Prison Society Research Articles

The Prison Firm: The ‘transportation’ of organised crime, the evolution of criminal markets and contemporary prisoner society

Despite the burgeoning literature on organised crime within the community, little research has focused on the prison as a ‘space’ for organised crime. Based on ethnographic and qualitative research conducted within male English and Welsh prisons, this article critically examines how organised crime functions within these prisons. It is argued that the prison has become a fertile site for organised crime which is ‘transported’, rather than ‘transplanted’, into and out of prison in ways that extend the reach of criminal networks and alter the character of prisoner society.

Daily Prison Fiqh: A Practical Solution of Islamic Law to The Problems of Prisoners in Tembilahan, Riau

The article aimed to answer the daily fiqh problems of prisoners in Correctional Institutions (Lapas) class II Tembilahan. The fiqh problems related to Islamic law relating to individuals, relationships with God and prison society. The structured interviews with prisoners and the study of relevant documents were used to answer the research questions. This research uses a qualitative approach and literature by referring to classical and contemporary fiqh books. This research resulted in the findings of the formulation of daily fiqh of prisoners in Class II Tembilahan Correctional Institution, namely: First, related to fiqh laws that concern individual issues such as masturbation, tattoos, vital organs installed with roles to becoming prayer leader (imam), paying debts from drug money, anxious between farting or not at the time of bowing or prostration, the law of not providing maintenance for the wife for a long time, and apologizing to parents who have died. Secondly, there is the issue of fiqh rulings between the servant and Allah. In this case, one issue is the law of the zuhur prayer being performed before the Friday prayer. Third, issues related to relationships with society. In this case, there is one issue, namely maintaining tolerance for non-Muslims in prison. This research contributes to providing Islamic legal solutions to the daily problems of Muslim prisoners to continue to carry out religious obligations in correctional institutions and as a reference for policymakers in correctional institutions to continue to present legal benefits for Muslim prisoners.

Correctional Officer Reflections on How to Address Incarcerated People’s Unmet Needs in Canadian Prisons

ABSTRACT Although incarcerated people best understand their needs and rehabilitative processes, the current study explores how correctional officers (COs) understand the needs of people in their custody and care to support their reentry and incarceration experience. Given COs are the lifeline of incarcerated people, penal scholarship should value their input as an essential resource for recognizing what incarcerated people need to desist and prepare for reintegration when imprisoned. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 28 COs employed in Atlantic Canada, we contextualize and report on what COs believe are the (often unmet) needs of incarcerated people. More specifically, intending to learn what COs desired in the design of a new replacement prison in a Canadian Atlantic province, we found COs emphasized meeting prison residents’ unmet needs – often over their own – with results centralizing incarcerated people’s physical and mental health needs, availability of meaningful rehabilitative, vocational, and cultural-specific programming, and access to recreation and fresh air. We discuss the actualization of each programmatic construct, recognizing prison society is unique and programming and practices must respond to the positionality of incarcerated people and their lived experiences rather than normative ideals about social living.

СТРАТЕГИЯ ПРОТИВОДЕЙСТВИЯ ПЕНИТЕНЦИАРНОЙ СУБКУЛЬТУРЕ С ПОЗИЦИИ СИСТЕМНОГО АНАЛИЗА

The article analyzes the prison subculture from the standpoint of systems theory. It is noted that the existence of informal strata of convicts and stable prison caste formation can be justified by the laws of synergetics, a science that explains the behavior of dissipative structures. It is shown that the main characteristics of a self-organizing system are characteristic of a prison society structured according to the stratification type. From the point of view of systems theory, possible models of countering the expansion of the prison subculture are considered: 1) destruction of the system; 2) the introduction of innovative elements with the formation of new laws of interaction of individual elements of the system; 3) depriving the self-organizing system of the ability to self-replication. The most acceptable choice in the existing conditions is the last option. The conclusion is made about the prospects of the current penitentiary policy of our state.

Solidarity or Solitude? Correlates of Incarceration and the Peer Networks of Imprisoned Women

Connecting feminist perspectives to a re-emergent literature on prison society, this study uses a social network perspective to understand the informal social organization of incarcerated women. Data came from the Women’s Prison Inmate Network Study, specifically from residents within two of three sampled units (N = 152). Exponential random graph models estimate how self-report and administrative measures predict friendship, paying specific attention to how correlates of incarceration shape peer tie formation. Measures of mental illness, substance misuse, and childhood victimization were associated with sending ties to peers, though these ties were less likely to be reciprocated. In conclusion, incarcerated women with histories of traumatic life events and difficulties may seek out peer support while not providing the same. Social network analysis is an important tool to further understand the experience of women in prison as it considers the social structures and individual perspectives of imprisoned individuals.

