The prison control structure and its effects on work attitudes: The perceptions and attitudes of prison guards

Recent observers have noted the frequently voiced complaint of prison guards that they have too little influence on decisions about the operations and goals of prisons. This lack of influence, moreover, is thought to be associated with such work-related attitudes as job satisfaction, role strain, and alienation. Yet, it is unclear from previous analyses whether this complaint (1) is based solely on the actual amount of control guards believe they have, (2) arises from a perceived disparity between their amount of control and that held by prisoners and administrators, or (3) reflects a felt discrepancy between the guards' actual and ideal amounts of control in the prison. The present study examined survey data from four prisons to quantify the guards' perceptions of the prison control structure and to assess the relative contributions of the perceived amount, distribution, and discrepancy between actual and ideal control for guards to the work-related attitudes of job satisfaction, role strain, and alienation. The results indicated that guards perceive the total amount of control in the prison as finite, that they desire an increase in their own level of control commensurate with the decrease they desire in the prisoners' amount of control, and that the perceived amount, distribution, and discrepancy between guards' actual and ideal control have a significant effect on guards' work-related attitudes.     

THE EXERCISE OF POWER IN COERCIVE ORGANIZATIONS: A STUDY OF PRISON GUARDS*

If the power of prison guards has been altered and reduced by recent social, legal, and bureaucratic instructions in American prisons, as has been reported by many observers, then what is the base of power by which guards currently exert control over prisoners? Following a discussion of the bases of power in prison, data from a survey of guards in five prisons are examined to determine the extent to which each power base is viewed as a resource to gain prisoner compliance. The results are discussed in terms of the guards’exercise of control within the increasingly bureaucratic structure of coercive organizations.     

Prison life: Television,sports, work,stress and insomnia in a remand prison

ObjectiveTo compare how prisoners complaining of insomnia and prisoners without sleep problems describe their daily activities, stress factors and the perceived reasons for their sleep quality in prison.Method102 randomly chosen remanded prisoners complaining of insomnia and 61 randomly chosen prisoners who did not complain of insomnia.ResultsPrisoners complaining of insomnia and those reporting good sleep differed significantly in their lifestyle in prison. A significantly higher percentage of the former than of the latter reported writing letters, diaries or a book in prison, as well as doing “arts-related” activities such as painting and listening to music. A significantly higher percentage of non insomniac prisoners than of prisoners complaining of insomnia practiced sports in prison, watched television, and spent their day discussing and meeting other detainees. PSQI and GHQ scores were significantly different between insomniac and non insomniac prisoners. Insomniac prisoners complained significantly more often than non-insomniac prisoners about sleep disturbances, in the first place by roommates, but also by guards. Activities in prison and stressful events were significant factors associated with the variable “insomnia versus no insomnia” Worries about medical problems (odds ratio: 12.9), being separated or divorced (odds ratio: 8.8), having experienced stressful events during the past week (odds ratio: 8.7), “art” activity (odds ratio: 8.6), and having a GHQ score > 10 (odds ratio: 7.7) had the highest odds ratios among the tested covariates. No sports in prison and some activities were also predictors of insomnia when entered separately or conditionally.ConclusionOur study provides arguments on how to alleviate insomnia in prison: changing conditions of imprisonment is of public health benefit. Increased opportunities to practice sports in prison as well as adequate care for medical problems and psychological support to reduce context related stress should be routinely offered to insomniac prisoners.     

PRISON GUARDS' ATTITUDES TOWARD COMPONENTS OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

Only recently has there been very much interest in prison guards, their behavior, or their attitudes. Although prisons and their prisoners have been the subject of many investigations, the keepers have been overlooked. This article reports guards’attitudes toward the criminal justice system and suggests what these attitudes may mean.     

