Interpersonal relationships among inmates and prison violence

The present study explored the benefits of having a friend (i.e., an inmate who helped make another inmate a better person) in prison for males and females. Additional qualitative and quantitative analyses explored gender differences in terms of the frequency with which male and female inmates reported having violent physical encounters in prison, gender differences in inmates' reasons for fighting physically, and gender differences between inmates who reported having a close friend and their likelihood of engaging in prison violence. Incarcerated men and women provided similar descriptions of quality friendship; however, men fought more frequently and for different reasons than women did.