Racial Politics in the Contemporary Prison Society: The Importance of Race and Ethnicity to Prison Social Organization

Prior research documents race and ethnicity as central to how individuals navigate the social and physical space of prisons. Racial segregation persists as a feature of prison life, and in navigating this racialized structure, racial groups construct and enforce a set of racialized norms to govern behavior (i.e., the “racial code”) that reinforce and reify prison racial politics. These processes, however, have remained largely descriptive in nature. Using data from a sample of incarcerated men in Arizona prisons ( N = 251), this article extends prior work by operationalizing the concept of the racial code, assessing its dimensionality, distinguishing it from the prison code, and differentiating how features of prison social organization influence racial code adherence and mobilization. Results suggest that the racial code is distinct from the prison code and that racial differences exist in the extent of adhering to versus mobilizing the racial code, net of gang status.

“Liberty or Death!”

“Liberty or Death!”

Author Response

Author Response

Charity, debt and social control in England’s early modern prisons

ABSTRACT From the mid-sixteenth century, the prison was increasingly fundamental to social relations and economic life in early modern England. An explosion of civil litigation was accompanied by unprecedented levels of imprisonment for debt, leaving many prisoners reliant upon a growing economy of prison charity. This article addresses the nature of such charity, its role in prison society and what it suggests about early modern attitudes towards imprisonment. It uncovers the range and scale of prison relief, from official aid to everyday begging and face-to-face alms. Charity was vital to prison life, and thus to securing growing credit networks. Yet by extension it was also a vector of moral judgement that left prisoners dependent, subordinated and subject to discipline. This article uncovers assumptions about the function of imprisonment for debt implicit in both practices of and commentaries on prison charity. The moral logic of early modern debt gave new disciplinary meaning to the prison, emphasized by the potential for social judgement inherent in charity. Theories of prisons’ punitive and reformative potential emerged to police social relations based on credit, trust and reputation. Thus, the ethical context of credit relations gave prisons new significance as institutions of moral judgement, punishment and rehabilitation.

Prominent Islamic Features in Selected Novels of Najeeb al-Kilani: A Critical Analysis

Writers possess their own literary styles in expressing their literary creativities whereupon it is concurrently argued that their surrounding environment may have produced evocative impacts on their literary works. Indeed, almost all literary inspirations behind their creative works can be traced to reflections of their vibrant life experiences. However, these experiences, coupled with facts expressed creatively, differ from those of scholars in their presentations of information, where it is argued that writers also depict elements of imaginations and express them in aesthetic ways. With this claim in view, this study aims to examine the prominent Islamic literary features in nine selected novels by Najeeb Al-Kilani, one of the pioneers of contemporary Arabic and Islamic literature. Najeeb’s literary works have contributed immensely to the literary evolution of Arabic and Islamic literature with his novels filling the annals in the mid-twentieth of literary scholarship century. Thus, it is concluded that Najib’s immediate environment and his own meaningful life experiences have been reflected in his novels suggesting their own life-changing impacts. Among Najib’s notable experiences influencing his literary works are his village, hometown community and the prison society he experienced. Equally important are his medical profession and the roles of the Sheikhs in the reform of the society.

Prison in Iran: A Known UnknownN.R.Anaraki. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan (2021) 117pp. €106.99hb; €85.99e‐book ISBN 978‐3‐030‐57169‐6; 978‐3‐030‐57169‐9

<i>Prison in Iran: A Known Unknown</i>N.R.Anaraki. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan (2021) 117pp. €106.99hb; €85.99e‐book ISBN 978‐3‐030‐57169‐6; 978‐3‐030‐57169‐9

Rebels without a cause? ‘Criminals’ and fascism in The Authoritarian Personality

An important empirical basis for the interpretations of Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel J. Levinson and R. Nevitt Sanford in The Authoritarian Personality (TAP) were questionnaires and in-depth interviews conducted by William R. Morrow with prisoners at California’s San Quentin prison. A reconstruction of the historical approach exposes serious methodological shortcomings, some of which Morrow openly addressed in memoranda, revealing that the supposedly particularly authoritarian attitude of the prisoners was due, among other things, to their submission to the psychiatric authority in the authoritarian situation of the prison and due to the conditions of a hierarchical prisoner society. In TAP, the empirically inadequate survey was interpreted primarily in the context of psychoanalytic literature on crime at that time, in particular Robert Lindner’s Rebel Without A Cause, whose theory of pseudo rebellion permeated TAP. Focusing on the shortcomings of TAP, this article argues, enables its inspiring insights to be appreciated.

Chinese Culture and Its Influence on Prison Society: Women’s Experience

Based on interviews with 30 female parolees/ex-inmates and 10 prison officers, this article argues that custody relationships among women incarcerated in China are “not easy,” and this is due primarily to distrust in prison society and a hierarchical prison culture. Even so, women inmates are motivated to form and maintain harmonious relationships with others. This article suggests that this behavior pattern is greatly influenced by the Chinese culture of pragmatic Confucianism, which further explains the women’s low interest in forming a prison subculture.

