Violence Is Correlated With Interpersonal Interference, but Not Social Overload: Prison Crowding Revisited

Objective: Although crowding would reasonably increase interpersonal hostility and violence, supporting empirical evidence is scarce and inconsistent. Most prison crowding literature focuses on human deprivation based on occupancy rates, the implications of which are difficult to interpret. Conversely, urban crowding literature postulates that crowding is related to frustration by interpersonal interference (spatial density). Crowding was also connected to a lack of privacy and overwhelming social load, referring to population size (social density). This study contrasts the interpersonal interference and social load models by simultaneously testing new theory-based measures of each. Method: Mixed-effects regression between reported prison violence and spatial and social density was conducted with data from all eligible Israeli prisons collected spanning 4 years, using facility and unit attributes as control variables. Spatial and social density were measured for each unit according to daily routine and occupancy. Spatial density was measured inside and outside the cell, and social density was related to both cell and unit. Results: Spatial density inside and outside the cell significantly correlates with violence rate. All hypotheses testing social density were nonsignificant. Conclusions: Violence in extreme social conditions is affected by space-based goal interference rather than social load or lack of privacy. Results suggest letting inmates outside the cells as a means to reduce violence.