The implications of sentence length for inmate adjustment to prison life

• Sentence length influences inmate behavior.
• The association with misconduct appears to be non-linear.
• The effect is less salient for younger and first time inmates.

PurposePrison scholarship suggests that the structural and cultural environment of prison and dimensions individuals “import” with them into prison have salient implications for inmate adjustment to incarceration. Theoretical and empirical analyses of inmate adjustment to prison life, however, have paid limited attention to sentencing characteristics like prison sentence length. This paper presents theoretical arguments that suggest sentence length likely influences inmate adjustment, and proposes that mixed effects in prior studies may be attributed to analyses that do not account for nonlinearities and conditional effects.MethodsWe use data on 35,582 convicted felony offenders admitted to Florida state prisons, and estimate a series of regression models to assess the influence of sentence length on inmate adjustment.ResultsAnalyses indicate that sentence length influences inmate behavior, that its association with misconduct may take on an inverted “U-shape,” and that its effect is less salient for younger inmates and inmates incarcerated for the first time.ConclusionResults extend theoretical discussions of inmate adjustment, and underscore the need to more systematically test and incorporate court sentencing experiences and outcomes when examining patterns of inmate misbehavior in prison.