“Gladiator School: Returning Citizens’ Experiences with Secondary Violence Exposure in Prison”

ABSTRACT

Prison-based violence exposure is a critical area of study, yet the range of secondary (witnessed) violence experiences among incarcerated persons lacks comprehensive development in the literature. Drawing on qualitative data from 30 interviews with previously incarcerated men and women, we examine the extent of secondary violence exposure faced by these individuals. We find that secondary violence was frequently experienced in prison and often took the form of witnessing non-weaponized assaults, weaponized assaults, multi-perpetrator assaults, and homicide. We document the scope and severity of this violence and underscore the importance of including witnessed victimization in future prison-based violence research and interventions.

KEYWORDS:

• Prison experience
• violence
• victimization
• prisons
• trauma

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Examples of elevated PTEs among those with an incarceration history were sexual victimization, physical victimization, witnessing fights, and witnessing serious injuries.

2. We use the term “returning citizens” to describe individuals who have served their time in prison and have returned to society in our efforts to reduce stigmatizing language.

3. While the minimum age was set at 18 years, persons under 18 are not incarcerated in state prisons in the state this research was conducted.

4. This difference is important, as jails house those convicted of mostly misdemeanors as well as those still awaiting trial and sentencing, making jails more transient. Conversely, prisons house those convicted of mostly felonies and therefore typically oversee longer (and arguably more stable) sentence lengths.

5. While the term “secondary violence exposure” is used in this analysis, “vicarious experiences with crime” (see Edgar et al., 2012) would also be appropriate.

6. Though we did ask our respondents to disclose the length of their incarcerations, we did not collect data on the crimes our respondents were convicted of. We made this decision because our primary goal was to ensure respondents did not feel judged or stigmatized during these sensitive interviews and the focus of our inquiry was the prison experience itself. Yet, roughly half of respondents did proactively disclose the crimes they were convicted of during interviews and these crimes included drug offenses, sex offenses, burglaries, homicides, felonious assaults, and parole violations, indicating a range of convicting offenses were represented in the data.

7. All names in this manuscript have been changed to fictitious names to protect respondent identities.

8. While respondents also disclosed witnessing or knowing about sexual violence, the accounts offered were less common and less detailed, which is why the focus of this manuscript is on highlighting exposure to acts of physical violence. However, this does not discount the importance of increasing future efforts to document secondhand exposure to sexual violence. The lack of detail among this sample could be a reflection of sexual violence perpetration taking place in more “hidden” areas within prisons, while physical assaults often occurred in common areas such as the living units and recreational yards.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by a Cleveland State University Faculty Scholarship Initiative (FSI) grant.