten-
tial fears of retribution respondents might have felt regarding correctional staffor other
prisoners had interviews taken place in prisons.
Participants were recruited from a reentry organization in the Midwest region of the
United States (hereafter referred to as the Agency). The Agency works with individuals
who have a range of contact with the criminal justice system, including those charged with
crimes, those convicted of misdemeanors, and those with incarceration experiences in
both jails and prisons. Despite the fact that the Agency works with clients regardless of
conviction status, they were selected as a community partner for the project due specifi-
cally to the frequency of contact the Agency has with adult men and women who have
been to prison. The Agency draws clients by offering a variety of rehabilitation programs
and parenting classes, an open-access computer lab, a voucher program for assistance with
obtaining vital documents such as birth certificates and state ID’s, and case workers to
assist with employment and housing barriers. At the time of the interviews, the Agency
served approximately 1,700 new clients annually.
Our study eligibility criteria were that respondents be at least 18 years of age at the time
of the interview
3
and have a recent history of incarceration. “Recent”was operationalized
as incarceration in a state prison within the last 12 months. This requirement offered the
methodological advantage of including respondents who were more likely to be accurate
VICTIMS & OFFENDERS 5
in their recall of the events that took place while they were incarcerated (see Watson & van
der Meulen, 2019). Additionally, the 12 month window allowed us to focus on respon-
dents who were currently active in their reentry process, which we viewed as important
since the first year following release is especially critical for successful reintegration
(Makarios, Steiner, & Travis, 2010). Because the goal was to interview respondents who
were no longer under the supervision of correctional line staff, individuals were also
excluded from participating if they were currently residing at a halfway house or
a community based correctional facility (CBCF).
To recruit respondents for the study, we worked with staffmembers at the Agency. We
independently visited the Agency on a regular basis over the 6 month period, as approved
in advance by the Agency’s management. While on site, a member of the research team
would wait in the lobby. Staffwould then make introductions between clients staff
believed were eligible for participation and the research team member. If a client was
interested in learning more about the research, the client and the researcher would move
to a private room in the building. At that point, the researcher would further screen the
individual to ensure he or she qualified, explain the informed consent process, and answer
any questions the individual had about the study. If he or she agreed to participate and
signed the informed consent document, the interview would begin.
A total of 30 respondents were recruited from on-site procedures at the Agency as
described above. Over the 6 month study period, we were introduced to approximately 45
individuals who were believed to have met study recruitment criteria by staff. Of the 45, 10
did not qualify after meeting with the researcher (7 had been to jail rather than to prison
4
and 3 were still residing at halfway houses). Of the remaining 35, 5 declined participation,
leading to an overall response rate of 85 percent. The most common reason for opting out
of participation was that individuals were either relying on transportation or they had
a treatment group to get to and they could not spare the time to complete an interview.
Interviews were semi-structured, meaning that we incorporated a pre-established list of
open ended questions into each interview, but we were not bound to any particular ordering
of the questions. We also had the flexibility to ask pertinent follow up questions as needed and
any topics not covered by the interview guide could still be explored in meaningful ways. The
questions we developed were designed to better understand the significance and impacts of
trauma exposure during incarceration and interviews allowed participants to provide
accounts pertaining to experiences with witnessed violence and physical injuries and the
implications of witnessing such events. Examples of questions from the interview guide
included the following: “Tell me about any injuries sustained by other inmates while you
were incarcerated that were either accidental or due to conflict [during this most recent period
of incarceration];”“Tell me about the worst thing you saw while you were in prison [during
this most recent period of incarceration];”and “How do the experiences you shared with me
today play a role in how you are doing since being released from prison?”
The semi-structured nature of the interviews facilitated in depth discussions whereby
participants provided accounts using their own terminology and, at times, guided the
direction of the interviews. During the interviews respondents were instructed to focus
their responses on their most recent period of incarceration. Given that the majority of
our participants had been incarcerated on more than one occasion, this directive allowed
us to increase the potential recency of the examples they chose to share.
6M. A. NOVISKY AND R. L. PERALTA
Interviews lasted an average of 52 minutes and were audio-recorded with the permis-
sion of each respondent. At the conclusion of each interview, respondents selected a $25
gift card to either a local fast food chain or a grocery store as a small token of appreciation
for their time. The audios for each interview were later transcribed verbatim by a member
of the research team. To ensure accuracy of the data, all transcriptions were then reviewed
carefully for errors by a member of the research team who had not completed the original
transcription. At this point any identifying information, such as names, were replaced with
pseudonyms. In addition to audio recorded data, field notes were taken on-site and typed.
In total, over 400 single-spaced pages of data were gathered for this project. All data
collection efforts were supervised and approved by two ethical review committees, includ-
ing the Agency’s Research Review Committee and the appropriate university IRB.
Analysis strategy
Qualitative data were analyzed using NVivo, v. 12 (NVivo, 2018) and a general thematic
analysis was used as the analytical technique. Open coding was used first to open the inquiry
and develop a list of exhaustive themes that emerged in the data (Glaser & Strauss, 1967;
Strauss, 1987). Examples of initial open codes included staffmisconduct, substance use, and
violence. Data were then reviewed again following a process of refined or secondary coding.
The purpose of refined coding was not only to expand the initial open codes into more
meaningful categories, but to eliminate any overlapping codes. For example, the original code
“violence”developed into “weaponized assaults,”“homicides,”and “non-weaponized
assaults”during the refined coding stage.
Following the process of secondary coding, all codes that shared a focus on respondent
experiences with violence exposure were selectively coded (Lofland, Snow, Anderson, &
Lofland, 2006). For example, “physical assaults”were selectively coded to separate perso-
nal versus witnessed accounts. Each category was then assigned the codes “primary”and
“secondary”victimization, respectively. During this final layer of analysis, all coding that
was not directly related to violence exposure (i.e., “substance use”) was removed and
became the focus of other projects.
