The correctional melting pot: Race, ethnicity, citizenship, and prison violenceIntroductionTheoretical and empirical backgroundDeprivation, importation, and their integrationPrison-community fluidity and raceRace, ethnicity, and prison violenceResearch purposeMethodsSample and dataVariables and measurementAnalytical procedureFindingsDiscussion and conclusionAcknowledgementReferencesThe correctional melting pot: Race, ethnicity,citizenship, and prison violenceMark T. Berga, Matt DeLisib,⁎aDepartment of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Missouri-St. Louis, 839 Lucas Hall,St. Louis, Missouri 63121-4499, United StatesbDepartment of Sociology, Iowa State University, 203A East Hall, Ames, Iowa 50011-1070, United StatesAbstractThe United States prison population is becoming more diverse and comprised of increasingly more violent inmates. Althoughrace has been cited as a risk factor for inmate violence, most prior research had narrowly investigated White/Black differences ininmate misconduct. Using a sample of 1,005 inmates from the southwestern U.S., the current study explored racial, ethnic, andcitizenship correlates among male and female prisoners. Negative binomial regression models indicated that net of controls,Hispanics and Native Americans were the most violent male prisoners, while African Americans and Native Americans were themost violent female inmates. The current study was admittedly modest in scope; however, the findings were couched within abroader, imperative sociological framework that lamented the increasing interplay between communities and prison and the role ofprison as a social institution.© 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.IntroductionThe United States correctional population is viewedas a pressing societal problem with widespreadsociological and social imp lications. The most obviousconcern centers on the magnitude of America's inmatepopulation, especially when compared to the correc-tional populations of peer nations. At midyear 2003, themost recent point of data collection, there were nearly2.1 million people incarcerated in the United States.Nearly 1.4 million inmates were housed in state andfederal prisons and the remaining 691,301 defendantswere held in local jails (Harrison & Karberg, 2004 ). Theresult is an American imprisonment rate that has beenestimated between six and twelve times the rate of otherWestern countries (Garland, 2001a; Mauer, 1997; Tonry,1999). As the correctional population grows so too doesa literature that documents the increased place ofimprisonment in American society to such a degreethat punishment has become a veritable social institution(e.g., Downes, 2001; Garland, 2001b; Hagan &Dinovitzer, 1999; Irwin & Austin, 1997; Mauer, 2001;Pattillo, Weiman, & Western, 2004; Pe ttit & Western,2004; Uggen & Manza, 2002; Wacquant, 2001).Sheer correctional numbers are only a part of theproblem, however. Racial and ethnic minorities, specif-ically African Americans and Hispanics, have beenbearing and continue to bear the brunt of increasedincarceration. The numbers are unsettling. In 2003, themale imprisonment rate per 100,000 residents was 1,331.For White males, the rate was half that or 681 per 100,000.Among Black males, the rate was 4,834 per 100,000 andfor Hispanic males, 1,778 per 100,000. Similar disparityexists among women. Overall, the female imprisonmentrate was 119 per 100,000 residents in 2003. For WhiteJournal of Criminal Justice 34 (2006) 631 – 642⁎Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 515 294 8008; fax: +1 515 294 2303.E-mail address: [email protected] (M. DeLisi).0047-2352/$ - see front matter © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2006.09.016women, the rate was 75. For Black and Hispanic women,the rate was 352 and 148 per 100,000 respectively(Harrison & Karberg, 2004). According to a recentBureau of Justice Statistics report, the number ofHispanics who had ever been imprisoned increasedtenfold from 1974 to 2001. If current incarceration ratesremain unchanged, about one in three Black males, one insix Hispanic males, and one in seventeen White males areexpected to go to prison during their lifetime (Bonczar,2003). This is nothing short of calamitous given thecollateral consequences of imprisonment. For instance,Black children are nine times and Hispanic children threetimes more likely than White children to have a parent inprison (Mumola, 2000). According to Pettit and Western(2004, p. 164), “imprisonment now rivals or overshadowsthe frequency of military service and college graduationfor recent cohorts of African American men.”The enormity of the correctional population, itsgrowth, and the racial and ethnic disparities that itconveys are distressing. Another by-product of thecorrectional boom is also problematic, namely, thesizeable proportion of inmates who are violent criminaloffenders. Pa ralleling the expansion in the inmatepopulation, the number of inmates incarcerated for violentoffenses has also increased. Between 1995 and 2002, thenumber of violent offenders sentenced to state prisonaccounted for 64 percent of total state prison growthamong male inmates and 49 percent among femaleinmates (Harrison & Beck, 2003). During the same timeframe, federal prisons also experienced a 41 percentincrease in violent offenders and a 68 percent increase inthe number of inmates who were sentenced for weapons-related offenses. The influx of violent inmates has beenunevenly distributed across racial and ethnic groups. Forexample, from 1995 to 2001, the number of inmatesnewly imprisoned for violent offenses increased 82percent among Hispanics, 57 percent for Blacks, and 59percent for Whites (Harrison & Beck, 2003).In sum, the American correctional population is largeand growing, diverse and disproportionately constitutedby minority males, and inc reasingly comprised ofdefendants who were convicted of the most seriousforms of criminal violence. Does the racial and ethniccomposition of the correctional population influenceprison violence? Although a large literature has exploredthe relationships between race, ethnicity, and prisonviolence, the preponderance of this work has been limitedto White and Black inmates. Using a more heterogeneoussample of inmates that varied by race, ethnicity, andcitizenship, the current study sought to empiricallyexamine these correlates as they related to violentmisconduct occurring within prison.Theoretical and empirical backgroundDeprivation, importation, and