Much of the previous research on the mental health outcomes of inmates has been implicitly organized by either an importation or deprivation theoretical approach. These approaches attribute the mental health outcomes of inmates to either life-experience factors imported into the prison (importation model) or to factors present within the prison environment (deprivation model). Contemporary research has called for an integrated theoretical approach that uses both models. However, much of the research conducted using an integrated approach has only focused on single institutions. To address the gap in the literature, this thesis uses national data on state inmates in conjunction with national data on 232 state prisons to examine how both individual experiences and the conditions of the prison impact mental health outcomes. Results indicate that both inmate characteristics and prison characteristics affect inmate mental health. Thus, research that only makes use of one theoretical model may yield incomplete empirical results. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. Suggestions for future research on the topic of inmate mental health are proposed.