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More than 1,600 adult correctional facilities
in US
Many facilities are old and decrepit
Institutions holding a thousand or more
inmates still predominate the system
After sentencing
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Classification: deciding what type of
prison to be sent to
◦ Based on assessment of risk, seriousness of
offense, rehabilitation potential
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Types of prisons
◦ Supermax, maximum, medium, minimum
(“country clubs”)
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Entry procedures
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Regimes (how to behave)
◦ Depends on type of prisons
◦ E.g., Maximum security prison: strip search, health
checks, issuing of materials, personal belongings
saved in property room, lecture on procedures to
be followed (do what the guards tell you)
◦ Symbolic and real humiliation during entry – body
cavity searches; strip of conventional identity
(clothing, haircuts)
◦ Basic message: “you are ours,” “you are powerless,”
“you ain’t nobody now”
◦ Assignment to job
◦ If behave, no problems, earning good time;
privileges (e.g., conjugal visits)
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Prisons in the U.S. are “total institutions” –the
lives of prisoners are totally controlled
Living in prison
◦ Personal losses include deprivation of liberty, goods
and services, heterosexual relationships, autonomy,
and security.
◦ Inmates must learn to cope with loneliness and
dangers of prison life
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Inmate’s methods of coping
◦ Inmate Subculture: loosely defined culture that
pervades prisons and has its own norms, rules,
and language
◦ Inmate Social Code: unwritten guidelines that
express values, attitudes, and types of behavior
that older inmates demand of younger ones.
Represents values of interpersonal relations
within the prison
◦ Prisonization: assimilation into the inmate
subculture.
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What do prisoners learn in the inmate
culture?
◦ Criminal skills (e.g., how to burglarize a
house)
◦ Disrespect for authority (do not trust guards
and staff)
◦ Crime as a way of life (hustling, smuggling,
illegal commerce)
◦ Force is necessary to solve some problems
◦ The need for group support and loyalty (hard
to survive by yourself; do not rat)
◦ Make reintegration into society difficult
 The skills learned on how to survive in
prison do not work well outside
◦ Leads to recidivism (parole violations,
new crimes)
◦ Research shows the most prisoners
have become prisonized, have adjusted
to life inside, after two years
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The new inmate culture
◦ Precipitated by black power movement in the
1960’s and 70’s
◦ African American and Latin inmates are now more
organized
◦ Racial polarity and tension is a dominant force
◦ Groups formed as a result of various factors:
 Religious or political affiliations
 To combat discrimination
 Previous street gang membership
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At beginning of 20th century female inmates
were viewed as morally depraved individuals
who flouted conventional rules of female
behavior.
Only 4 women’s prisons were built between
1930 and 1950.
Before 1960 few women were in prison.
34 women’s prisons were built during 1980’s
as crime rates soared.
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Female institutions
◦ Generally smaller than those housing male inmates
◦ Majority are minimum security
◦ Suffer from lack of health, treatment, and
educational facilities
◦ Limited vocational training
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Primarily young, unmarried, poorly educated,
minority group members
From broken homes
Suffered from physical and sexual abuse,
domestic violence
Psychological/substance abuse problems
Subject to sexual exploitation/abuse by staff
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Adapting to the female institution
◦ Behavior is less violent than male inmates
◦ Anti-authority inmate social code of male
institutions does not exist
◦ May engage in self-destructive behavior to cope
with problems
◦ Creation of make-believe families as coping
mechanism
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Inmates
Guards
Staff (education, counseling, drug treatment,
rehabilitation services)
Administrators
Visitors
Each group has different needs for protection
and safety
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Individual and group treatment
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Behavior modification
Aversive therapy
Milieu therapy
Reality therapy
Cognitive skills
Formal education
Faith-based rehabilitation efforts
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Special-needs inmates
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Drug-dependent
Mental problems
Physical disability problems
AIDS - infectious diseases
Elderly and sick
Gays and lesbians
Women with children
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Drug treatment
◦ Programs to treat alcohol and substance abuse
◦ Use of methadone
◦ Creation of therapeutic communities
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AIDS-infected inmates
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Homosexual behavior and in drug use increase risk
Both behaviors common in prison
Approximately two percent of prisoners are infected
Administrators reluctance to provide education on
prevention as riskiest activities are forbidden in
prison
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Need protection from other inmates and staff
Have low status among other inmates
Segregation in separate housing areas (same
as women with children who need special
facilities to be with their children)
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Vocational training programs
◦ Most institutions provide
◦ New York has more than 42 trade and technical
courses for inmates
◦ While programs provide benefits for inmates and
institutions they are subject to criticism
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Inability to find related jobs on release
Equipment is inadequate or obsolete
Programs used solely for prison maintenance
