Toward a Concept Schema of Prison Management Styles

• NCJ Number: 82461
• Journal: Prison Journal Volume: 41 Issue: 2 Dated: (Autumn/Winter 1981) Pages: 42-50
• Author(s): I L Barak-Glantz
• Date Published: 1981
• Length: 19 pages
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Four types of historic prison management models are described, and current efforts to develop more effective management policies are briefly described.

Abstract

The authoritarian model of prison management dominated 19th century penology in both theory and practice. This model was characterized by an arbitrary system of centralized one-man rule (the prison warden) and repressive social control. This system of one-man rule, whether benevolent or despotic, took nearly a century to supplant, and even now the job is far from complete in a few prisons. The bureaucratic-lawful model tended to take the place of the authoritarian model. In the process of bureaucratizing prisons, State legislatures and Governors demanded that principles, rules, and regulations be formulated to rationalize correctional policy and practice. The procedure involved decentralization and the diffusion of power, as well as the atomization of the inmate community to achieve control. In the third model, the shared-powers model, inmates have been granted some power in the governance of the prison, so that they share, along with local management and the central office, a voice in the operation of the institution. This model is accompanied by the rehabilitative and democratic ideology, the recognition of the legitimate rights of group association in the prison, and overt confrontations between the administration and the custodial staff. The fourth style of prison management, the inmate-control model, is a logical extension of the shared-powers model. In this model, the inmates, through formal or informal group association, have effectively taken power away from the administration, so that they determine prison policy. Corrections policy needs a balanced style that will avoid the anarchy of the inmate-control model and the repression of the authoritarian model, to the end that inmates will have an ordered and useful lifestyle in prison, which includes constructive work relevant to employment on the outside, education, and vocational training, while being safe from personal attack from other inmates or guards. A total of 25 references are listed, along with 4 notes.