Since the concept of place management was first introduced to environmental criminology in 1994, much has been learned about its application and usefulness. Through the study of a wide variety of places, it is now recognized that how a place is managed can affect the type and amount of crime that occurs at that specific location. Madensen's (2007) recent work with bars in Cincinnati further enhanced our understanding of the place management concept by hypothesizing that effective place management could be a result of four operational elements: organization of the physical space, regulation of conduct, control of access, and acquisition of resources (ORCA). To date, the application of place management concepts as reflected in the theory has been limited to community-based settings and has not been applied to custodial or institutional settings such as jails. This study is intended to test the concepts of effective place management in a jail setting to determine whether or not the number of incidents of inmate misconduct and disorder can be reduced thereby. Using a mixed-method design, this study measured the impact place management interventions implemented in a county jail had on a number of outcome measures, including the number of written, major misconduct reports for both male and female inmates, and the perceptions of inmate behavior held by officers, supervisors, and administrators. An interrupted time series (ARIMA) analysis of written inmate misconduct reports was used to evaluate whether or not the implementation of place management interventions reduced the amount of reported inmate misconduct in both male and female housing units. Qualitative analysis of the themes presented during individual and focus group interviews was used to assess changes in perceptions of inmate behavior held by officers, supervisors, and administrators, and to enhance understanding of the factors that may be responsible for producing changes in behavior. The results provide evidence that the identified elements of effective place management have broader application than previously hypothesized. / Criminal Justice

The dramatic increase in the U.S. prison population has renewed scholarly interest in the prison experience. Researchers have built upon and extended classic theories of inmate behavior to better understand the mechanisms that lead to inmate violence and misbehavior. Yet, scholars still consider what happens to inmates inside of prison a “black box,” due to limited systematic assessments of the prison experience. This body of scholarship is also limited by its narrow focus on males, as theories of inmate behavior have been developed around male experiences and, in turn, ignore the possibility that gender may influence prison life. Feminist theory suggests that assessments of the prison experience necessitate a focus beyond a “gendered” analysis, to one that simultaneously takes in to account race and ethnicity. Theory indicates that the intersection of gender, race, and ethnicity influence the prison experience and the way in which prison staff react to behaviors of different inmate groups. Accordingly, the goal of this dissertation is to address these research gaps and to systematically examine female inmate behavior and official reactions to behavior. Specifically, this dissertation examines three domains of the prison experience. First, it examines gender and race/ethnicity-based variation in the trends and predictors of formal in-prison misconduct. Second, the dissertation explores gender and racial/ethnic differences in how prisons sanction inmate misconduct and focuses specifically on the use of disciplinary confinement, losses of gain time, and assignment to extra work duty. Third, the dissertation assesses how in-prison punishments influence future in-prison misconduct and examines whether there is gender and racial/ethnic variation in those effects. Towards this goal, this dissertation uses longitudinal data that come from the Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC), and include all inmates that entered Florida prisons between 2005 and 2011. The data are especially useful in the assessment of the female prison experience, because they include a large enough sample of female inmates of Black, White, and Hispanic background to allow for systematic empirical assessments, which are typically rare in the study of this type of population. This dissertation uses a number of different analytic techniques, including bivariate comparisons, life table analyses, multilevel logistic regression models, negative binomial regression, and multilevel survival analyses. The dissertation’s analyses identify several critical results that advance prison research, theory, and policy. First, the findings highlight that there are notable gender and racial/ethnic differences in official misconduct, which point to the possibility of behavioral differences or differential rule enforcement, or perhaps both. At the same time, this dissertation shows that prior incarceration and age are the strongest predictors of misconduct, violence, and order violations for Black, White, and Hispanic males and females. Second, this dissertation identifies disciplinary confinement as the most frequently used in-prison sanction across male and female inmates incarcerated in Florida prisons. Third, empirical assessments showed little to no deterrent effect of harsher in-prison punishments (e.g., disciplinary confinement). More broadly, the findings underscore a need for more nuanced assessments of the female prison experience, and one that can account better for officer decision making patterns. The dissertation concludes with an overview of the findings, and a discussion of theory, research, and policy implications.