NCJ Number
120254
Date Published
1989
Length
77 pages
Annotation
An inmate of the New Mexico prison system between October 1983 and 1986 describes the effects of prison conditions on the general prison population and concludes that prison life adversely affects personality development and teaches prisoners to have little respect for laws and government.
Abstract
The analysis concludes that society's attitudes toward corrections need to change and that the legislature should require that prison administrators manage prisons so that inmates are taught to act in socially acceptable ways. It argues that corrections management currently focuses on the physical facility and on the effective use of space within prisons. As a result the values prisoners hold when they commit crimes generally do not change in a positive manner while they are in prison. The analysis details the effects of the convicts' informal code of conduct and describes inmate violence, inmate-staff relations, problems in educational programming offered to inmates, the effects of the lack of meaningful choices, and the effects of overcrowding. The discussion concludes that the constant exposure to an environment characterized by fear, violence, inconsistency, and a value system contrary to that of the free world makes inmates more likely than other people to have no respect for the government and its laws and thus to commit further crimes upon release. Footnotes.