Prisonization in the Republic of Korea

Abstract

The deprivation model holds that inmate attitudes and behaviors reflect adjustment problems with the “pains” of prison life. For example, deviant inmate attitudes and violent behaviors will be more prevalent in facilities characterized by rigid, formalized inmate control mechanisms. Extant research in this area has been widespread, although most studies have focused on prisons in western democracies. As a result, the sensitivity of the deprivation model to cultural variability remains largely unknown. The aim of this study was to test a set of hypotheses consistent with the deprivation model using data from 546 inmates incarcerated in fifteen prisons located in the Republic of Korea. The aggregate-level analysis revealed that anti-conventional attitudes (i.e., prisonization) were more common among inmates housed under very rigid prison conditions. At the inmate level, the variable cluster for the deprivation model accounted for a sizable portion of the explained variance associated with prisonization. Given these findings, the authors concluded that the deprivation model appears to be equally applicable in the Korean correctional context as in western prisons.