Survey of California prison inmates, 1976

This survey of inmates in five California prisons was conducted by the Rand Corporation with a grant from the National Institute of Justice. Researchers distributed an anonymous self-administered questionnaire to groups of 10-20 inmates at a time. Using the self-report technique, the survey obtained detailed information about the crimes committed by these prisoners prior to their incarceration. Variables were calculated to examine the characteristics of repeatedly arrested or convicted offenders (recidivists) as well as offenders reporting the greatest number of serious crimes (habitual criminals). The variables include crimes committed leading to incarceration, rates of criminal activity, and social-psychological scales for analyzing motivations to commit crimes. The collection contains three files: the survey data, the documentation provided by the Rand Corporation, and frequency counts for the variables in the study.