The Prison Experience

CHAPTER OUTLINE

Prison Society
Publication of Fishman’s Sex in Prison in 1934 marks the beginning of the scientific study of inmate subcultures.
Social scientists find them to be functioning communities.
They possess values, roles, language, and customs.
They have norms, traditions, and leadership structure.
Some stay to themselves, others form clicks, while others become politicians of convict society.
Group membership provides protection and identity.
Norms and Values
The inmate code: norms and values developed within the prison social system help to define the convict’s image of the model prisoner; prison is an ultra masculine world.
Primary rules are “do your own time” and “don’t inform on another convict.”
Prisonization: how the “fish,” the newcomer, learns the norms and values of prison society.
Prison subculture roles most frequently described: “right guy”/”real man” upholds prisoner values and interest; “square john” has a noncriminal self-image; “punk” is a passive homosexual; “rat” is an inmate who squeals to the authorities.
Convict society has divided along racial and ethnic lines and is more a reflection of American society; many prisons are marked by racially motivated violence, organizations based on race and voluntary segregation by inmates by race whenever possible.
No single overriding inmate code exists.
A majority of inmates hold views on law and justice similar to those held by the general public.
Prison Subculture: Deprivation or Imported?
Sykes argues that the subculture arises within the prison in response to the pains and deprivations of incarceration. These include deprivation of
Liberty
Autonomy
Security
Goods and services
Heterosexual relationships
An alternative theory holds that the values of the inmate community are brought in from outside the walls: Irwin and Cressey; Zamble and Propino.
One approach argues there are three subcultures: convict, thief, and straight.
Convergence of convict and thief subcultures produces prison culture.
Another perspective holds that inmate behavior results from how inmates cope with and adapt to the prison environment.
Adaptive Roles: Most male inmates use one of four basic role orientations to adapt to prison.
Doing Time: men “doing time” view their prison term as a brief inevitable break in the criminal career, a cost of doing business.
Gleaning: these inmates take advantage of prison programs to better themselves and improve their minds and prospects for success after release.
Jailing: the choice of those who cut themselves off from the outside and try to construct a life within the prison.
Disorganized Criminal: this describes inmates who are unable to develop any of the other 3 role orientations; these inmates are often of low intelligence or afflicted with disabilities; have difficulty functioning within prison society; are human putt to be manipulated by others.

The Prison Economy
In prison, as in the outside world, individuals desire goods and services but in prison they are deprived of virtually everything.
The number of items an inmate can have varies from state to state.
The prison “store” vs. the informal underground economy.
Inmates can purchase limited numbers of things from the store.
Money deposited by family members or earned by prison jobs is kept and used at the store.
Fleisher found an inmate running a “store” in most every cell block in the US penitentiary at Lompoc.
Kalinich found the prison economy works on supply and demand just as it does outside.
Because money is prohibited, it is a barter economy.
The most important commodity is cigarettes. It is the medium of exchange or the currency.
In prisons that have become non-smoking, cans of tuna have emerged as a replacement.
Economic transactions may lead to violence.

Violence in Prison
Prisons offer the perfect recipe for violence.
Each year 34,000 inmates are attacked, with 51 dead in 2001.
Violence and Inmate Characteristics
Age: young males between 16 and 24, both inside and outside prison, are more prone to violence than their elders.
The young not only have greater physical strength but also lack the commitments to career and family that tend to restrict antisocial behavior.
Machismo, male honor, also forces those who are insulted to retaliate.
Attitudes: one sociological theory advanced to explain crime is that there is a subculture of violence among certain socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic groups.
Race: has become a major divisive factor in today’s prisons, reflecting tensions in the larger society.
A perfect recipe for violence: a thousand young men, some with histories of violent behavior, confined in ramped quarters, U.S. prisons.
Prisoner-Prisoner Violence: Most violence in prison is inmate to inmate.
Prison Gangs: “security threat groups” now linked to acts of violence in most prisons; gangs make it difficult for wardens to control their prisons; they make certain prisons more dangerous than any American neighborhoods; they are organized primarily to control an institution’s drug, gambling, loan sharking, prostitution, extortion, and debt collection rackets; they also protect their members and instill sense of macho camaraderie.
Protective Custody: for many victims of prison violence this is the only way to escape further abuse; they are let out of the cell only briefly and their reputations follow them through the grapevine.
Called special management inmates.
Have no chance of going back to the general population.
Will be viewed as a snitch or a “punk” to be preyed upon.
Prisoner-Officer Violence
Violence against officers typically occurs in specific situations and against certain individuals, for instance, breaking up a fight or moving a prisoner to segregation, situations they know are dangerous;
Their greatest fear is unexpected attacks;
Authority of an officer may be greatly reduced after a prisoner assault, especially if the response was less than forceful.
Officers need to be constantly watchful against attacks and this adds stress.
Officer-Prisoner Violence: unauthorized physical violence by officers against inmates is a fact of life in many institutions.
How do we tell when force is legitimate? Definitions are vague.
Some institutions use “good squads” to maintain order.
The worst case in recent memory is that at the California State Prison at Corcoran where between 1989 and 1995 43 inmates were wounded and 7 killed by guards using assault rifles.
Guards at Corcoran even instigated fights between rival gangs.
Supervisors rarely view officer-inmate confrontations.
Americans were shocked by the April 2004 disclosure of Abu Ghraib in Iraq.
Wardens feel they must support their officers.
Decreasing Prison Violence – five factors contribute to prison violence:
Inadequate supervision by staff
Architectural design that promotes victimization
Easy availability of deadly weapons
Housing of violence-prone prisoners near defenseless people
A high level of tension produced by close quarters
The Effect of Architecture and Size: this is thought to influence the amount of violence in an institution; the “new generation” prison is designed to limit these opportunities and prevent violence.
Many prisons have places where inmates can avoid supervision.
The “new jail” design is intended to alleviate this problem.
Size of prisons permit inmates to hide weapons and some inmates may fall through the cracks.
Relationship between overcrowding and prison violence is unclear.
The Role of Management: when administrators run a tight ship, security measures prevent sexual attacks in dark corners, the making of “shivs” and “shanks” in the metal shop and open conflict among inmate groups. Measures suggested
Improve classification
Create opportunities for fearful inmates to seek assistance
Increase size of custody force
Redesign facilities
Install grievance mechanisms or ombudsperson
Augment a reward system to reduce pains of incarceration.
Employ unit management