ALIENATION IN PRISON

This article focuses on alienation among prison guards by examining the nature of the work relations between guards and fellow guards, inmates, and prison administrators. Data for the project were derived from both questionnaire and interview sources. The independent effects of the three forms of work relations on five types of alienation were assessed through an examination of standardized regression coefficients estimated from a fully recursive model of the variable relationships. We found that negative evaluations of work relations resulted in increased levels of alienation experienced by guards.     

Facing drug problems and advancing sentence plan. Prisoners’ perspectives on drug treatment programmes in Finland

ABSTRACT

In Nordic countries, the rapid development of various prison-based drug treatment (PDT) programmes emerged in the mid-1990s, and this development can be viewed as a criminological shift towards a “new form” of penal welfarism combining control and rehabilitation in a revised form in a new era. This article examines PDT programmes from the prisoners’ perspective to analyse their motives to participate, experiences, and relationships with counsellors, guards, and prisoners. Data were collected from interviews of the prisoners and observations in three Finnish prisons. Both the motives connected to handling drug problems and those connected to gaining an advantage for the duration of time spent in prison were experienced simultaneously by participants. Prisoners made a clear distinction between guards and drug counsellors and were somewhat confused by staff roles that combined both rehabilitative and control features. These findings suggest that new hybrid roles already found among correctional staff seem to exist also for prisoners.     

The erosion of authority and the perceived legitimacy of inmate social protest: A study of prison guards

The level of control exercised by guards over inmates, it has been argued, has decreased recently as a result of therapeutic, legal, and bureaucratic changes in American prisons. Feeling that inmates too often and too easily circumvent their authority, and that greater inmate rights pose a serious threat to their ability to maintain order, guards tend to discredit inmate complaints and to deny inmates the right to lawful social protest. Questionaire data are analyzed to examine (1) the extent and degree to which guards perceive as legitimate the various means by which inmates may protest unfair treatment by staff and (2) the relationship of this perceived legitimacy of inmate social protest to a variety of factors that prior research has isolated as important in understanding prison guards as an occupational group.     

Ruling by Favors: Prison Guards' Informal Exercise of Institutional Control

This ethnographic research addresses the control strategies employed by Norwegian guards in everyday interactions with inmates under institutional conditions in which the use of official negative sanctions is restricted. The article explains how a complicated informal system of favors develops that forms a new basis for punishment through the withdrawal of rewards. By distributing favors liberally, giving an inmate only what he is entitled to serves as a substitute for negative sanctions. Inmates are not opposing the informal system, and its effect on ensuring institutional control does not challenge the intentions of formal prison rules. Still, the informal system must be monitored and protected against overuse by inmates and must also be kept hidden from the officials making up the prison administration who oppose all departures from the official rules.     

Offenders as victims: post-traumatic stress disorder and substance use disorder among male prisoners

Background: Comorbid substance use disorder(s) and post-traumatic stress disorder (SUD-PTSD) is common among prisoners and linked to an increased risk of criminal recidivism; however, little is known about the characteristics of prisoners with this comorbidity. Aim: This study provides a preliminary examination of the clinical and criminal profile of male inmates with symptoms of SUD-PTSD, and examines whether this profile differs according to whether a person has experienced a trauma while in prison. Methods: Thirty male inmates from two correctional centres in Sydney, Australia, were recruited and assessed using a structured interview. Results: The sample reported extensive criminal, substance use and trauma histories. A history of substance dependence was almost universal (90%) and 56.7% met diagnostic criteria for PTSD with the remainder experiencing sub-threshold symptoms. Forty-three per cent reported a traumatic event while in prison. Those who had experienced trauma in prison, compared to those who had not, were more likely to nominate heroin as their main drug of concern and to be receiving drug treatment in prison. There was also a trend toward inmates who had experienced a trauma in prison being more likely than inmates who had no prison trauma to have experienced a physical assault. Conclusion: Male prisoners with SUD-PTSD are a high-needs group yet treatment responses are poor. Further research examining treatment options for this comorbidity may improve prisoner well-being and reduce recidivism.     

