Disciplinary behavior while in prison. There is no interaction with prisoners.

The researcher's and the IRB chair that the study is exempt from IRB review is wrong.

Explanation:

IRB is an acronym that stand for Institutional review board. The Institutional review board is responsible for reviewing how researches are been conducted by researchers. Depending on how ethical your research is, after the review you might get your research to be full, expedited, and/or exempted.

In order to be able to deal with this kind of question, we must be able to know what 45 CFR 46 is, that is the code for the categories of exempt Human Subjects researches.

According to 45 CFR 46.101 , when a research is been conducted in correction centres such as the prisons, one can not exempt it.

(Please not that the Institutional review board, IRB is also known as the independent ethics committee).