Institutional aggression

Institutional aggression

1. Interpersonal factors

   • A01
     • Part of the importation model
     • Irwin + Cressey
       • Claim prisoners bring their own social histories + traits w/ them into prison + this influences their adaption to prison environment
       • Argue prisoners aren't 'blank slates' + many normative systems developed on the outside would be imported into prison
   • A02
     • Research support
       • Harer + Steffensmeier
         • Collected data from 58 US prisons + found black inmates had significantly higher rates of violent behaviour but lower rates of alcohol-related + drug-related misconduct than white inmates
           • Patterns parallel racial differences in these behaviours in US society + so support importation model

2. Situational factors

   • A01
     • The 'deprivation model'
     • Paterline + Peterson
       • Prisoner or patients aggression = product of stressful + oppressive conditions of institution itself
         • Include overcrowding, assumed to increase fear + frustration levels + staff expereince
     • Hodgkinson et al
       • Found trainee nurses more likely to suffer violent assault than experienced nurses
         • In prison setting, length of service also significant factor w/ more experienced officers being less likely to suffer an assault
           • Davies + Burgess
   • A02
     • Research support
       • For claim - peer violence is used to relieve deprivation imposed by institutional cultures
       • McCorkle et al
         • Found overcrowding, lack of privacy + lack of meaningful activity all significantly influence peer violence
       • Research in this area is not consistent in its findings
         • Nijman et al
           • Conducted research in psychiatric institutions
             • Found increased personal space failed to decrease level of violent incidents among patients
     • IDA - Real-world application
       • Wilson - HMP Woodhill
         • Set up 2 units for violent prisoners that were less claustrophobic and 'prison-like' + gave them a view to outside
           • Typical noise associated w/ prison life was reduced + masked by music from local radio station
           • Temperature was lowered
           • Despite fact that these changes virtually eradicated assaults on prison staff + other inmates, political pressure led to units changing their regimes + developing in a different direction
     • Combining importation + deprivation models
       • Jiang + Fisher-Giorlando
         • Found DM was better able to explain violence against prison staff, whereas IM was better able to explain violence against other inmates

3. Genocide - dehumanisation

   • A01
     • Dehumanisation is stage 3/5 according to Staub's 5 stages in the process of genocide
     • Human beings usually have moral inhibitions about killing fellow humans, this changes if target group is dehumanised so that members are seen as worthless animals + therefore not worthy of moral consideration
       • Rwanda genocide - influential Hutu-controlled 'hate' radio station RTLM encouraged Hutu listeners to murder their Tutsi neighbours by referring to minority Tutsi as 'cockroaches'
   • A02
     • IDA - Real-world application
       • Dehumanisation explains a recent social phenomenon - violence against foreign refugees or asylum seekers?
         • Esses et al
           • Demonstrated indivi. high in SDO (Social Dominance Orientation) have a tendency to dehumanise outgroup members + in particular foreign refuges + asylum seekers
             • Media causes greater contempt in high SDO indivi. than in low SDO indivi. + lack of sympathy for refugees in general
             • Negative attitudes become rationalised through 'legitimising myths' which indicate to high SDO indivi. that these groups deserve our hostility because they are somehow less human than others

4. Obedience to authority

   • A01
     • Milgram
       • Believed Holocaust was primarily result of situational pressures - forced Nazi soldiers to obey leaders regardless of any personal moral repugnance
         • If so many ppts in his study could administer painful electric shocks to a victim simply because they were told to do so by someone in authority
           • The mighty Nazi regime would have no trouble making soldiers kill innocent, unnamed people
   • A02
     • Mandel
       • Rejects Milgram's claims that obedience to authority was sufficient to explain behaviour of Holocaust perpetrators
         • Argues Milgram's account is monocasual + simply doesn't match the historical record
     • Goldhagen
       • Suggests main casual factor in atrocities was a form of anti-Semitism so deeply entrenched in German people at the time that they implicitly condoned the elimination of millions of innocent jews