The unit of analysis for the study was the infraction report. All infraction reports were identified for rule violations that occurred in a 1-year period (June 1987 to May 1988) for one housing unit (approximately 500 men) of a medium-security prison in northern California. The type of account, the attribution of causality, and the plea were taken from the inmate's statement portion of the infraction report, as given at the hearing where the penalty was decided. The penalties assigned by the hearing officers were also obtained from the reports. Prior research has demonstrated the mitigating effect of participants' accounts on others' negative judgments of undesirable behavior. This study found, however, that some accounts given by inmates with the intention of mitigating observers' judgments of blame actually increased those judgments. This may be explained by the fact that hearing officers perceive inmates' efforts to mitigate blame for their behavior as just a continuation of a pattern of refusal to accept responsibility for unacceptable behavior. This explanation is supported by the finding that inmates who accepted responsibility for the incident at issue tended to receive lesser penalties than those who did not. 2 tables and 22 references