Throughout the analysis the first author led the thematic development process detailed
above. The second author then reviewed and agreed upon all themes presented in the
findings after reading all transcripts and comparing the first author’s results to his own
coding in NVivo. Multiple in person meetings were also held throughout this process with
both authors and student research assistants to ensure accurate thematic development. To
assist with this process the first author created and maintained a dataset using Microsoft
Excel to track patterns, record memos, and reflect on theoretical links in the data. This
entire process of data analysis produced several themes that represent the extent of
secondary violence exposure
5
faced by the men and women in this sample during
incarceration as well as the mental health implications of witnessing such acts of violence.
Sample characteristics
Sample characteristics can be found in Table 1. The sample is comprised of 25 men and 5
women. Respondents ranged in age from 25 to 60 years, with a mean age of 44 years.
Respondents described themselves as Black (n = 16), White (n = 11), Biracial (n = 2), and
VICTIMS & OFFENDERS 7
Hispanic (n = 1). While seventy-three percent of respondents (n = 22) had at least a high
school degree or GED equivalent, 27 percent (n = 8) had 11 years of schooling or less.
Multiple reentry challenges were reported among the sample, as 83 percent (n = 25) were
unemployed, 13 percent (n = 4) were homeless, and 70 percent (n = 21) had incarceration
histories beyond this most recent period of incarceration. Respondents’incarceration
lengths ranged from 4 to 263 months, with an average incarceration length of
3.7 years.
6
At the time of interview, respondents’time since release ranged from 3 days
to 11 months. Regarding their health, 33 percent (n = 10) reported being in “poor”or
“fair”health, while 67 percent (n = 20) reported being in “good,”“very good,”or
“excellent”health. Notably, respondents had been incarcerated at 19 different prisons,
meaning that 70 percent of the prisons in the state are represented in these data.
Our interview process provided confidence that data saturation was reached (Glaser &
Strauss, 1967), as no new information was being gleaned from new interviews.
Additionally, the results offer rich documentation of the violent nature of carceral contact
that builds upon existing gaps in the literature. Such documentation may assist with future
developments in the areas of prison violence and the cumulative burdens associated with
periods of incarceration. We note that based on our qualitative research design, the
findings presented in this article are not intended for generalization. Our intention is to
provide rich detailed accounts of returning citizens experiences with witnessing the
violence that occurs with regularity within prison contexts and to expand criminological
theory with data grounded in the lived experience.
Table 1. Select sample characteristics.
a
n
Age
(Mean; range) 43.7; 25–60
Gender
Male 25
Female 5
Race
Black 16
White 11
Biracial 2
Hispanic 1
Education
11th grade or less 8
12th grade or GED 12
Some college or beyond 10
Current Health Status
Excellent 8
Very good 2
Good 10
Fair 7
Poor 3
Employment
Unemployed 25
Employed 5
Housing
With Stable Housing 26
Homeless 4
Incarceration Length (months)
(Mean; range) 44; 4 –263
Prior Prison Term Served
Yes 21
No 9
a
N=30
8M. A. NOVISKY AND R. L. PERALTA
Results
Extreme acts of violence were overwhelmingly brought up and discussed by respondents,
meaning that violence was a normative feature of the prison experience among this
sample. Respondents’exposure to violence took the form of both direct victimization
(primary violence) and witnessed victimization (secondary violence). Twenty-seven per-
cent of respondents (n = 8) disclosed experiences with primary violence. For example,
a 44 year old white male respondent offered detailed accounts of being sex trafficked while
he was incarcerated. Multiple male respondents reported getting stabbed. Shawn,
7
a 28 year
old biracial male explained how he cared for himself after getting stabbed in his thigh and
back:
I ended up getting stabbed. And um, I just went to the nurse, wrapped myself up, took
a shower with the bandage on, took it off, ran to my room, put a shirt on, went to sleep,
walked back to the shower, wiped myself, came back out, and threw a whole bunch of powder
on me.
Jody, a 30 year old black female, recounted a time where she was sexually assaulted by one
of the correctional officers and was then prohibited from filing a Prison Rape Elimination
Act (PREA) report. One in three (n = 10) reported fighting with other prisoners while
incarcerated, often resulting in serious physical injuries. One respondent described com-
ing to terms with living with a broken hand due to the constant need to use violence in the
institution. Sebastian, a 54 year old white male stated:
The broken hand is from continuously fighting. With or without a broken hand, you use it.
There’s no sense it getting it fixed [medically], ‘cause you’re right back to using your hands
again …so I’d just go ahead and take the fingers, pull it [the bones] out, and call it a day. If
you’ve gotta fight again, the hand re-snaps [breaks] again, and so you just keep re-setting.
Over and over.
Yet, the most consistent accounts of violence exposure raised among the sample were
secondary or witnessed accounts of violence. Specifically, all 30 respondents reported
witnessing violence inflicted on others while they were in prison. Such routine exposure
to violence during incarceration offers confidence that, at least among this sample,
violence was a core feature of the prison experience and likely placed a significant amount
of strain on individuals while they were in prison. Below, secondary experiences with
violence (i.e., witnessing violence) are described thematically, first regarding experiences
as witnesses of physical assaults, and second regarding experiences as witnesses of
homicide.
8
We then contextualize these experiences by presenting data on some of the
mental health implications of witnessing such violence.
Witnessing physical assaults
Ninety-seven percent of respondents (n = 29) reported witnessing fights between prisoners
while they were incarcerated. Importantly, accounts of fights were not recalled in isolation.
Rather, fights within the institutions were described plainly as an anticipated aspect of life
in prison. Edwin, a 53 year old black male, explained:
Nine times out of ten it’safight every day …sometimes it be more than that, but for the
most part, there’s gonna be a fight or conflict somewhere throughout the day.