Objections of unions
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Work release
◦ Furlough programs allow deserving inmates to
leave the institution and hold regular jobs in the
community
◦ Inmates are able to maintain work skills and
community ties
◦ Transition from prison to outside world is easier
◦ Citizens are worried about inmates “stealing” jobs
from them
◦ Worries about safety and new crimes being
committed while on release
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Post release programs
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Rehabilitation
◦ Robert Martinson’s “nothing works”
◦ Conservative view of corrections currently
emphasizes punishment over treatment
◦ Recent research indicates it is possible to lower
recidivism rates
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Control is a complex task
Prison guards were traditionally viewed as
ruthless
Now viewed as public servants
Guards play a number of roles
Despite appearances and total institutions –
order is maintained in prisons by the inmates
as well
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Female correctional officers
◦ Estimated 5,000 women are assigned to all-male
institutions
◦ Questions of privacy and safety
◦ Dothard v. Rawlinson (1977)
◦ Research indicates that discipline has not suffered
because of the inclusion of women
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Inmate v. inmate
Inmate v. staff/guards
Guards/staff v. inmate
Sexual assault
◦ In prisons – inmate on inmate gay sex; male
guards-female prisoners
◦ Outside prison – prostitution rings, sex services
provided by staff/guards to outsiders; “rent” out
female inmates
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Contributing factors to violence
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Poor communication
Destructive environmental conditions
Faulty classification
Promised, but undelivered reforms
Lack of treatment programs
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Causes of individual violence
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Violence-prone individuals
Personality disorders
Lack of effective grievance processes
Violence as a survival mechanism
Staged fights by guards
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Causes of collective violence
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Inmate-balance theory
Administrative-control theory
Overcrowding
Rise of gangs within prisons
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Hands-off doctrine: administrators were
given a free hand to run institutions
irrespective of constitutional violations
◦ Prison administration was a technical matter
best left to experts
◦ Society was apathetic
◦ Prisoner’s constitutional rights viewed as
limited approach
Cooper v. Pate signaled the end of the handsoff doctrine
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Minimal standards of human
dignity: prisoners are still persons
under the law
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Access to courts, legal services and materials
Freedom of expression
Freedom of religion
Right to medical treatment
Access to reading materials and media
Prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment
– conduct which shocks the reasonable
conscience (lengthy solitary confinement,
shackling, excessive physical punishment,
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Notice that less than 20%, one in five, of prisoners leave because
they have finished their sentence
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Parole: early release of prisoner subject to
conditions set by a parole board
◦ Decision to parole is determined by statutory
requirement
 Discretionary parole
 Mandatory parole release
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Functions of the parole board
◦ Select and place prisoners on parole
◦ Aid, supervise, and provide control of parolees in
the community
◦ Determine when parole has been completed and the
parolee may be discharged
◦ Whether parole should be revoked if violations
occur
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Parole hearings
◦ Method of case review varies by jurisdiction
◦ Consider factors such as crime, institutional record,
and willingness to accept responsibility
◦ Few legal guidelines on decisions to parole or not –
highly discretionary
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The parolee in the community
◦ Must adhere to conditions of release
◦ Parole is viewed as a privilege and not a right
◦ Failure to comply with conditions of release results
in return to prison
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Intensive supervision parole
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The effectiveness of parole
◦ More than half return to prison shortly after their
release, many for technical violations, not new
crimes
◦ Re-arrests are most common in the first six months
after release
◦ Cost of recidivism is acute – high number of new
criminal offenses
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Factors leading to parole failures
◦ Consequences of prisonization
◦ Prisons rarely address psychological and economic
problems that are likely to lead parolees to recidivism
◦ Little preparation for reintegration while in prison
◦ Prisons do not allow development of skills essential to cope
with outside world
◦ Disruption of home life while incarcerated and lack of
support systems once released
◦ Limited resources when are released (e.g., bus fare home)
◦ Loss of rights/inability to find employment
◦ “Civic death” laws
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The argument: Prisons make bad people worse
Reform prisons
◦ Ensure minimal standards of dignity and well-being
◦ minimize abuses
◦ Lessen disconnect from society
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Increase external oversight
◦ Enhance transparency, oversight, legal remedies
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Create and use alternatives to prisons
◦ Drug courts, intermediate sanctions, community corrections
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Change the metaphor from war-making to peacemaking: use prisons only as last resort and only for
those who need to be in prison
◦ Restorative justice