PRISON SUBCULTURE
Subculture, Prisonization
Prison Subculture is the culture of prison
society and thought by some to arise from the ‘pains of imprisonment’, while
others believe it is imported to the prison. Prison Subculture is also known as the
‘convict code’.
Subculture refers to group that shares common values,
norms, beliefs.
Prison subculture refers to inmate code.
Process of taking on norms and customs of prisons is
called prisonization.
Some of the features of prison subculture are:
a) do not inform on your
fellow prisoners,
b) do not trust staff,
c) help other residents,
d) show your loyalty to other
residents,
e) share what you have.
The first models of the prison subculture, such as those
purported by Clemmer and Sykes, were rooted in the structural-functionalist paradigm of
criminological thought. Alternative explanations, such as the importation model developed
by Irwin theorize that the subculture of prison may not be centered around common norms
and values. Recent attempts have been made to integrate these perspectives. Does
integration have theoretical explanatory power when examining the contemporary prison
subculture? Can an integrated approach inform penologists as to how females serve time?
The present paper seeks to answer these questions. - Theoretical Studies of the
Prison Subculture: Contemporary Explanations for Female Inmates. - Courtney A. Waid,
Florida State University
Inmate Argot as an Expression of Prison Subculture: The
Israeli Case - Tomer Einat, Haim Einat, Hebrew University of Jerusalem - The
study examines the argot (jargon) of prisoners as a reflection of the norms and values
comprising the inmate subculture in Israeli prisons. The phenomenological interview method
was used to examine the language of a sample of long-term prisoners for the existence of
an inmate argot. Having established that such an argot does exist, the data was subjected
to a content analysis and the salience of the argot terms assessed using two measures,
attention and intensity. The argot expressions were divided into categories with reference
to different aspects of prison experience: prisoner status (informers, inmate rank),
drugs, sexual relations in prison, violence, prisoner behaviors, nicknames for police
officers, and prison staff.
Prison Subculture in Poland - Marek M. Kamiski, Don C. Gibbons - This article
draws on the prison experiences in Poland of the senior author to identify some of the
major ingredients of the prison subculture in that country. The dominant inmate pattern of
grypsing is described, as is the physical environment of Polish prisons. This article also
examines "prisonization" processes and the norms of the grypsing group. Some
contrasts between American and Polish prisons are also noted.
The (post)-soviet prison subculture faced with the use of self-management doctrines by the
corrections administration - This article on the post-soviet prison subculture shows the
connection between the establishment of new informal rules in prisons and changes in the
means of submission used by penitentiary institutions under Khrushchev, as well as the
influence of the main principles of Anton Makarenko’s collective pedagogics on the
above-mentioned means. Analytically, the article is focussed on different forms of the
public sphere which can exist in prison environments. Special emphasis is laid on the
importance of the historical approach in understanding the present situation in
post-soviet penitentiaries. - Abstract - champpenal.revues.org/document399.html
Forecasting Sexual Abuse in Prison: The Prison Subculture of Masculinity as a Backdrop for
"Deliberate Indifference" - Christopher D. Man, John P. Cronan - Journal of
Criminal Law and Criminology (1973-), Vol. 92, No. 1/2 (Autumn, 2001 - Winter, 2002),
Intraprison HIV Transmission and the Prison Subculture - Christopher P. Krebs, Research
Triangle Institute - Two theoretical models have been employed to explain the prison
subculture and inmate behavior. The prisonization model postulates that inmates
react/adapt to the deprivations of imprisonment by forming the inmate subculture and
behaving accordingly. The importation model, on the other hand, contends that inmates
import their social system with them when they enter prison. While these models have
traditionally competed for support, a number of researchers have called for theoretical
integration and have successfully documented its appropriateness. In this study of
intraprison HIV transmission, the theoretical models are tested in the context of
behaviors that facilitate HIV transmission in prison, namely, sex, intravenous drug use,
and tatooing. Inmate responses to a survey indicate that both theoretical models play a
role in explaining the behaviors that facilitate intraprison HIV transmission. Support for
prisonization and importation, however, is not uniformly distributed across all three
high-risk behaviors. While both models explain high-risk HIV transmission behavior in
general, certain behaviors are explained largely by individual models. Prison sex, for
example, appears to be largely the result of prisonization (deprivation of heterosexual
relationships), whereas intravenous drug use seems to be largely a product of importation.
While theoretical integration has its place in explaining the universe of inmate behavior
and the prison subculture, wholesale integration may not be necessary when attempting to
explain specific behaviors.
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