Abstract
At the beginning of the new millennium, prisons remain overcrowded in California, and the operational costs to keep a prison safe for both correctional officers and inmates are often overlooked in discussions about how safety can be compromised when prison beds are filled beyond their original design and capacity. Previous research suggests that overcrowding in prisons increases violence against correctional staff. Overcrowding in prisons increase violence against correctional staff as well as among inmates. It can be inferred that staff assaults and batteries and inmate-on-inmate assaults and batteries happen more frequently in overcrowded prisons because there is a shortage of staffing in prisons. This study uses data on 14 California state prisons from 2018 and 2022. Assaults and batteries were analyzed with on ground inmates in prisons. While gathering information for this thesis, this researcher became aware of inmate on officer and inmate on inmate assaults. Few prisons had low numbers of assaults and some of them have more assaults than initially anticipated. As a result, this researcher focused on the number of officers assigned to California prisons and the number of inmates in prisons being housed where these officers are employed. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the relationship between overcrowding, assaults, and batteries on officers and inmates. Most prisons had more inmates housed than their initially designed capacity level and housed different levels (level of severity of the offense committed) of inmates in a prison.
The findings in this research reveal that populations in 2018 and 2022 that exceed the original design limitations in 14 California state prisons are associated with increased violence inside these prisons. Overcrowding affects inmates and correctional staff at the same level, as both are in constant contact with violent offenders.