A prison riot is an act of concerted defiance or disorder by a group of prisoners against the prison administrators, prison officers, or other groups of prisoners.
Prison riots have not been the subject of many academic studies or research inquiries. The analyses that do exist tend to emphasize a connection between prison conditions (such as prison overcrowding) and riots, or discuss the dynamics of the modern prison riot. In addition, a large proportion of academic studies concentrate on specific cases of prison riots. Other recent research analyzes and examines prison strikes and reports of contention with inmate workers.