Situational and institutional conditions of prison violence: Incident-level evidence from a Finnish high-security prison

Prison violence remains a persistent challenge for prison systems internationally and reflects not only individual conflicts but also broader institutional and situational conditions within prisons. While international research has extensively examined the causes of prison violence, empirical incident-level analyses remain limited in many national contexts, including Finland. This study examines violent and threatening incidents recorded in Riihimäki Prison using administrative registry data. The analysis focuses on the distribution, targets and situational conditions of violent incidents within the prison environment. The findings indicate that prison violence is not randomly distributed but tends to concentrate in specific institutional settings and physical locations. The results highlight the importance of institutional practices, supervision and situational conditions in the occurrence and distribution of prison violence. By providing incident-level evidence from a Finnish high-security prison, the study contributes to the international literature on prison violence by illustrating how institutional routines and situational conditions are associated with the concentration of violent incidents, offering insights relevant to prison security and violence prevention.