Causes of Prison Riots: Understanding the “Explosive Decade” of 1970-1980

American prisons are relatively calm, but the ten years between 1970 and 1980 have been called the “explosive decade” of prison riots. Researchers have suggested a variety of causes for prison riots. Among them are these:

• An insensitive prison administration that neglects inmates’ demands.
  • Calls for “fairness” in disciplinary hearings, better food, more recreational opportunities, and the lack may lead to riots when ignored.
• The lifestyles most inmates are familiar with on the streets.
  • It should be no surprise that prisoners use organized violence when many of them are violent people.
• Dehumanizing prison conditions.
  • Overcrowded facilities, the lack of opportunity for individual expression, and other aspects of total institutions culminate in explosive situations, including riots.
• A desire to regulate inmate society and redistribute power balance among inmate groups.
  • Riots provide the opportunity to cleanse the prison population of informers and rats and resolve struggles among power brokers and ethnic groups.
• “Power vacuums” are created by changes in prison administration, the transfer of influential inmates, or court-ordered injunctions that significantly alter the institution’s informal social control mechanisms.

Recommended Reading

• Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy
• The World’s Worst Prisons: Inside Stories from the most Dangerous Jails on Earth
• The Devil’s Butcher Shop: The New Mexico Prison Uprising