VICTIMS & OFFENDERS 9
Dajon, a 25 year old black male, offered a similar explanation:
People fight every day. Every day. You go a day? There’safight. It’s like …you gon’see a fight
[emphasis added], okay? Every day it’safight. It’sfights every 10, every 20 minutes.
When reflecting on injuries he had seen over the years of his incarceration, Louk, a 60 year old
white male, stated: “[It’s] extreme. Broken jaws, broken legs, stabbed, murdered, dead.”In her
reflection on the violence and threats that occur in prison, Mo, a 54 year old Black female,
summarily explained: “prison is not the place for anybodyto be.”Beyond the mere presence of
physical fights in the prisons, respondents offered many examples of what the violence looked
like from their perspective as witnesses. These are explored below in the form of non-
weaponized assaults, weaponized assaults, and multi-perpetrator assaults.
Witnessing non-weaponized assaults
At times, the violence described made no mention of weapons. For example, Travis,
a35 year old White male, stated “the worst thing I’ve seen [while in prison] was some
dude get beat up so bad that he was, like, in a fetal position …that was the worst thing
I’ve seen.”Ryan, a 39 year old Black male, explained “you see guys getting knocked out all
of the time. They might get back up, they might not.”Mo, a 54 year old Black female
offered the following example:
In the summertime when these two white girls was fighting over this other girl, she really beat
her up pretty bad. Broke her nose, busted her mouth, broke her jaw.
Other accounts of non-weaponized violence were more graphic. Richard, a 40 year old
White male, described an assault that was so extreme the victim had to undergo orbital
surgery. Richard explained:
One cat [I saw] had a metal plate put in near his eye socket ‘cuz someone hit him and broke
his eye socket. His eye was like, hangin’down. So they put a …little something here [points
to eye area] ….just so he wouldn’t…bump into it while it was settin’….all by someone’sfist
[emphasis added]. Someone’sfist [emphasis added] broke his eye socket, and his eye was
literally hangin’out.
Notably, these accounts of violence sometimes led to physical consequences for witnesses
in the immediate area. Meda, a 46 year old white female explained:
The CO [correctional officer], he couldn’t even break the two girls apart. Two bunks got slid
all the way over, they ended up having to mace ‘em. It took like two or three COs to get those
two girls apart. Yeah, that was a pretty good scrappin’. They got maced, so we had to clear
that whole dorm and open up all the windows because the entire room was filled with mace.
The relevance of what Meda explained above is that any exposure to mace (direct or
indirect) can be extremely painful. When Dajon, a 25 year old Black male, reflected on the
strategy officers will use at times to break up fights, he described such exposure as “So hot,
so hot. It’s worse than getting shot [emphasis added] ….it burn real bad, you could burn
for 10, 15 days.”Thus, beyond any psychological impacts that regularly witnessing the
type of violence described above might have, individuals can also suffer physically from
the violence inflicted around them.
10 M. A. NOVISKY AND R. L. PERALTA
Witnessing weapon-involved assaults
The accounts offered thus far must be considered in combination with weapon-involved
violence, which was described by respondents often. One type of weapon that was
discussed by respondents in their descriptions of physical assaults was what they called
the “lock in a sock.”This involved packing a metal lock (or some other weighted object)
into a long sock, which could then be swung back and forth with great force to harm
victims. Robert, a 33 year old white male, offered the following example:
…just seeing somebody getting’hit over the head with it [the lock in a sock] and their eyes
are just bleeding and getting split open …people aren’t treating people like human beings.
They’re not civil.
Sonya, a 27 year old white female, also described seeing “lock fights,”and recalled one in
which the victim was not only hit over the head with the lock, but was then covered with
worms by the perpetrator of the violence to further terrorize the victim. Although Sonya
did not disclose where the perpetrator got access to the worms, she did specify they were
used because the victim had a phobia of worms. Thus, in this case the worms were
weaponized to provoke intense fear and likely humiliation, thereby symbolizing power
and control over the victim on the part of the perpetrator. Other items that were
weaponized were substances that could be heated to boiling temperatures and then thrown
onto skin to cause severe burns and more extensive injuries in a fight, particularly when
this was paired with the “lock in a sock”strategy outlined above. Connor, a 49 year old
Black male, explained:
He boiled some stuffin the microwave and threw it on a dude and beat him with a sock and
a lock. The sock got the lock inside of it and he beat him with that. So you could imagine if
I already melted your skin with this hot substance, now all of this mess [points to his face]
gonna come offevery time this lock smacks across it. So he had skin and blood all on the wall.
Honey, baby oil, and syrup were the most common examples of substances respondents
referenced that would be used to facilitate such acts of violence. Other weapons included
various types of sharp objects, often made of metal, that could be used to tear through the
body. Ryan, a 39 year old Black male, offered the following example:
A guy got hit with a bow knife and the meat [flesh] was hanging out of his face. He was
bleeding real bad, like, blood everywhere [emphasis added].
Meda, a 46 year old white female, discussed the day a woman was attacked with a lid from
a can of food. She explained:
Yeah, this girl got her face cut with a [tuna] can lid …she got her face cut up with the can lid
from her eye clear down to her chin. It was bad.
Meda went on to explain that after the incident, the prison no longer allowed canned
foods to be purchased from the commissary. Any formerly canned meats, such as tunafish,
were switched to pouches due to the nature of the violence that was inflicted with the tuna
can lid. Multiple respondents, including Dominic, a 37 year old white male, made
reference to a particular type of injury they observed being caused by metal objects,
“buck fifties.”Dominic explained:
VICTIMS & OFFENDERS 11
You’d get a slice from here [points to ear] to here [points to corner of mouth] ….it’s part of
a gang initiation. They try to open you all the way up so it [your skin] flaps, yeah. It’s called
a‘buck fifty’because you get one hundred and fifty stitches in and out”[of your mouth].
