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Capital Offenders in Texas Prisons: Rates, Correlates, and an Actuarial Analysis of Violent Misconduct

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Law and Human Behavior

Abstract

This study analyzed the records of 136 recently incarcerated capital murder offenders in the initial phase (M = 2.37 years, range = 6–40 months) of their life sentences in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Prevalence rates of institutional violence were inversely related to severity: potentially violent misconduct (36.8%), assaultive violations (14%), serious assaults (5.1%), and homicides (0%). Consistent with prior studies, factors correlated with assaultive misconduct included age (inversely), prior prison confinement, and concurrent robbery or burglary in the capital offense. A simplified Burgess scale entitled the Risk Assessment Scale for Prison – Capital (RASP-Cap) was moderately successful in identifying varying levels of improbability of committing violence-related misconduct however defined (AUC = .715–.766).

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Notes

  1. At year-end 2006, New Mexico was alone among jurisdictions with the death penalty that did not provide for an alternative option of life-without-parole sentencing in capital cases.

  2. Based on officially-reported serious assaults.

  3. An alternative view of the risk posed by capital offenders, based on retrospective review of the disciplinary records of death row inmates, was advanced by Delisi and Munoz (2003). However, major methodological flaws in the study were subsequently identified by Cunningham, Sorensen, and Reidy (2004), and the findings were withdrawn (Delisi & Munoz, 2004).

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for invaluable assistance in making available the data for this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. 417 Oak Bend, Suite 260, Lewisville, Texas, 75067, USA

    Mark Douglas Cunningham

  2. Prairie View A&M University, Prairie View, Texas, USA

    Jon R. Sorensen

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  1. Mark Douglas Cunningham
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Correspondence to Mark Douglas Cunningham.

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Cunningham, M.D., Sorensen, J.R. Capital Offenders in Texas Prisons: Rates, Correlates, and an Actuarial Analysis of Violent Misconduct. Law Hum Behav 31, 553–571 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-006-9079-z

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