Institutional Aggression In The Context Of Prisons

What is institutional aggression?

Aggression or violent behaviour that takes place within the social context of a prison or other formal organised setting.

What is a dispositional explanation?

An explanation of behaviour that highlights the importance of the individual’s personality.

What does Irwin and Cressey’s importation model argue about prisons?

That they are not completely isolated from everyday life outside in the ‘real world‘.

According to Irwin and Cressey, what do prison inmates coming from the outside world do?

They bring with them (import) a subculture typical or criminality. This includes beliefs, norms, attitudes and a history of learning experiences as well as other personal characteristics such as gender and ethnicity.

What is this dispositional (importation) model based on?

Individual nature, such as inherited temperament, and also nurture, like social environment.

What does the willingness of inmates to use violence inside prison to settle disputes reflect?

Their lives before they were imprisoned.

How do Thomas and McManimon describe institutional aggression?

‘…people who prey on others on the streets also prey on others in the prison‘/

What do inmates import such behaviours and characteristics that influence?

Their use of aggression to establish power, status, influence and access to resoureces.

Therefore, according to the importation model, what is aggression the product of?

Individual characteristics (disposition) of inmates and not of the prison environment.

What did DeLisi et al. study?

A group of juvenile offenders in Californian institutions who had negative backgrounds (e.g. childhood trauma, anger, histories of substance abuse and violent behaviour). These individuals were importing these characteristics (and the resulting dispositions) into prison. They were compared with a control group of inmates who did not have these negative features.

What did DeLisi et al. find?

The ‘negative‘ inmates were more likely to engage in suicidal activity, sexual misconduct and acts of physical aggression.

Where does Clemmer’s deprivation model place the cause of institutional aggression within?

The prison environment itself, a situational explanation.

In the deprivation model, what are harsh prison conditions?

Stressful for inmates, who cope by resorting to aggressive and violent behaviour.

What do harsh prison conditions include?

Psychological factors, like being deprived of freedom and sexual intimacy, as well as physical factors, like being deprived of goods and services.

What is deprivation of material goods closely linked to?

Aggression, because it increases competition amongst inmates.

In the deprivation model, what else is aggression influenced by?

The nature of the prison regime.

What happens when the prison regime is unpredictable and regularly uses ‘lock-ups to control behaviour‘?

This creates frustration, reduces stimulation by barring other more interesting activities and reduces even further access to ‘goods‘ such as television. This is a recipe for violence, which becomes an adaptive solution to the problem of deprivation.

What did Steiner investigate?

Factors predicting aggression in 512 US prisons.

What did Steiner find?

Inmate-on-inmate violence was more common in prisons where there was a higher proportion of staff who were women, overcrowding, and more inmates in protective custody. There are prison-level factors as they are independent of the individual characteristics of prisoners. They reliably predicted aggressive behaviour in line with the deprivation model.

What is the strength of the dispositional explanation/importation model?

Research support.

How is research support a strength of the dispositional explanation/importation model?

Camp and Gaes studied 561 male inmates with similar criminal histories and predispositions to aggression. Half were randomly placed in low-security Californian prisons and half randomly placed in high-security prisons. Within two years, there was no significant difference between prisons in the number of prisoners involved in aggressive misconduct (33% and 36%). The researchers concluded that features of the prison environment are less important predictors of aggressive behaviour than characteristics of inmates.

What does the research support mean?

This is strong evidence for importation because of random allocation of inmates

What is the limitation of the dispositional explanation/importation model?

Ignores key factors.

How does dispositional explanation/importation model ignore key factors?

The importation model ignores key factors. Dilulio claims that the importation model ignores other factors that influence prisoners' behaviour, such as the way the prison is run. Instead, he proposed an Administrative control model (ACM) which states that poorly managed prisons are more likely to have inmate violence. Poor management includes weak leadership, a thriving culture of unofficial rules, staff who remain distant from inmates and few opportunities for education.

What does ignoring key factors mean for dispositional explanation/importation model?

That therefore, importation is an inadequate explanation because institutional factors are probably more important than inmate characteristics.

What is the strength of the situational explanation/deprivation model?

Research support.

How is research support a strength of the situational explanation/deprivation model?

Cunningham et al. analysed 35 inmate homicides in Texas prisons between 2000 and 2008. They found that the perpetrators' motivations for their violent behaviours were linked to some of the deprivations identified in Clemmer's model. Many of the homicides followed arguments between cell-sharing inmates, where 'boundaries' were judged to have been crossed. Particularly important were arguments over drugs, sexual activity and personal possessions.

What does the research support mean for the situational explanation/deprivation model?

These factors are identified by the deprivation model, supporting the model's validity.

What is the limitation of the situational explanation/deprivation model?

Contradictory reseatch.

How is contradictory research a limitation of the situational explanation/deprivation model?

One limitation is research contradicting the deprivation model.

The model predicts that a lack of heterosexual contact should lead to high levels of aggressive behaviour in prisons. However, Hensley et al. studied 256 male and female inmates of two prisons in Mississippi a state of the US which allows conjugal visits (that is, visits from partners specifically to have sex). There was no link between involvement in these visits and reduced aggressive behaviour.

What does the contradictory research suggest about the situational explanation/deprivation model?

That situational factors do not substantially affect prison violence.