Other weaponized objects respondents referenced included canes, televisions, rocks,
paintbrushes, gym equipment, and lockers. Thus, items that have primary purposes
typically unrelated to violence were weaponized in the prisons and used to inflict severe
injuries. This serves as a reminder of the constant potential for violence in carceral
settings. Importantly, these accounts support prior work that has called attention to the
reliance on otherwise ordinary objects, such as pens and radios, as weapons for survival in
prisons (see Porter, 2019).
Witnessing multi-perpetrator assaults
Respondents also collectively described assaults involving one victim and multiple perpe-
trators. These cases, from the perspective of respondents, were often the most difficult to
describe because there was a general belief that such acts of violence were fundamentally
unfair to the victims, who had essentially zero chance of defending themselves. Robert,
a 33 year old white male, offers an example:
When it was violent it was really, really violent [emphasis added]. Five people are just
stomping out one person and his teeth are flying across the way. And you’re just like, ‘oh
man, I feel bad for the guy,’you know?
Sebastian, a 54 year old white male, offered another example:
About 7 or 8 black people beating on one white dude …they stomped him so bad that half
his head, a chunk of his skull, busted out onto the floor [emphasis added]. They beat him up
that bad [emphasis added].
Rikki, a 59 year old Black male, offered an example that he thought was especially
traumatic due to the age of the victim. He explained:
They knocked that old man out, out there on the yard. All them young boys jumped that one
dude, man. Ol’[old] dude [emphasis added] …it was bad, real bad. Prolly about 4, 5, 6, 7 [of
them]. It started with one guy and then of course when he [the victim] hit the ground they
gonna stomp him out. So it’s…4, 5, 6, 7 on one. They do that kinda stuffin there [prison].
While some respondents described these attacks without weapons, others offered examples
where the perpetrators of violence used weapons to further the attacks. Mark, a 54 year old
white male described the following:
One of them started getting really aggressive and physical with him and …hit him so hard he
knocked him out. And then they had his face ….you know the steel locker box things? They
actually picked one up and bounced it [dropped it] on him, you know. And the things gotta
weigh 40 or 50 pounds [emphasis added]. And I didn’t see him get up. They [staff] called
“medical emergency,”everything was locked down, and I had to go back to my rack [bed].
Uh, he’s bleeding all over the floor and, uh …that’s why I know they [the staff] react quickly
to blood. They took him out [of the cell block]. I didn’t see him ever again.
Dajon, a 25 year old Black male, offered another example:
12 M. A. NOVISKY AND R. L. PERALTA
I seen some guys get jumped. Worst I seen, man [emphasis added], they put him on life support.
They keep stomping on his head, like, 10 on one. They just kept stomping on a [metal] box on
somebody’s head. His head swell up real bad. It be horrible [emphasis added].
These accounts of witnessed physical violence offer a glimpse into the range of violence
respondents were secondarily exposed to during their periods of incarceration. This
violence was extreme not only because it often led to serious and life threatening injuries
that were no doubt traumatizing to witness. Such violence was also extreme in its cruelty,
given that physicality was often paired with weapons and multiple perpetrators to ensure
the violence was sufficiently vicious. From the standpoint of Social Learning Theory (SLT)
it is relevant to point out that respondents could easily explain how to create weapons
capable of lethal force out of otherwise ordinary objects (i.e., honey, socks), what locations
inside of the institutions were most removed from security cameras and the view of
correctional officers (i.e., the yard, certain hallways), and who was most likely to be
victimized (i.e., older prisoners, isolated prisoners). These are all factors relevant to the
facilitation of prison-based violence that are being learned. From the perspective of the
respondents in this research, incarcerated individuals are also learning to mimic violence
for survival much like wild animals. Mark, a 54 year old white male states:
You see …once one guy starts [attacking someone else], there’s this ‘pack mentality’that takes
over [emphasis added].
Such accounts should be considered in combination with prior work that has found that
in situations involving conflicts, prisoners are often sensitive to the presence of an
audience (Edgar et al., 2012). The pressures for outward displays of masculinity and
aggressively challenging any displays of disrespect that encourage violence against prison-
ers in front of prisoners (Edgar et al., 2012) may be particularly relevant to the data
presented here, since all acts described included one or more witnesses and, through the
lens of SLT, such situations also symbolize learning opportunities.
The fact that respondents’accounts of violence were often contextualized by negative
descriptive words (i.e., “horrible,”“bad”), as well as unpleasant emotions (i.e., sympathy, disgust,
contempt) also offers support that General Strain Theory (GST) may be a useful theoretical
framework for situating the implications of prison-based secondary violence exposure. This is
particularly the case given that respondents made specific mention of how exposure to such
circumstances created pressures for criminal coping, indicating that exposure to such violence
was not only perceived as strenuous, but could serve a trigger for antisocial adaptations (Agnew,
2001). For example, Sebastian, a 54 year old white male explained:
You are programmed. You become programmed to do what you technically know from the way
you were raised is wrong. You see what I’m saying? You’re forced [emphasis added]. You have no
choice. There is no such thing as ‘trying to stay out of trouble,’or ‘staying away from people,’
cause that’s all signs of weakness, you see? And you can’t let anybody see a sign of weakness,
because you have nothing but predators in there [prison]. That’s the term, predators.
