Do Inmate Survey Data Reflect Prison Conditions? Using Surveys to Assess Prison Conditions of Confinement

This study examines whether survey data collected from inmates can be used to create group-level measures of prison conditions. Inmates often carry a stigma that they are never to be trusted. A subset of a national survey of inmates was used to examine how inmates incarcerated in prisons operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons answered questions about safety, noise, and job assignments at their prisons. In particular, this report demonstrates that inmate answers to the questions vary in a systematic fashion that lends credence to using survey data from inmates to obtain information about the prisons in which they are incarcerated. However, proper techniques for using survey data have not been practiced in existing evaluation studies comparing public and private prisons.