Karen Lahm is using a grant College of Liberal Arts grant to examine inmate-on-inmate assaults and inmate-on-staff assaults at the Ohio Reformatory for Women from 2007-2012. The data comes from official institutional conduct reports as reported by prison staff and officials. There are a little over 500 of these reports to analyze: 300 inmate-on-inmate and a little over 200 inmate-on-staff. These assaults can be physical, sexual, or an issue of harassment. The data collected from these reports includes information on the inmate offenders and victims (both inmates and staff). Some of the key variables available are age, race, time served, type of crime, sentence length, mental health issue, prior criminal history, education, job status, gang affiliation, sanction imposed, amongst other measures. Dr. Lahm hopes to write several manuscripts from these data. She has also collected this same information via self-report surveys from inmates, so data from official documents add a little different perspective of this area of study.
