Model of prison riots

Barbara Pabjan and Andrzej Pękalski

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2007, vol. 375, issue 1, 307-316

Abstract: We present a model of a prison with two types of inmates. One (recidivists) is a better organized and has more influence on the formation of opinions, whereas the second one is more susceptible to the influence of internal and external pressure. We study, via computer simulations, the interplay between well-organized minority and the rest and how the final decision, like e.g. starting a riot, depends on such factors as: fraction of recidivists, their initial support of the riot and possibility of contacts among cells. We find that, as expected, the riot is more likely to start if there is more recidivists favoring it at the beginning. The influence of external factors (media) turned out to have a larger impact on the second group of prisoners. Contrary to a common practice, we show that in order to prevent riots it might be better not to block the inter-cell contacts.

Keywords: Monte Carlo simulations; Prison riots; Social modelling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:375:y:2007:i:1:p:307-316

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2006.08.069

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