Institutional aggression

IMPORTATION MODEL

Interpersonal factors - Irwin and Cressey (1962)Prisoners brings their own social histories and traits with them into the prison which influences their adaptation to the environment

Gang membership - Allender and Marcell (2003)Gang members disproportionately engage in acts of prison violence and membership appears to be a determinant of misconduct

Huff (1998)Gang members in the US were 10 times more likely to commit a murder and 3 times more likely to assault someone in public than non-gang members of a similar age

DEPRIVATION MODEL

Situational factors - Paterline and Peterson (1999)Prisoner aggression is a product of the oppressive conditions of the institution (e.g. crowding and staff experience)

Hodgkinson et al. (1985)Trainee nurses are more likely to suffer violent assault than experienced nurses

Davies and Burgess (1988)More experienced officers less likely to experience assault

The 'pains of imprisonment'Sykes (1958)Specific deprivations in prison include loss of liberty, loss of autonomy and loss of security. Threats to security increased anxiety levels in inmates, even if there was no significant threat. Some choose to cope with pains in imprisonment in different ways such as withdrawal or rebellion and violence 

GENOCIDE

Dehumanisation - If the target group is dehumanised so the members are seen as worthless animals they aren't seen as worthy of moral consideration. In Rwanda, a Hutu-controlled radio station referred to Tutsis as 'cockroaches'

Obedience to authority - Milgram believed the Holocaust was a result of situational pressures on soldiers to obey orders

PRISONS

The importation model - Harer and Steffensmeier (2006)Collected data from 58 US prisons. Black inmates has higher rates of violent behaviour but lower rates of alcohol and drug-related misconduct. This parallels to the racial differences in these behaviours in US society and support the importation model

Stages in the process of genocide (Staub, 1999) -  Difficult social conditions, leading to Scapegoating of a less powerful group, leading to Negative evaluation and dehumanisation of the target group, leading to Moral values and rules becoming inapplicable , and the killing begins The passivity of bystanders enhances the process

Gang membership -DeLisi et al. (2004)Inmates with prior street gang involvement were no more likely than other inmates to engage in prison violence. This could be because gang members are often isolated from the general inmate population, thus restricting their opportunities for violence

Fischer (2001)Found that isolating known gang members in a special management unit reduced the rates of serious assault by 50%

The deprivation model - Peer violence is used to relieve the deprivation imposed by prisonsMcCorkle et al. (1995)Overcrowding, lack of privacy and lack of meaningful activity all influence peer violence. However, research in this area isn't consistent

Nijman et al. (1999)Increased personal space failed to decrease the level of violent incidents

Combining deprivation and importation models -Jiang and Fisher-Giorlando (2002)The deprivation model was better able to explain violence against prison staff, whereas the importation model was better able to explain violence against other inmates

Poole and Regoli (1983)The best indicator of violence among juvenile offenders was pre-institutional violence regardless of situational factors in the institution 

GENOCIDE

The importance of bystanders -Doing nothing allows the killing to continue; however, bystander intervention doesn't necessarily end institutional aggression because there's an important difference between the effect of intervention on duration and on severity of violence

Dehumanisation - Dehumanisation may explain violence against immigrants as well as conflicts such as the Holocaust

Obedience to authority - Mandel (1998)Rejects Milgram's about obedience to authority and the Holocaust. He claims Milgram's account is monocausal 

Goldhagen (1996)Suggests the main causal factor was a form of anti-Semitism so deeply entrenched in the German people at the time that they condoned the violence of millions of innocent Jews

AO1

AO2