Prisons Create a Criminal Personality (From America's Prisons: Opposing Viewpoints, P 79-85, 1991, Stacey L. Tipp, ed. - See NCJ- 159858)

• NCJ Number: 159867
• Author(s): J H Abbott
• Date Published: 1991
• Length: 7 pages
• Sale Source: Greenhaven Press
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article argues that the experience of prison reinforces and creates criminal tendencies in inmates.

Abstract

Written by an inmate who committed murder within one month of his early release, this article contends that the prison system cannot rehabilitate inmates, and that instead, inmates attain the will and the capability to commit crimes while in prison. Inmates quickly learn that, to avoid their own victimization, they must prey on others. When inmates gain the capability to murder someone in cold blood, they are displaying the deception, calculation, and nerve necessary to commit any crime.