Witnessing homicide
Despite the severity of the physical violence described above, it was not always clear if the
injuries described culminated in deaths. This was the case, in part, because after such acts
of violence, the victims were often either transferred to another prison, taken out for
VICTIMS & OFFENDERS 13
medical care, or placed in protective custody in the solitary confinement units. Those in
the general population were typically not informed by staffof the outcome, even when
they made attempts to ask. Yet, we can be confident that at least 30 percent of the sample
had witnessed the most extreme form of violence while they were incarcerated, as 9 of the
25 males provided accounts of times they had seen another prisoner kill someone. Jack,
a 45 year old white male, recounted the time he saw the murder of an older prisoner in his
70’s. The perpetrator had stolen a weapon the victim had made in an attempt to protect
himself. The perpetrator then used it to attack the victim after a verbal altercation
occurred between the two men earlier in the day. He explained:
The old man painted so he had one of his paint brushes sharpened …to stick [stab]
somebody. One dude took it from him [the paint brush], stabbed him in his temple and
then stabbed him in his neck. And then took a brick and beat his brains all throughout the
whole cell ….I see it, it’s embedded in my eyes [emphasis added] …afterwards the dude [the
man who committed the homicide] just sat down on the bed like this, [points to body from
head to toe] covered from head to foot in blood.
Something that often stood out about the accounts of homicide was what little needed to
transpire for a homicide to occur. David, a 54 year old Black male, recounted a time that
should have been celebratory and involved no actual aggression or conflict, but ended in
death. He explained:
One of the guys was doin’something close to life or something. For some reason, they
[the parole board] gave him parole. And he came on the dorm [cell block] and was like, ‘I
got parole!’And his boyfriend looked at him and clocked him out [punched him] and
took a razor and cut him for real, cut him to ribbons. This was down in the basement.
I’m talking about absolutely shredded him [emphasis added] …Iain’t never seen so much
blood.
An important detail about David’s example is that he was then instructed by prison staffto
clean up all of the blood from the attack. He added:
I mopped up blood all over the floor [emphasis added]. I mopped that blood for
an hour, hour and a half down there.
Other respondents reported having to clean up blood following similar acts of violence.
Louk, a 60 year old white male, recalled an incident where a prisoner killed a well-liked
staffmember at the prison. He was then forced to clean the bathroom where the homicide
occurred:
I had to clean up after a 100 pound, five foot tall, very kind school teacher got her throat cut.
And we found her little finger in the blood. He [the perpetrator] had cut her finger off, it was
in the blood. I used so much bleach in that bathroom …I just couldn’t look [emphasis added].
I just kept pouring the bleach in it [the blood], and pouring the bleach in it, and then I would
mop it.
These accounts highlight how the burdens of violence are placed not just on the direct
victims, but also on witnesses of violence. From the perspective of respondents, the
senseless nature of the violence was often difficult to contend with. Roger, a 57 year old
Black male described the following:
14 M. A. NOVISKY AND R. L. PERALTA
The one that really, really has always bothered me was …at the time you could smoke in the
prisons. And the guy ….he didn’t mean nothing behind it, he was smoking a cigarette, and he
dropped his cigarette …it bounced offthe floor and just …hit the corner of a guy’s shoe. And the
guy made a big issue about it, and he ended up killing him about that. And it was like, I couldn’t
believe it [emphasis added], you know? That something as harmless as that got him killed ….but
at the same time, in prison, your life is valued at nothing [emphasis added]. It’ssoeasyfor,you
know, somebody that don’thavenothin’to eat …you could tell him like, ‘I’ll give you fifty dollars
worth of commissary if you stick [stab] so and so and so and so.’And nine times out of ten? It’s
gonna happen, you know. It’s gonna happen. It’s gonna happen [emphasis added].
Michael, a 44 year old white male, described his experience in prison summarily as
“gladiator school”because of both the brutality of the violence in the institutions as well
as its frequent occurrence. He recalled one instance where a prisoner was stabbed in the
neck. The wound was so severe the victim bled out before he could receive medical
treatment. In another instance, he described seeing not the act of homicide itself, but
remnants of the violence after the fact. He stated:
Worst thing I saw was a guy named Feb getting murdered. And really, I didn’t see it, I just
saw the after effects. And what happened was, the sergeant refused to move him or his cellie.
And his cellie brought in a big chunk of rock and basically smashed his head in. I mean, it
was sort of like something you’d see on Friday the 13th …I just saw what it looked like in the
cell [after he was killed]. Like I said, it looked like a scene from a Friday the 13th murder scene
[emphasis added]. I mean, there was just like a pool of blood about a quarter of an inch deep
[shows depth with fingers] coating the whole floor.
Louk, a 60 year old white male offered a particularly graphic account of a time one of his
friends stabbed another prisoner to death:
A friend of mine, he went and stabbed a guy in the belly with a straight razor, cut him all the
way through and his intestines fell out on the range right in front of us. And he [the victim]
kept trying to stuff‘em [the intestines] back in. He [the perpetrator] was a white guy, he killed
a black guy. It was just a matter of minutes and he turned grey and was dead, fell on his face.
The graphic depictions of witnessed homicidal behavior appeared to be of significant
consequence for our respondents. The accounts were told in great detail, were often slowly
communicated (at times with hesitation), and were explained with exceptionally animated
facial expressions and exaggerated voice tones. When asked how witnessing such events
had impacted them, respondents generally responded by referencing strategies involving
avoidance (i.e., trying not to think about or talk about the events at all, substance use, and
adamantly stating they will “never go back there [to prison] again”).
Together, these factors suggest that the violent events witnessed were deeply embedded
in our respondents’consciousness and represented significant forms of strain not only
during their periods of incarceration, but also after release. This enhances our confidence
in the utility of General Strain Theory (GST) in particular as a theoretical framework for
advancing our understanding of prison-based violence and its consequences, especially as
related to violence in its most extreme forms. The findings presented here also build upon
other work that has found that witnessing the victimization of others in prison can
increase risks for maladaptive coping through substance use and other forms of antisocial
behavior (McGrath, Marcum, & Copes, 2012). The fact that returning citizens not only
witnessed homicide, but at times had to clean up the areas in which the violence took
VICTIMS & OFFENDERS 15
place, may be an especially overlooked form of strain inflicted upon the incarcerated that
requires further examination in the literature.
