institutional aggression

• Institutional aggression is aggression that occurs regularly in institutions such as prisons.
• Dispositional explanations of institutional aggression suggest prison violence is caused by the personal characteristics of prisoners.
• Situational explanations of institutional aggression suggest prison violence is caused by the unpleasant environment and poor conditions in prisons.
• Irwin and Cressey 1962 suggested the importation model for dispositional explanations of institutional aggression.
• The importation model suggests personal characteristics of prisoners such as gender, biological risk factors, personality and aggressive role models could predispose them to commit violence in prisons.
• The importation model suggests gang membership predisposes offenders to commit violence in prisons because people who belong to gangs learn social norms that reward violence, called the code of the streets that they bring into prison with them, causing aggressive behaviour.
• Support for importation model. Mears et al conducted a longitudinal study and found prisoners were more likely to behave aggressively in prisons if they had joined gangs and believed in a code of the streets. This is positive as it supports the idea that gang membership predisposes offenders to aggressive behaviour
• Support for importation model. Kane and Janus collected information about the personal characteristics of the prisoners and found the level of violence of the prisoners was associated with a past history of violence, low levels of education and unemployment. This is positive as it supports the idea that prisoners imported predisposing personal characteristics, causing aggressive behaviour.
• Sykes suggests that being deprived of security, being deprived of goods, deprivation of heterosexual relationships, deprivation of autonomy and deprivation of liberty are situational factors that can cause institutional aggression.
• The deprivation model of institutional aggression was developed by Sykes and is a situational explanation of aggression.
• Situational factors that may contribute to institutional aggression also include overcrowding, noise and temperature.
• Support for situational explanation of institutional aggression. McCorkle 1995 looked at 371 US prisons and found a significant positive correlation between deprivation and overcrowding and level of violence displayed by prisoners. This is positive as it supports the idea that overcrowding and a deprivation of basic needs lead to violence in prisons.
• Situational explanation has successfully been applied to improve prisons. Wilson reduced temperature, noise level and overcrowding at HMP Woodhill and found a significant decrease in violence. This is positive as it demonstrates how the situational explanation can be applied to improve behaviour of prisoners.
• Contradictory evidence to situational explanation. Harer & Steffensmeier conducted a major study of US prisons and found no correlation between prison conditions and aggressive behaviour. This is problematic as it goes against the situational explanation and supports the dispositional explanation of institutional aggression.
• Jiang & Fisher-Giorlando conducted a study looking at 431 reports of violence in a US prison, and found the importation model best explained violence against other prisoners and the deprivation model best explained violence against the staff.