Untrustworthy subjects? Risks, blame and gradual prison release in Ukraine

Penal authorities and society in general perceive prisoners as untrustworthy. Much of the administration of punishment constitutes the assessment and management of the risks that prisoners pose. In this article, I explain how Ukraine balances the noble goals of prisoner reintegration with an inherent mistrust of prisoners. Drawing on a semi-ethnographic study of a medium-security prison for men, I discuss how, in anticipation of their freedom, prisoners also calculate their perceived risks. Through examination of how prisoners assess their vulnerability to risky behaviour and opt out from gradual release, I argue that prisoners as well as the state often deem themselves untrustworthy subjects. Furthermore, I discuss the roles of the informal prisoner society and (paucity of) prison’s rehabilitative efforts in prisoners’ decisions concerning their transfer into semi-open conditions. I argue that, rather than being an alternative – and even a threat – to parole, gradual release, supported by rehabilitative and developmental programmes, constructive services and temporary leave schemes, should become a path to release, including release on parole. Prisoners and staff alike should not make an unfair and unconstructive choice between ‘less risky’ parole, because of its loose surveillance, and more failure prone (for prisoners) and blame risky (for staff) gradual release.

Managing drugs in the prisoner society: heroin and social order in Kyrgyzstan's prisons.

Through the case study of Kyrgyzstan this paper argues that a rapidly increasing availability of drugs in prison is not necessarily deleterious to solidarity and inmate codes. Instead, the fragmentary effect of drugs depends on the forms of prisoner control over drug sale and use. In Kyrgyzstan, prisoners co-opted heroin and reorganized its distribution and consumption through non-market mechanisms. State provision of opioid maintenance therapy incentivized powerful prisoners to move to distributing heroin through a mutual aid fund and according to need. Collectivist prison accommodation, high levels of prisoner mobility and monitoring within and across prisons enabled prisoners to enforce informal bans on drug dealing and on gang formation outside of traditional hierarchies. We argue that in these conditions prisoners organized as consumption-oriented budgetary units rather than profit-driven gangs.

Between Love and Coercion: Queer Desire, Sexual Barter and the Holocaust

Abstract In analysing a forced relationship between two women, a German guard and a Jewish Czech prisoner in a Hamburg concentration camp, this article uses queer Holocaust history to explore sexual barter, sexual violence, victim agency, and the rules of prisoner society. It also makes a plea for a departure from normativity in thinking about the Holocaust and for the inclusion of marginalized voices.

Peningkatan harga diri melalui layanan bimbingan dan konseling individu

Fostered women are more vulnerable to psychological problems than fostered men. One psychological problem that is usually experienced by inmates is low self-esteem. one solution to improve self-esteem can be done through Islamic counseling services.The purpose of devotion-based research is to determine the effectiveness of Islamic counseling in increasing the self-esteem of the target people. The approach used in this research is Participatory Action Research. respondents involved in this study were all members of the Sigli Penitentiary Class III Prison Society. the results of the study found an increase in self-esteem in fostered citizens marked by the emergence of 5 of 7 aspects based on behavioral checklist indicators that are realistic, aware of strengths and weaknesses, aware of the position as a creature of God, assertive and independent.

Religion and the Creation of Normal Appearance

Abstract Religions in prison often help individuals with their internal coping with prison life and with external benefits from participation in religious groups. However, less is known about religion’s role that extend beyond the individual and affect the whole of prison society. Through in-depth interviews in a Philippine prison, the research finds that religious groups have both a normative and a normalizing function. In a sense, these Christian groups help inmates create expectations with each other and provide a semblance of normal life in a constrained prison. The article suggests that the appearance of normality, rather than the fact of normality, happens as Christian groups provide inmates with forms of self-determination and continuance of their life from outside.

Prisoner Society in an Era of Psychoactive Substances, Organized Crime, New Drug Markets and Austerity

AbstractFramed by the limited and now dated ethnographic research on the prison drug economy, this article offers new theoretical and empirical insights into how drugs challenge the social order in prisons in England and Wales. It draws on significant original and rigorous ethnographic research to argue that the ‘era of hard drugs’ has been superseded by an ‘era of new psychoactive drugs’, redefining social relations, transforming the prison illicit economy, producing new forms of prison victimization and generating far greater economic power and status for suppliers. These changes represent the complex interplay and compounding effects of broader shifts in political economy, technological advances, organized crime, prison governance and the declining legitimacy and moral performance of English and Welsh prisons.

Development of mediation institute in Poland: genesis and activity experience of the centers

Development of mediation institute in Poland: genesis and activity experience of the centers