Inmate Culture Research Articles

Perspectives on Inmate Culture: A Study of Women in Prison

Perspectives on Inmate Culture: A Study of Women in Prison

Perspectives on Inmate Culture: A Study of Women in Prison

Perspectives on Inmate Culture: A Study of Women in Prison

Street Gangs behind Bars

This paper reports on a participant observation study carried out at Stateville Penitentiary, a maximum security prison, during the summer of 1972. The social organization of the prison has been a topic of frequent sociological attention. Efforts have been made to explain “inmate culture” and the often referred to “inmate code.” Contrary to the traditional structural-functional explanation for inmate organization which focuses upon situational variables, this analysis supports the Irwin-Cressey (1964) position that much of what has been termed inmate culture is actually imported from outside the prison. The most significant reality behind Stateville's walls is the existence of four lower class Chicago street gangs which have brought into the prison their street activities, hierarchies, rivalries, and ideologies. The purpose here is to describe the social organization which has emerged as a result of this phenomenon and to relate this development to the traditional literature.

Pre-Institutional vs. Situational Influence in a Correctional Community

* Assistant Professor of Sociology, The University of Chicago. The author wishes to acknowledge the cooperation of Harold Novick, Superintendent of the Glen Mills Schools, and John Jennings, Director of Social Service, and his staff. The research was partly supported by NDEA (Title IV) and University of Pennsylvania Dissertation Fellowships. 1 Irwin & Cressey, Thieves, Convicts, and the Inmate Culture, in THE OTHER SIDE 225 (H. Becker ed. 1964). 2 Roebuck, A Critique of Thieves, Convicts, and the Inmate Culture, 11 SocIA. PROBLEMS 193-200 (1963). Vol. 62, No. 4 Printed in U.S.A.

Social Structure, Identification and Change in a Treatment-Oriented Institution

IN recent years, sociologists have focused a good deal of attention on what Goffman (1961) has called the "total institution," and especially on correctional institutions. As these studies have accumulated, our knowledge of the complexity of such institutions and their related sub-systems has increased. Earlier studies, such as those of Clemmer (1958), McCorkle and Korn (1958) and Sykes (1958), described what came to be known as the "solidary opposition" model of inmate culture, with inmates aligned almost as one body against the formal organization and its goals. Newcomers to the inmate world were soon socialized into this inmate culture, and the process of "prisonization" was thought to increase with length of incarceration. Wheeler's (1961) study, however, indicated that inmate values tended to follow a U-shaped pattern, being most conventional at the beginning and end of one's sentence. He suggested that those nearing the end of their sentence were experiencing anticipatory socialization which would prepare them for life in the outside world. Garabedian (1963) noted a similar pattern in his study, but also noted that not all prisoners' values changed in the same manner. The type of role one adopted during his incarceration determined in part the extent and point of greatest impact of the prison culture on his initial values. The relatively simple "solidary opposition" model of inmate culture has now been replaced by a more complex model which finds inmate organization dependent in large part upon the location of the institution's primary goals along a custodial-trainingtreatment continuum. This development owes much to the work of Vinter and Janowitz (1959), Grusky (1959), Street (1965) and Berk (1966), and has culminated in a volume by Street, Vinter and Perrow (1967) which reports the results of these and related studies which examine the effect of organizational goals not only on inmate culture, but also on staff-inmate relations, staff-staff relations, staff-parent organization relations, and institution-local community relations. All of the aforementioned studies have dealt with institutions serving males. Until recent years, comparatively few sociological studies have been made of institutions for females. The work of Heffernan (1964), Ward and Kassebaum (1965) and Giallombardo (1966), however, serves to close this gap. Studying three different institutions serving adult females, they all find pseudofamily and homosexual ties to be an important aspect of inmate social organization, although Heffernan especially notes two other major adaptations to prison life, relating prison roles to criminal career prior to incarceration. Kosofsky and Ellis (1958) and Konopka (1966), among others, note similar patterns in institutions serving adolescent females. The particular appeal of the correctional institution for the sociologist, of course, is not only that it is a society-in-miniature, whose structure and functioning he may describe, but also that it is what Vinter (1963) has called a "people-changing organization." Such organizations, he points out, "are usually concerned with effecting new and diffuse modes of behavior, new self-images or personalities" in the people who come to it. This they attempt to do by deliberately structuring staff-client relations in a manner * The authors wish to express their thanks to the Department of Sociology, Purdue University for providing travel funds and other expenses incidental to this research.

A Critique of "Thieves, Convicts and the Inmate Culture"

A Critique of "Thieves, Convicts and the Inmate Culture"

A Critique of "Thieves, Convicts and the Inmate Culture"

A Critique of "Thieves, Convicts and the Inmate Culture"

Thieves, Convicts and the Inmate Culture

Dentro de la prolifica literatura sobre la organizacion social de las instituciones correccionales, se ha tornado bastante frecuente discutir la “cultura de la prision” o “cultura carcelaria” en terminos que sugieren que el sistema de comportamiento de los distintos tipos de presos se origina en las propias condiciones de encierro. La lectura estructural-funcionalista en la investigacion y observacion de las instituciones ha llevado por un lado a enfatizar la nocion de que las condiciones internas de las prisiones estimulan conductas de diverso tipo entre los detenidos, y por otro a recuperar las viejas nociones en torno de que los presos portan una cultura que llevan consigo al interior de la carcel. Nuestro objetivo es suge-

Thieves, Convicts and the Inmate Culture

Thieves, Convicts and the Inmate Culture

A Persisting Clique of Chronic Mental Patients

Ohlin and Lawrence recently observed that residential treatment is made … infinitely harder … where an inmate culture and an informally organized system of social relationships competes with the official system for the allegiance of inmates. The nature (and role) of this inmate system … is one of the least explored problems of the correctional institution.