PRISON GUARDS AND THE USE OF PHYSICAL COERCION AS A MECHANISM OF PRISONER CONTROL*

This paper examines the dynamics of the use of unofficial force by prison guards in a Texas penitentiary. The findings suggest that rather than being idiosyncratic or sporadic, guard use of physical coercion was highly structured and deeply entrenched in the guard subculture Upperranking guards served as mentors and socialized younger nonmnking guards into the process of using physical coercion. These nonranking guards actually served as apprentices. Most importantly, guards who used physical force were rewarded for their behavior with improved duty posts or even promotions.     

The role of moral disengagement in the execution process

The present study tested the proposition that disengagement of moral self-sanctions enables prison personnel to carry out the death penalty. Three subgroups of personnel in penitentiaries located in three Southern states were assessed in terms of eight mechanisms of moral disengagement. The personnel included the execution teams that carry out the executions; the support teams that provide solace and emotional support to the families of the victims and the condemned inmate; and prison guards who have no involvement in the execution process. The executioners exhibited the highest level of moral, social, and economic justifications, disavowal of personal responsibility, and dehumanization. The support teams that provide the more humane services disavowed moral disengagement, as did the noninvolved guards but to a lesser degree than the support teams.     

The criminal justice system in a social justice society would look very different from the current system

I learned my most important lessons about criminal justice reform more than 30 years ago while working on what has become known as the Attica Prison rebellion. The Attica Prison rebellion took place in September 1971 in the maximum security prison in upstate New York. Led by prisoners with a broad social justice agenda, the prisoners’ demands were focused on basic human rights, including the right to organise, the right to be free from abuse from prison guards and the right to basic living conditions – health and sanitary conditions among others. The rebellion was ended when then Governor Nelson Rockefeller sent in state troopers to retake the prison by force, resulting in the death of 39 prisoners and prison guards. A political and legal struggle to defend prisoners charged in the uprising ensued, eventually resulting in the dismissal of the charges against the prisoners. In 2000, the people who had been prisoners at Attica during the 1971 rebellion were awarded an $8m settlement from the State of New York.     

Reclaiming the Power to Punish: Legislating and Administrating the California Supermax, 1982–1989

This article examines how increasingly punitive prison conditions, epitomized by the birth and spread of the supermax prison, developed in the United States. This analysis builds on a growing literature about the “new punitiveness” of U.S. punishment policy and its global proliferation. This article shifts the focus away from the policies that have led to increasing rates of incarceration, however, and toward the policies that have shaped the conditions of incarceration. Drawing on archival research and more than 30 oral history interviews with key informants, I examine the administrative and legislative processes that underwrote the supermax innovation in California in the 1980s. During California's late twentieth‐century prison‐building spree, prison administrators deployed multiple rhetorics of risk to extend their control over conditions of confinement in state prisons. As the state invested billions of dollars in prison building initiatives, legislators, who were focused primarily on building prisons faster, ceded authority over prison design and conditions to prison administrators. In the end, rather than implementing legislative policy, prison administrators initiated their own policies, institutionalizing a new form of “supermax” confinement, pushing at the limits of constitutionally acceptable practices.     

The Rogue from Within: The Denial of Torture in Italian Prisons

In October 2009, Stefano Cucchi was beaten to death by prison guards while in custody. Italian public opinion toward prisons changed because of this event. Civil society organizations rose the level of awareness by showing how routine these abuses have become. This paper discusses the case of prisoners tortured in the prison of Asti, near Turin. Through the use of Stanley Cohen’s categories of denial, it will be shown how force relations inside prison make abuses possible.     