Mental health implications of witnessing prison violence
The accounts presented above highlight the range and severity of violence exposure that can
o
ccurinsideprisons,evenamongthosenotdirectly victimized by the violence. Yet, the data
capture another important theme: the mental health implications of witnessing violence in
prison. Seeing such acts of violence may have especially potent psychological consequences for
individuals given that those held in captivity have dismal opportunities to avoid exposure and
prisoners are often viewed as an unsympathetic population by the public. Respondents offered
accounts that detailed some of the psychological harms they experienced as a result of witnessing
violence while incarcerated. Collectively, and despite no longer being in prison, respondents
described problems with anxiety, hypersensitivity, depression, disliking sharing space with
others, and difficulties with emotion regulation. Lincoln, a 46 year old black male, stated:
I’m still like, alert, you know, mindful of my surroundings. And like, it [seeing violence]
kinda played a big role because I don’t like people standing behind me, I don’t like too many
people in my space.
Sebastian, a 54 year old white male, discussed his struggles with hypervigilance post-
incarceration, which he believes places him at risk for aggression. He states:
If I hear noises …like, if I hear a noise too quick? I’ll immediately get ready to strike, in a defensive,
violent mode, okay? Uh, I don’tknowifthat’s‘institutionalized,’I don’tknowifI’m‘programmed,’
but that’sthelifestyleIhadtolive[tostayaliveinprison],youseewhatI’msaying?
Louk, a 60 year old white male, disclosed how seeing acts of violence in prison caused him
to struggle with suicidality. Because those emotions are so difficult to process, today Louk
largely tries not to think about his experiences with violence in prison. He explains:
I’ve grown such a defense mechanism of denial. Because I would have hung myself a long
time ago. This is ….even talking about it with you ….I’m doing this because you’re on
faculty. If you were just a student doing a thesis or anything, I wouldn’t even bring this up …
I don’t like getting much into it.
The unpredictability of when the violence would start and end likely makes it especially
challenging for both primary and secondary victims to shield themselves from it. It is likely
that this contributed to the overall sense of fear about violence that respondents had, both while
incarcerated and following release. Jack, a 45 year old white male, offers the following account:
See, I’m trying to change my life and my thinking. But it [the violence] always pops up. I get
flashbacks about it …just how the violence is. In a split second you can be cool. And then the
next thing you know, there’s people getting stabbed or a fight breaks out over nothin’.
Some respondents, such as David, a 54 year old Black male, did explain generalized efforts they
made to stay as far away from the violence as possible. For David, the location he felt the most
safe in the prison was also where he was held the most captive, in his cell. David explained:
When people get to acting crazy [getting violent]? There’s only one place for me [emphasis
added]. And that’s called R-A-C-K, my rack [my bed]. I get on my rack, and I sit there.
Because I know that’s the safest place for me. I don’t want to be the incident …I don’t want
16 M. A. NOVISKY AND R. L. PERALTA
to be in nobody’s tear gas, hit with no nightstick, shanks, or nothing. When people get to
acting crazy, I got to my neutral spot: on my bed.
Such accounts are consistent with the work of O’Donnell and Edgar (1999), who found
that incarcerated persons in their sample tended to feel safer from violence in smaller
personal spaces, such as their cells, or in more heavily supervised and structured spaces,
such as the chapel, in comparison to more public and transient spaces such as the showers
and reception areas. This highlights the precarious position that David and others were in
during their periods of incarceration, as leaving the cell could lead to symptoms of anxiety.
Witnessing the types of violence described by respondents in this manuscript may be
particularly troublesome for those with preexisting mental health conditions. Robert, for
example, a 33 year old white male, referred to his time in prison as “traumatizing”and stated
the following:
I can feel it trigger. You hear a loud noise, or you can hear feet scuffling, ‘skeet, skeet, skeet,’
‘doom, doom, doom, ’[walking/pounding noises]. You can hear them, their bodies, going against
the wall and you know that they’re fighting. And itincreases theheart rate [taps quickly on chest 3
times] and puts you on high alert. You might get the shakes, you know. It definitely ….I don’t
think it [prison] made my PTSD worse, it just made the PTSD Ialready had trigger the symptoms.
It would trigger the symptoms and I would have to go somewhere. Like I said, people are
interested in seeing that [fights]. Like everyone’s looking up, even though they know drawing
attention to it could risk informing the CO. I would be the only person looking away or getting
ready to leave …Idon’t like to be around violence. Hearing it, looking at it, watching it, anything
like that, because anything violent, it automatically makes my think of my past experience of
violence and it gives me a feeling I don’twanttofeel.
The fact that respondents could describe the violence they witnessed with graphic detail provides
furtherevidenceofthelastingimpactssuchexposure is likely to have. The words respondents
chose to describe their incarceration experiences are also illuminating. Collectively, respondents
described their most recent periods of incarceration as “going through a nuclear war,”“ajungle
where only the strong survive,”“needing to go be ready to go to war constantly,”“nightmarish,”
and “gladiator school,”among others. Above all, such descriptions reflect feelings of fear and
anxiety, as well as extensive experiences with patterned physical violence in its most extreme
forms.
Discussion
“If the potential for violence is part of the expectations prisoners have of one another, and
these expectations are consistently fulfilled, then it is possible that inmates may become
resigned to violence”(Edgar et al., 2012, p. 85).
