Institutional Aggression

Institutional Aggression

1. Intra-group Institutional Aggression

   • The importation model: Irwin and Cressey- Prisoners bring their own social histories and traits with them into prison, and this influences their adaptation to prison environment. They argue that prisoners are not 'blank slates' when they enter prison, and that many of the normative systems developed on the outside would be 'imported' into th prison.
   • The deprivation model: this model argues that the prisoner or patient aggression is the product of the stressful and oppressive conditions of the institution itself, for example, overcrowding/bad staff handling.
   • Hazing: This is a form of institutional bullying based on a tradition of imitation to maintain a strict pecking order. These can spiral out of control and cause lasting physical or psychological damage. Social context has been shown to have a powerful effect on people's willingness to harm others as they conform to culturally constructed motions, e.g. in Zimbardo's prison experiment.

2. Inter-group Institutional Aggression:

   • Genocide: There are 5 Stages:
     • 1. Difficult social conditions
       • 2. Scapegoating of a minority group
         • 3. Negative evaluation/dehumanisation of target group
           • 4. Moral values/rules become inapplicable, so killing begins
             • 5. The passivity of bystanders enhances the process
   • Examples og genocide include the Holocaust and the Hutu-Tutsi genocide in Rwanda.
   • Dehumanisation: This removes moral inhibitions concrrning the target group, as if the target group is considered animals or less than human, and thus not worth moral consideration in the eyes of the aggressors. an example of the is the Hutu extremists calling the Tutsi 'cockroaches' on their radio.
   • Obedience to authority: Milgram believed that the Holocaust was primarily the result of situational pressures forcing the Nazi soldiers to obey their leaders regardless of any personal moral repugnance. He argued that if so many participants could administer painful electric shocks to a victim simply because they were told to do so by an authority figure, the mighty Nazi regime would have no trouble t all getting soldiers to kill innocent, unarmed people.

3. Obedience to authority: Mandel (1998) rejects Milgram's claims that obedience to authority was sufficient to explain the behaviour of Holocaust perpetrators. He argues that Milgram's account is monocausal and simply does not match the historical record, e.g. Goldhagen, 1996, suggests that the main causal factor in the atrocities was a form of anti Semitism so deeply entrenched in the German people that they implicitly condoned the elimination of millions of innocent Jews.

4. Dehumanisation: Evidence for its destructive consequences can be seen in many conflicts. Furthermore, it may also explain violence against immigrants.

5. Hazing research support: the finding that it is also used to establish dominance in institutions other than colleges e.g. McCorkle, 1992, who studied prisons. They found that the domination of the weak seen by inmates as essential to maintaining status. passive behaviour interpreted as weakness/vulnerability, likely to provoke exploitation. However, problems of definition here: What is/isn't considered 'aggressive' behaviour in this area, for example, many people exposed to hazing appear to simply regard it as innocent fun. In a survey of US students, 1/5 reported experiencing bhaviours that met the researcher's definition of hazing, yet only 1/20 regarded themselves as having experienced hazing.

6. Importation model: some research support, particularly in terms of individual factors, il.e. age/education level/race- e.g. Harer and steffensmeier, 2006, collected data from 58 US prisons, and found that black inmates had significantly higher rates of violence/lower cases of alcohol or drug related misconduct that white inmates, and the pattern parallels differences in US society.

7. Deprivation model; substantial research evidence supports claims that peer violence is used to relieve deprivation imposed by institutional cultures. Mccorkle et al 1995 found that overcrowding, lack of privacy and lack of meaningful activity significantly inclunced peer violence.

   • However, research is not consistent with findings in this area. Research in psychiatric institutions, e.g. Nijman et al 1999 found increased personal space failed to decrease the level of violent incidents amongst patients.

8. Inter-group aggression: Bystanders: Staub's model emphasises the importance of bystander intervention in preventing genocide: doing nothing merely allows killing to continue unabated. It may even escalate it by signalling apathy or consent. however, bystander intervention doesn't necessarily end institutional aggression. There are important differences between the effects of intervention on duration and severity of violence. In international or civil conflict, although intervention by outside eagncies, e.g. UN can shorten conflict, it might also hasten perpetrators in stepping up genocidal policy. In Rwandan genocide, 800,000 people died in just 100 days.