CORRELATES OF PRISON DRUG USE An Evaluation of Two Conceptual Models

This study, essentially an extension of the recent work of Akers et al., represents an attempt to evaluate the utility of two theoretical paradigms in accounting for illicit drug use in a prison setting. Based on self-report data obtained from a sample of 273 adult felons who were confined in a medium security penitentiary, the analysis presented demonstrates that virtually all of those inmates who reported drug use within the prison had also used drugs prior to their confident. Thus, contrary to the implications of the “deprivation model,” but fully consistent with those of the “importation model” this particular pattern of prison behavior is clearly not a direct function of the conditions of confinement. Instead, while the structure of the prison may well influence the probability that those who have used drugs prod to con/unmet will continue to do so while in prison, drug use appears to be an example of a type of behavior within the prison which is best predicted by preprison socialization and experience.     

Imprisonment and co-offending: results from a 10-year follow-up study

A recurring question in criminological research is whether prisoners meet new accomplices in prison. This article’s objective is to study co-offending among individuals who have served prison sentences. The frequency of co-offending among individuals who have been in the same prison at the same time will be examined. If gender, age, type of prison, offence type and prior experience of co-offending are significant for this type of co-offending will also be examined. The study population comprised all inmates released from a Swedish prison during a half year in 2001–2002 (n = 3.930). The follow-up period is 10 years. The results show that only 3% of those who have been in the same prison at the same time are suspected of committing offences together subsequent to release. The likelihood of being suspected of committing an offence together following the conclusion of a joint stay in the same prison is higher for those released from a closed prison who are aged 31–40, and who had committed large proportion of their offences together with others prior to the relevant prison sentence. The results suggest that the concept of criminal capital is not important for future co-offending after a joint stay in prison.     

The Influence of Prison Staff on Inmate Conditions: A Multilevel Approach to Staff and Inmate Surveys

The current study connects survey data of inmates and correctional staff in the Dutch prison system in order to describe and explain the impact of staff orientation and staff working conditions on perceived prison circumstances of inmates. Importation and deprivation theory are combined to test an integrated model to explain perceived prison conditions. By surveying staff (N = 1750) and inmates (N = 4673) independently within the same period of time and by afterwards pairing the results on the level of the housing unit (N = 173) using multilevel techniques, it is found that inmates′ perceptions of the prison conditions vary considerably between housing units. It is also found that staff’s perceptions of prison conditions show congruency with those of inmates. Another important finding is that in housing units where the orientation of staff towards inmates is relatively supportive, inmates perceive their circumstances as more positive. Conclusions and directions for further research are provided.     

Review of point-of-reception mental health screening outcomes in an Australian Prison

The point-of-reception into prison is a critical juncture as it provides early opportunities to identify mental illness and initiate treatment. Although large numbers of mentally ill prisoners are received into prison each day, research investigating mental health screening outcomes at the point-of-reception is limited. This study aimed to address this gap by examining reception screening outcomes for all prisoners received into an Australian prison during 2009 (n?=?4229). Overall, 19% of all prisoners were mentally ill, and another 20% had a history of psychiatric illness that required ongoing care. Mentally ill prisoners had a higher risk of suicide or self-harm and required more observation than other prisoners. At reception, no mentally ill prisoners were transferred to the state’s forensic hospital and few were transferred to the prison’s mental health unit, or provided support service referrals. These findings highlight that outcomes made at the point-of-reception are heavily influenced by the availability of prison mental health resources.     

The Patterns of Masculinity in Prison

A prison culture of masculinity shapes the prison macho – boys dont cry. The prison macho is a real man who always hides his feelings and performs like a tough guy. These characteristics are much different from what happens in everyday life in the social spheres, where human being needs to be loved, need concerns and compassion from others and express these to others as well. In the current study, there is a recognition of a multiplicity of masculinities and an emphasis on how subjects are continually constituting and constructing their identity. Based on qualitative research, this study analyzes the patterns of masculinity embedded in the daily code of conduct used by prison staff to deal with prisoners and by prisoners to interact with other inmates and constitute their subculture. The investigation of prison sociology in the constitution of masculinity discourses in Tainan Prison contributes to both gender studies and to the literature exploring differences between western and eastern perspectives and policies related to incarceration.