Rosevelt L. Noble

Noble shows how "black rage" grows out of inmate subculture and prison culture to increase violence in prisons.

Noble's thesis is that African-American inmates transport "black rage" into the prison subculture, which significantly affects prison violence rates. He finds previous studies superficial and raises the bar for future examinations by proposing a sensitive and taboo theory to explain the strong racial patterns observed in prison victimization. Noble's work supports the importation theory of the inmate subculture proposed by Irwin and Cressey. He builds on their theory by advocating for the inclusion of race and other cultural factors concerning the inmate and staff populations into predicative models. He concludes that prisons with greater racial disparities between the inmate and staff populations experience higher staff assault rates.