Institutional aggression

• Institutional Aggression

  Split into:

  • Dispositional Explanation - Importation Model
  • Situational Explanation - Deprivation Model
• Dispositional Explanation

  ---> suggests high level of aggression in prison is due to personal characteristics of prisoners & not environment of prison

  
  

  Reason for aggressive prisoners is internal to prisoners e.g.

  • Drug/alcohol addiction
  • Genetics
  • Mental health
  • Lack of education

  Importation Model- Irwin and Cressey. Proposed:

  • Prisoners brought in their own violent traits when entering = aggression
  • Prisoners are not blank slates
  • Prisons gather aggressive inmates and puts them in one place = more aggression

  Gang membership is common. Prisoners bring prior gang alliances or feuds with them. Resulting in more aggression to increase their status within the prison
• Situational Explanation

  ---> suggests high level of aggression in prison is due the environment of the prison & not personal characteristics of prisoners

  • Prisons are stressful and unpleasant

  Reason for aggressive prisoners is external e.g.

  • Poor layout - no privacy
  • Overcrowding
  • Noise
  • Lack of facilities

  Which all lead to boredom and frustration = aggression

  
  

  Deprivation Model - Clemmer. Proposed:

  Harsh prison conditions are stressful meaning they resort to aggression to cope

  
  

  Examples of deprivation

  • Deprivation of goods = competition = increased aggression
  • Deprivation of security = threat of violence = increased aggression
  • Deprivation of liberty = no freedom = increased aggression
• Strength of Institutional Aggression

  Empirical support

  DeLisi et al - studied prisons who had history of gang membership and violent behaviour before being imprisoned. Found:

  • these were more likely to be involved in aggressive incidents than those without these backgrounds

  Supports Importation model by Irwin and Cressey - Dispositional

  Increases external validity as it shows that it can be applied to real life situations
• Weakness of Institutional Aggression

  Reductionist to focus on one model alone

  • Deprivation model (blames the environment) it cannot explain why not all inmates exposed to the same conditions are aggressive
  • Importation model (blames personal characteristics) it doesn't account for how prison environment may influence aggression

  Shows model when taken alone ignores the individual differences and environment that likely cause institutional aggression

  
  

  Lacks validity limiting ability to fully explain aggression in these settings
• Weakness of Institutional Aggression

  Methodological issues with prison research

  • Most studies are correlational, its difficult to establish a cause and effect relationship
  • There may be reporting bias or underreporting of violence in prisons due to fear of punishment

  Therefore findings are based on correlational and biased, this reduces the internal validity and scientific credibility of the evidence
• Weakness of Institutional Aggression

  Ethical issues

  
  

  Inmates may feel pressured to take part and studying violent incidents could lead to psychological harm especially if researchers ask inmates to relieve traumatic events

  
  

  Raises concerns about protection from harm which can limit type of data that researchers are ethically allowed to collect

  
  

  Therefore it limits the internal validity