Rather, a small segment of the inmate population is disproportionately represented in official records of disciplinary activity. In this research, factors associated with differential levels of involvement in prison disciplinary infractions were examined. The findings indicate that the inmate's age at commitment, history of drug use, current offense (particularly homicide/nonhomicide categories), and the type of sentence that the inmate served were significantly related to high-rate infraction status. For one subgroup of the population, race was also significantly related to infraction status. However, these variables are not sufficiently predictive of institutional misconduct to justify their use as classification factors. The implications of the findings for the study of social control mechanisms in prisons are discussed. (Publisher abstract)