The United States incarcerates around 2 million people. Government agencies define corrections settings as places where incarcerated individuals are under the care and custody of state and federal agencies. People in corrections can be simply detained, awaiting trial and innocent, or found guilty and sentenced. Incarcerated people often do not receive adequate care in custody and are more prone to experiencing violence than people outside of prisons and jails. This brief summarizes the prevalence of physical violence against incarcerated people in corrections, its risks and consequences, ways to prevent it and intervene, and considerations for future research and practice.

What We Found

Based on empirical research, this brief provides the following key takeaways:

• Rates of physical violence in corrections settings are higher than those in community settings.
• Similar to violence in community settings, race and ethnicity, gender, age, violent histories, mental health challenges, and disabilities can be risk factors for experiencing and causing physical violence in corrections.
• Physical violence in corrections can lead to bodily harm, emotional distress, ongoing threats to safety, and death.
• There are evidence-backed ways that corrections staff, community partners, funders, and researchers can prevent and intervene in physical violence in prisons and jails.
• Current gaps in understanding physical violence include a lack of research on short-term and other detention settings; a lack of currently and formerly incarcerated people’s perceptions on how to increase safety in research; a lack of national policies that address physical violence; and a lack of research on public health approaches comparable with community violence intervention to curb violence in prisons.

How We Did It

We reviewed empirical literature and practices on physical violence to support the findings and recommendations in this brief. We began by searching for physical violence in prisons’ prevalence, risks, consequences, and interventions using Google Scholar and then used initial hits to find further sources cited in the articles. We conducted a content analysis of each source in this brief to produce findings and inform our takeaways and recommendations.

This brief is part of a larger research agenda for the Prison Research and Innovation Initiative, an effort to build evidence and spur innovation to make prisons more humane, safe, and rehabilitative environments for the people who are confined and work in them.