The journal article I found this week that relates to my research topic is titled “Gender and Violence Risk Assessment in Prison” written by Janet Warren, James Wellbeloved-Stone, Park Dietz, and Sara Millspaugh. The study examines “violence perpetuated during incarceration by female and male inmates”. They looked into 3 types of violence: threatened, physical, and sexual. They measured these types of violence in 2 ways: inmate self-report and formal institutional fractions. This study also seeks to assess the risk of prison violence for future references and either prevent it from happening or reduce the occurrence of it. This is especially true in the case of sexual assault in prisons in an effort to prevent, detect, and respond to prison rape. The study design  examines the effect of gender on violence risk assessments. They researched the perpetration of violence by male and female inmates at low-, medium, and high security prisons across 2 states in the United States. The study participants were collected through a random sample of male and female prisoners. The inmates who were interested in participating in the research were provided with an explanation of the study and asked to sign consent forms. After this, the investigators interviewed the selected inmates. These interviews took about 3.5 hours each. The other data that the investigators collected came from either self reported physical fights by the inmates themselves, or through surveys/ questionnaires that asked about sexual violence. They used statistical analysis and input it in a chart to analyze the data. However, race was not taken into account when they collected this data. I think the research was conducted well, however it would have been interesting and possibly more enlightening to intersect race and gender in the study.

Warren, J. I., Wellbeloved-Stone, J. M., Dietz, P. E., & Millspaugh, S. B. (2017, November 27). Gender and Violence Risk Assessment in Prisons. Psychological Services. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ser0000217