Violent and Nonviolent Misconduct Among Female Inmates: An Exploration of Competing Theories

Extant literature on prison misconduct focuses primarily on male inmates or pooled samples of male and female inmates. Moreover, this research typically combines several types of misconduct into one global measure. To add to the literature, the current study gathered self-report data from over 300 female inmates to explore the impact of variables from three different theoretical perspectives upon four types of misconduct (i.e., physical assaults, nonviolent sexual activity, drug/alcohol, and property). Results show that importation and social control variables predict all types of misconduct, whereas deprivation variables provided some modest support for sexual misconduct and property misconduct.