The United States is characterized by extraordinary rates of prison cycling (Clear & Frost, 2014;
Clear et al., 2003). From 2015 to 2016 alone, an estimated 457,100 persons returned to
communities on parole (Kaeble, 2018). If we hope to increase the likelihood that those returning
to communities stay in communities and avoid returns to prisons, it is critical to thoroughly
understand and document the nature of the prison environment and how experiences in prison
may impact outcomes related to recidivism, health, and perceptions of correctional system
legitimacy. This is particularly relevant as we move toward a “criminology of downsizing”
(Petersilia & Cullen, 2014, p. 42).
VICTIMS & OFFENDERS 17
The findings of this study provide additional evidence that prisons act as exposure
points for extreme forms of violence (see Western, 2018), including non-weaponized
assault, weaponized assault, multi-perpetrator assault, and homicide. Such normative
exposure to violence highlights the “ambient threat of victimization”that can characterize
the prison experience (Steiner & Meade, 2016). This is problematic not only because
correctional administrators have a responsibility to provide safe and secure environments
for correctional supervision, but because incarcerated persons already have dispropor-
tionate histories of trauma prior to coming to coming to prison. Thus, exposure to
traumatic events during incarceration, such as the ones detailed in this article, should
be considered especially meaningful mechanisms for the generation of “clusters of stres-
sors”(Pearlin, 1989, p. 247) and cumulative inequalities over the life course (Ferraro &
Shippee, 2009). Considering the established link between stress and health deterioration
(Pearlin, 1989; Shields & Slavich, 2017), as well as the documented association between
incarceration and poor health (see Massoglia & Pridemore, 2015 for a review), such
inequalities are particularly relevant to mental and physical health outcomes.
Beyond health implications, it is possible that experiences like the ones described by
respondents in this study carry risks for prison misconduct, difficulties with reentry, and
recidivism. Violence of this nature has the potential to undermine rehabilitation efforts, as
research has found that incarcerated persons who are exposed to more violent prison contexts
are at greater risk for mental health problems, rule violations, and violence (Johnson-Listwan
et al., 2010,2013; Steiner & Meade, 2016). If violent victimization is witnessed and perceived as
a typical component of the incarceration experience, Social Learning Theory (SLT) would
indicate that such acts of violence may result in imitation (Akers et al., 1979;Bandura,1971),
thereby increasing risks for misconduct in prison and violent crime outside of prison. We found
that our respondents learned about specific violence techniques and how to craft implements of
violence out of everyday non-lethal materials while in prison. We also found that respondents
understood these skills to be a part of a set of behaviors that were sometimes necessary to survive
prison. These findings support Porter’s(2019) work that found that prisoners will at times rely
on otherwise ordinary objects, such as radios, for weapons of survival, as well as Edgar et al.’s
(2012) work, which showed how incarcerated persons come to learn that proactive aggression
and violence perpetration are key components to survival in prison.
Respondents’secondary exposure to violence may also trigger feelings such as anger,
frustration, and anxiety, which, according to General Strain Theory (GST), can place burdens
on individuals’coping mechanisms and cognitions (Agnew, 1992). We found that witnessing
violence was a significant source of emotional and psychological strain for those we inter-
viewed. They recounted the duress and unsettling nature of the violent events that transpired
while incarcerated. They talked at length about how the memories of the violence lingered well
into their time outside of prison as disturbing reminders of the capacity all individuals have for
violence against others. In this context, criminal coping, in the form of prison misconduct and
recidivism, risks becoming more likely, especially if and when respondents’experiences with
secondary victimization are perceived as “unjust or high in magnitude,”are “associated with
low social control,”or “create some pressure or incentive to engage in criminal coping”
(Agnew, 2001, p. 326). Based on the descriptions respondents offered in this study, it seems
especially likely that prisoner exposure to secondary violence may be perceivedas unjust when
multi-perpetrator assaults are involved, when homicides are witnessed after little to no serious
18 M. A. NOVISKY AND R. L. PERALTA
conflict or provocation, and when respondents are impacted directly, either by being sprayed
with mace or being forced to clean up blood following an attack, for example.
Exposure to secondary violence in general may create pressure or incentives for
criminal coping if for no other reason than as a means of protection or survival, which
may be why multiple respondents described their incarceration experiences as “warlike.”
Through our interviews, we were able to see how both SLT and GST intertwine and
resonate with one another. SLT and GST describe and explain the human condition in
ways that form a vicious cycle of violence –but a cycle that promises a sense of survival,
though at the expense of others physical or emotional well-being. Future theory building
and survey development specific to secondary violence exposure, its psychological effects,
and its pathways to violence perpetration in prison settings is necessary.
Overall, the findings in this study build on literature that highlights the potentially
criminogenic nature of prisons (Colvin, 1992; Cullen, Jonson, & Nagin, 2011; Johnson-
Listwan et al., 2013; Nagin, Cullen, & Jonson, 2009). Violence of the nature described in
this study not only risks undermining the legitimacy of the correctional system and
creating barriers for rehabilitation, it also has the potential to negatively impact prison
staff. Steiner and Wooldredge (2017), for example, found that prisons with higher prisoner
assault rates also had higher rates of prisoner assaults on correctional officers. Such threats
to officer safety are likely to contribute to correctional officer burnout, increases in job
turnover rates, and decreases in job satisfaction rates. Thus, beyond the impacts on
incarcerated persons, future research should explore the perceptions and experiences of
correctional officers as they relate to secondary victimization.
The findings offered in this study have important implications for policy. We echo the
suggestions of others who have encouraged more training among correctional staffon under-
standing, recognizing, and responding to trauma as a core component of their job responsi-
bilities (DeHart & Iachini, 2019). Importantly, such training should include secondary violence
in its definitions of trauma exposure. Additionally, policy development focused on reducing the
frequency of prison violence is necessary. One possibility for prevention is for correctional
facilities to incorporate validated risk assessment instruments into existing prevention protocols.
