Institutional Aggression in The Context of Prisons

Institutional Aggression in The Context of Prisons

Two major theoretical stances that try to explain institutional aggression are the dispositional and situational explanations. An example of a dispositional explanation is the importation model by Irwin and Cressey (1962). An example of a situational explanation of aggression in prisons is the deprivation model, argued by Sykes (1958).

Importation Model

John Irwin and Donald Cressey developed the importation model in 1962, which was the most influential dispositional explanation. It is the idea that prisoners 'import' their behaviours and personality traits from outside into the prison and continue to perpetuate these behaviours once 'inside'. It attempts to explain aggressive behaviours in institutions.

Inmates are people who may potentially deal with situations using violence (primarily those with a history of violence), so, typically, they may continue to do this in prison. This is due to risk factors before their entry into aggression:

• Gang members tend to bring their behaviours into prison with them. They are typically exposed to aggression and have predetermined feuds with other gangs (resulting in instrumental violence, where violence is used as a premeditated tool).
• Prisoners with issues with drug abuse and withdrawal symptoms may be more inclined to fall into aggressive behaviours.
• Existing inmates use aggression to gain power, and new, intimidated inmates use aggression to deal with an unknown environment, ‘the convict subculture’.

Simply put, inmates predisposed to using violence are more likely to do so in any setting. Therefore, aggression is the product of the inmates’ personalities, not the prison environment.

It is an internal factor determined by individual internal characteristics.

Fig. 1 - The Importation model suggests aggression is determined by the people in prison, not the environment.

Institutional Aggression Evaluation: Importation Model of Prison Culture

Consider the following study by DeLisi et al. (2004). This study investigated the importation model through gang members (those at risk for prison misconduct). Using negative binomial regression models, researchers analysed 831 males from the southwestern USA for their prison violence (using records of their involvement in street gangs, prison gangs, and both types of gangs).

They found that gang associations were significantly predictive of prison violence only in the full model when considering various types of gang membership. However, the effects of membership were lower than other risk factors (such as chronic offending and a history of violence.

Overall, the study suggested that the importation model was inconclusive and needed further investigation, with control for outside variables (such as a history of offences and race).

Those who had issues with living in care and a history of violence with family members then went on to be violent towards prison inmates and staff (if they were incarcerated). Institutional misconduct indicated that proximal delinquent career variables were more associated with misconduct than family background factors.

Overall, these childhood and adolescent experiences result in dispositional factors (individual characteristics influencing behaviour), supporting the idea that prison itself is not the cause of aggression (life course importation model).

The importation model comes with its own strengths and weaknesses.

Strengths

Camp and Gaes (2005) studied 561 inmates with similar criminal histories and predispositions to aggression. They placed half of them in low-security Californian prisons and half in high-security ones. They found that 33% of prisoners in the low-security prisons were involved in aggressive misconduct, as was 36% in the high-security ones. This result was not statistically significant.

The researchers concluded that the environmental features of prisons were significantly less important predictions of aggressive behaviour than the characteristics of inmates. This lends some research support to the importation model.

Weaknesses

As an alternative explanation, Diulio (1991) claimed that the importation model fails to consider the impact of prison wardens and the running of prisons. He suggested an alternative control model (ACM), which states that poorly managed prisons are likelier to experience the worst forms of inmate violence.

Deprivation Model

The deprivation model is an example of a situational explanation of aggression in prisons. Sykes (1958) argued that the causes of institutional aggression could be attributed to prison environments resulting from a deprivation of liberties, also known as the pains of imprisonment. Pains of imprisonment include being deprived of freedom, independence, goods, safety, and heterosexual intimacy.

Sykes suggested prison conditions were stressful for inmates and hard to cope with.

Clemmer (1958) suggested this is a principle of the inmate social code, which idealises an inmate’s ‘perfect behaviour’. The nature of prisons also leads to aggression. ‘Lock ups’ are often used to control behaviour, which creates frustration, reduces stimulation from other activities (i.e., distractions), and reduces even further access to material goods.

This is a recipe for violence. Simply put, prisons’ stressful, competition-led nature leads inmates to react aggressively. It is an external factor.

Fig. 2 - The deprivation model suggests prisons increase aggression.

Institutional Aggression Evaluation: The Deprivation Model

Bloomberg and Lucken (2000) investigated the deprivation of prisoners' freedom, i.e., their liberty. They suggested this was one of the primary forms of punishment in the sense that, inherently, the prison has to deprive those of their complete set of liberties to an extent, which is a significant factor of the deprivation model.

Strengths

Steiner (2009) investigated the factors that predicted inmate aggression in 512 prisons in the USA. He found that environmental factors reliably predicted aggressive behaviour in line with the deprivation model. Violence increased in prisons with higher proportions of female staff, African-American inmates, Hispanic inmates, and inmates in protective custody for their own safety. This lends some research support to the deprivation model.

Weaknesses

However, the results of a study by Hensley et al. (2002) contradict these results. They studied 256 male and female inmates in two prisons in Mississippi. These were prisons that allowed conjugal visits. They found no link between these visits being allowed and reduced aggressive behaviour. This finding suggests that situational factors do not affect prison violence.

Situational Aggression

Could we use both models together? This is known as the interactionist model of institutional aggression.

Jiang and Fisher Giorlando (2002) suggest that the importation model better explains violence between inmates, and the deprivation model is more effective in understanding innate aggression against prison staff.

Dobbs and Courtney Waid (2004) support an interactionist model. They argue that inmates will suffer deprivation when entering prison for the first time. Still, deprivation doesn’t necessarily lead to violence unless it combines specific individual characteristics imported into the prison. This means that the combination of situational and dispositional factors eventually results in violence.