#prisonization

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“Two versions of the shift from centralized, authoritarian control of prisons, by staff and prisoners, to a more diffuse pattern of interaction, can be discerned. First, Stastny and Tyrnauer's case study of Walla Walla describes the replacement of the extreme rigidity of the former authoritarian pattern of staff-inmate relations by a pluralism of staff and prisoner groupings, many of the latter autonomous, such as ethnic clubs, status clubs, community and self-help groups, religious or semi-religious organizations and special interest clubs, reflecting a more open and interactive prison environment (Stastny and Tyrnauer, 1982, p. 157). They argue that Korn and McCorkle were mistaken to imply that handing over power to prisoners would simply generate 'patterns of internal group coercion more punitive, more rigid, and incomparably more discriminatory' (Korn and McCorkle, 1959, p. 525). On the contrary, they adopt Irwin's opinion that the view of prisons as run by corrupt oligarchies of staff and prisoners is unrealistic. Most prisoners 'bring their "pre-prison orientations" with them and are resistant to prisonization' (Stastny and Tyrnauer, 1982, p. 157).” - Robert Adams, Prison Riots in Britain and the United States. Second Edition. Consultant Editor: Jo Campling. London: MacMillan, 1994. p. 90.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"A country gets the kind of prison it deserves. As long as fraud, corruption and disorganization continue to pervade American life, it cannot be expected that prisons will be much better. ... As it now exists there is constant hostility between guards and prisoners; socialization means one thing for guards and another for prisoners; formal education is usually inadequate and ineffective; "training" in crime techniques, although informal, is very effective. When used as a frame of reference for prison administration, it is clear that convicts must learn to live in a community, perhaps at first by transfer to such minimum security prisons as at Wallkill in New York. That hostility between inmates and house officers can be cut down has been demonstrated at Norfolk Colony. The building of a sense of social responsibility is well illustrated by the English experiment at Lowdham Grange. What has been proposed as a practical plan for penal administration appeals to the authors as the logical implication of a sociological analysis. A clear realization of the degenerating influence of our present prison system should encourage more experiments aiming to devise a community for offenders that will actually rehabilitate."

- Norman S. Hayner and Ellis Ash, “The Prison as a Community,” American Sociological Review Vol. 5, no. 4 (August 1940): 583.