Doing so would help identify those most at risk for victimization (see Labrecque, Scherer, &
McCafferty, 2018; Labrecque, Smith, & Wooldredge, 2014), thereby helping to ensure that
prevention policies are responsive. Prison administrators should also begin to critically evaluate
theroleofcorrectionalofficers and, wherever possible, incorporate mechanisms for peace-
keeping and conflict resolution (see Edgar et al., 2012).
Similar to other calls to expand the meaning of prison healthcare by developing more
services (see Semenza & Grosholz, 2019), we suggest that trauma informed services within
prisons should be expanded and meaningfully incorporated into correctional healthcare
programming. Those who work with returning citizens in the community, such as parole
officers, halfway house staff, and programming specialists, should anticipate and be prepared
to address as responsivity factors (see Hubbard & Pealer, 2009) any issues that may arise due
to exposure to extreme acts of violence, including, but not limited to, Post-Traumatic Stress
Disorder, distrust, and anxiety. Policy makers should also consider the results and body of
research discussed here when making sentencing decisions and make efforts to reduce the
overall frequency with which incarceration is relied upon as a sanction, particularly “when less
painful correctional alternatives exist”(Johnson-Listwan et al., 2013,p.164).
VICTIMS & OFFENDERS 19
While the contributions detailed above are important, the limitations of this study must
also be acknowledged. First, this study is comprised of a largely male sample. This prevents
any meaningful comparisons between males and females. In that regard, the results may
overly capture the experiences of formerly incarcerated males, especially because none of the
females interviewed witnessed any homicides. Thus, it is reasonable to question the extent to
which findings may have varied had more females participated in the research. We encourage
future researchers to make concerted efforts to oversample females and explore whether and
how secondary victimization experiences in prison may vary between males and females.
Additionally, while we can only document the lived experiences of individuals who lived in
prison, larger scale studies that include random sampling and longitudinal data on secondary
victimization experiences in carceral settings would help to expand the work we have started
here. Since this research focuses solely on the adult prison experience, it would also be
worthwhile to pursue research opportunities that document the extent of secondary violence
exposure among detained youth, as well as those incarcerated in jails.
Finally, although we were careful to select methodological choices that would reduce
any potential feelings of coercion among respondents to participate, including our choice
to partner with a community-based research site versus a state prison, it is possible that
perceptions of coercion among participants were not eliminated entirely. This is particu-
larly the case because staffat the Agency were the first point of contact about the study for
respondents. Thus, it could be argued that respondents may have felt coerced to partici-
pate out of fear for how they might be perceived by staffat the Agency had they declined.
However, we still had individuals who ultimately declined to participate (indicating they
felt free to do so) and we were always very careful during the informed consent process to
explain that participation was entirely voluntary and would not impact their status,
participation, or any services with the Agency. Nevertheless, we encourage future
researchers to think through further options for combating potential perceptions of
coercion among this vulnerable class of research subjects.
Irrespective of its limitations, the findings from this study enhance our understanding
of carceral violence exposure and offer important insights into the normative nature of
prison violence from the perspective of formerly incarcerated persons. We give voice to
returning citizens: we document the lived experiences of violence exposure engendered by
the prisons and the ramifications thereof. Based on the data analyzed here, we argue that it
is important to emphasize the relevance of witnessed violence in conceptualizations of
prison-based violence and trauma exposure. Given the growing need to identify the range
of factors that play a role in the reentry experience, this work is especially valuable, as
there are likely to be consequences for the extensive exposure to violence described here. It
is the responsibility of researchers to empirically investigate these potential consequences
and it is the obligation of correctional administrators to ensure that correctional super-
vision in institutions is therapeutic rather than criminogenic. As stated by Wolff(2018,
p. 312), “prison leadership and staffmust make prisons more civilized if they are to host
civil behavior.”This call is of critical importance moving forward.
Notes
1. Examples of elevated PTEs among those with an incarceration history were sexual victimiza-
tion, physical victimization, witnessing fights, and witnessing serious injuries.
20 M. A. NOVISKY AND R. L. PERALTA
2. We use the term “returning citizens”to describe individuals who have served their time in
prison and have returned to society in our efforts to reduce stigmatizing language.
3. While the minimum age was set at 18 years, persons under 18 are not incarcerated in state
prisons in the state this research was conducted.
4. This difference is important, as jails house those convicted of mostly misdemeanors as well as
those still awaiting trial and sentencing, making jails more transient. Conversely, prisons
house those convicted of mostly felonies and therefore typically oversee longer (and arguably
more stable) sentence lengths.
5. While the term “secondary violence exposure”is used in this analysis, “vicarious experiences
with crime”(see Edgar et al., 2012) would also be appropriate.
6. Though we did ask our respondents to disclose the length of their incarcerations, we did not
collect data on the crimes our respondents were convicted of. We made this decision because our
primary goal was to ensure respondents did not feel judged or stigmatized during these sensitive
interviews and the focus of our inquiry was the prison experience itself. Yet, roughly half of
respondents did proactively disclose the crimes they were convicted of during interviews and
these crimes included drug offenses, sex offenses, burglaries, homicides, felonious assaults, and
parole violations, indicating a range of convicting offenses were represented in the data.
7. All names in this manuscript have been changed to fictitious names to protect respondent
identities.
8. While respondents also disclosed witnessing or knowing about sexual violence, the accounts
offered were less common and less detailed, which is why the focus of this manuscript is on
highlighting exposure to acts of physical violence. However, this does not discount the
importance of increasing future efforts to document secondhand exposure to sexual violence.
The lack of detail among this sample could be a reflection of sexual violence perpetration
taking place in more “hidden”areas within prisons, while physical assaults often occurred in
common areas such as the living units and recreational yards.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Funding
This research was supported by a Cleveland State University Faculty Scholarship Initiative (FSI)
grant.
ORCID
Meghan A. Novisky http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4644-9148
Robert L. Peralta http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6843-5279
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