Mainstream and Crosscurrents, Second Edition
Chapter 12
Contemporary Prison Life
Prison life
The prison is a total institution, in
which everything is tightly controlled
and structured.
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Prison life
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Prison life
Sykes' five pains of imprisonment …
 Deprivation of liberty
 Deprivation of goods and services
 Deprivation of heterosexual
relationships
 Deprivation of autonomy
 Deprivation of security
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Prison life
 Inmate subculture
 Prison gangs
 Supermax prisons
 Prison riots and violence
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Prison life
argot roles–Specific patterns of
behavior that inmates develop in
prison to adjust to the environment.
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Prison life
Inmate subculture
 Rats and center men
 Gorillas and merchants
 Wolves, punks, and fags
 Ball-busters and real men
 Toughs and hipsters
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Prison life
Prison gangs
 Mexican Mafia
 La Nuestra Familia
 Black Guerrilla Family
 Aryan Brotherhood
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Prison life
Supermax prisons
 The modern supermax prison is
based on the federal penitentiary
at Marion, Illinois which the
Bureau of Prisons opened in 1969.
 Marion became the first
standalone supermax prison in the
United States in 1983.
Criminal Justice: Mainstream and Crosscurrents, 2/e
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Prison life
Supermax prisons
Pelican Bay recalls the separateand-silent systems in the first
prisons in Pennsylvania
and Auburn, NY.
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CrossCurrents Prison life
What’s wrong with supermax prisons?
 The effects of incarceration are
severe.
 Supermax prisons are expensive
and labor-intensive.
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Prison life
Prison riots and violence
On rare occasions, the inmate's
frustrations are shared by others,
and the institution’s authority is
seriously challenged.
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Prison life
Prison riots and violence
 Attica prison riot
 New Mexico State Penitentiary riot
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CrossCurrents Prison life
Stanford prison experiment
 Landmark experiment
 Was the experiment ethical?
 Shed light on human behavior
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Working in the prison
 The most prevalent job in the prison is
the correctional officer or guard.
 Lombardo's seven variations of
correctional officer job assignments are…
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Working in the prison
 Block officers
 Work-detail supervisors
 Industrial shop and school officers
 Yard officers
 Administrative building assignments
 Wall posts
 Relief officers
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Working in the prison
Correctional guard functions …
 Human services
 Order maintenance
 Security
 Supervision
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Courts and the prison
Some opinions...
 Inmates are protected by the
Constitution.
 Inmate legal rights are not totally
restricted.
 The rights lost by inmates should be only
those consistent with confinement and
maintaining institutional safety.
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Courts and the prison
 Before the 1960s, the courts cultivated
a hands-off doctrine toward
inmates' rights.
 Cooper v. Pate (1964) began a new
era in prison litigation.
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Courts and the prison
 Eighth Amendment
 Fourteenth Amendment: due process
 Fourteenth Amendment: equal protection
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CrossCurrents Courts and the prison
Incarceration and the Mentally Ill
 As of 2005, more than half of all prison and jail
inmates reported a mental health problem.
 Many communities lack the resources or the
organization to treat the mentally ill.
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Courts and the prison
Eighth Amendment
"Excessive bail shall not be required,
nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel
and unusual punishments inflicted."
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Courts and the prison
Fourteenth Amendment
"No state shall make or enforce any law
which shall abridge the privileges or
immunities of citizens of the United
States; nor shall any state deprive any
person of life, liberty, or property, without
due process of law; nor deny to any
person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws."
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Courts and the prison
Fourteenth Amendment: Due Process
The courts determined in Wolff v.
McDonnell (1974) that inmates are allowed
some due process.
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Courts and the prison
Fourteenth Amendment: Equal Protection
 The Fourteenth Amendment
addresses racial and gender-based
discrimination in the prison.
 Discrimination prohibited in society is
also prohibited in correctional
institutions.
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Courts and the prison
Fourteenth Amendment: Equal Protection
 Constitutional expectations of privacy
are only partially available to inmates.
 The inmate's body is a point of
contention.
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Private prisons
 Interest in privatizing prisons began
around the mid-1970s, and the first
modern private prisons opened in the
early 1980s.
 With growing inmate populations,
many believe that private firms can
handle inmates more inexpensively
and efficiently.
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Private prisons
The Increasing Imprisonment Rate
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Private prisons
Arguments for private prisons
 Money: Private organizations can run
prisons more cheaply.
 Better employee control: More control
over hiring and firing
 Flexibility and accountability
Criminal Justice: Mainstream and Crosscurrents, 2/e
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Private prisons
Arguments against private prisons
 Money: Profit is more important than
inmates.
 Better employee control: Staff have less
incentive to do a good job.
 Control: Private prisons may refuse
difficult offenders.
Criminal Justice: Mainstream and Crosscurrents, 2/e
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Private prisons
State and local facilities still take in most inmates. As of 2006,
2.26 million inmates were in state and federal prisons and local
jails, an incarceration rate of 751 inmates per 100,000 US
residents.
Criminal Justice: Mainstream and Crosscurrents, 2/e
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Questions

What difficulties do prison staff and
officials face in dealing with prison gangs?

How are supermax prisons successful? In
what areas do they fall short?

To which constitutional amendments did
inmates turn to draw the courts’ attention?
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