Interventions to decrease illegal gun carrying should target young men in medical and mental health settings who experience or witness gun violence and those living in communities with high rates of gun violence.

A number of scholars, civil, and human rights activists have expressed concern about the negative impact restrictive housing may have on the physical and mental well-being of inmates. Rigorous, theoretically informed outcome evaluations, however, are virtually nonexistent. Guided by theory and existing empirical evidence, this study explores the future behavioral and mental health outcomes associated with completing an alternative approach to restrictive housing in the Arizona Department of Corrections. To explore program outcomes, we use paired-sample t tests to determine whether post-program behavior is significantly different from preprogram behavior. In addition, we use cross tabulations and independent samples t tests to identify relationships between individual-level inmate and program characteristics and program outcomes. Results from this study suggest that a more therapeutic restrictive status housing program has the potential to improve the future behavior of program graduates; however, future research is needed to build upon these findings.

Prior research documents race and ethnicity as central to how individuals navigate the social and physical space of prisons. Racial segregation persists as a feature of prison life, and in navigating this racialized structure, racial groups construct and enforce a set of racialized norms to govern behavior (i.e., the “racial code”) that reinforce and reify prison racial politics. These processes, however, have remained largely descriptive in nature. Using data from a sample of incarcerated men in Arizona prisons ( N = 251), this article extends prior work by operationalizing the concept of the racial code, assessing its dimensionality, distinguishing it from the prison code, and differentiating how features of prison social organization influence racial code adherence and mobilization. Results suggest that the racial code is distinct from the prison code and that racial differences exist in the extent of adhering to versus mobilizing the racial code, net of gang status.

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