institutional agression

institutional agression

1. Importation model

   • Irwin and Cressey claim that prisoners bring their own social histories and traits with them into the prison.
   • This influences their adpatation to the prison environment .
   • they argue that the prisoners are not blank slates and the normative systems developed in the outside world are brought in with them.
   • Commentary
     • The model has received some support in the form of research into factors such as age, education level and race.
     • For example Harer and Steffensmeire collected data from 56 us prisons and found black inmates had more significant levels of violence but significantly lower results in drug and alcohol abuse.
       • However the results cannot be generalised to the whole population as US people may have different behaviours to people around the world.

2. Deprivation model

   • This model argues that prisoners or patients aggression is the product of stressful and oppressive conditions of being in an institution itself.
   • These include crowding, assumed to increase fear and frustration levels.
     • And staff experience.
   • for example Hodgkinson found that trainee nurses are more likely to suffer violent assualt than experienced nurses.
     • And in prisons length of service was a significant factor, longer serving people were less likely to be assualted.
   • Commentary
     • there is significant evidence to support the claim that peer violence is used to relieve the deprivation imposed by institutional cultures such as prisons.
       • McCorkle et al found that overcrowding, lack of meaningful activity, lack of privacy all significantly influenced peer violence.
       • however research is not consistent in it findings, research into psychiatric institutions found that increased personal space didnt decrease the level of violence.

3. Hazing

   • A form of institutional bullying based on a tradition within many groups to discipline the junior members and maintain a strict pecking order.
   • these traditions can get out of hand and cause lasting physical and psychological problems
   • An extensive study showed of 11000 US students involved in clubs and teams revealed that had been subjected to hazing at some point.
   • Why does it happen?
     • Research has revealed that the social context has a powerful influence on peoples willingness to inflict harm on others.
   • Commentary
     • Research support
       • studies have supported the concept of hazing with the findings that it is also used to establish dominance in institutions other that colleges.
       • McCorkle found that in prisons, the dominance maintaining status, with passive behaviour generally being interpreted as weakness or vulnerability and so more likely to provoke exploitation.
     • Problems of definition
       • Problems arise in determining what is and isnt not considered aggressive behaviour in this area
       • in a survey of US students one in five reported they had experienced behaviours that met the researchers definition of hazing but only 1 in 20 of these regarded themselves as experiencing hazing.