Patterns of Prisoner Misconduct - Toward a Behavioral Test of Prisonization

• NCJ Number: 89035
• Journal: Sociological Focus Volume: 16 Issue: 2 Dated: (April 1983) Pages: 129-146
• Author(s): I L Barak-Glantz
• Date Published: 1983
• Length: 18 pages
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/; NCJRS Photocopy Services
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Earlier version was presented at the tenth annual meeting of the Western Society of Criminology, Las Vegas, Nevada, February 1983.

Annotation

Based upon data gathered on (N = 306) prisoners in a large northwestern state maximum security prison the author identifies intra-prison misconduct as a significant variable that sheds some light on the many aspects of prisonization.

Abstract

Four patterns of misconduct are highlighted (Incidental/Accidental, 'Early Starter,' 'Late Bloomer,' 'Chronic'), and their respective linkages with prisonization are explored. Theory and research in sociology of prison life and prisonization, particularly Clemmer and Wheeler and their followers, focused mostly on the normative aspects of these processes and concepts, giving rise to two prominent conceptions: the functional and importation models of adaption to prison life. Behavioral measures were relatively neglected. This paper reviews in detail these two paradigms and their basic premises, and proposes a new direction for prisonization study, namely the focus upon behavioral measures of the prisoners' acculturation to life within the prison community. (Publisher abstract)