Institution AO1

• An institution is a formal, organised setting. Institutional aggression is aggressive or violent behaviour that takes place in the social context of a prison or another formal, organised setting like prisons and mental health institutions.
• Situational factors

  • The Deprivation Clemmer, 1958.
  • Causes are within prison environment.
  • Harsh prison conditions are stressful and they cope through aggressive behavior.
  • Includes psychological factors (deprived of freedom and sexual intimacy) and physical factors (times to eat food)
  • deprivation of material goods is closely linked to aggression because it increases competition against inmates.
• Situational factors

  • Also influenced by the nature of the prison regime
  • Unpredictable and use of lock ups to control behaviour creates frustration as it reduces stimulation by barring other activities and reduces even further access to goods.
  • Aggression becomes an adaptive solution to the problem of deprivation
• Research into deprivation model

  • Steiner investigated factors predicting inmate aggression is 512 US prisons
  • Inmate on inmate violence more common in prisons with higher amount of female staff, African American inmates, Hispanic inmates and inmates in protective custody
  • Prison level factors because they are independent of individual characteristics of prisoners - they reliably predicted aggressive behaviour in line with deprivation
• Dispositional - Importation model

  • Irwin and Cressey
  • Inmates bring in (import) into prisons a subculture typical of criminality (e.g., beliefs and norms)
  • These imported characteristics influence their use of aggression to establish power, status and access to to resources
  • Aggression is a result of individual characteristics
• Research into importation

  • DeLisi et Al studied 813 Juvie Kids in Californian institutions who imported negative backgrounds like trauma, anger and substance abuse
  • Compared 2 groups - one with negative characteristics and a control group without this
  • Found negative inmates more likely to engage in suicidal activity, sexual misconduct and physical aggression