institutional aggression

• Irwin and Cressey (1962) suggested aggression occurs because of the characteristics that prisoners bring inside with them e.g childhood trauma or high levels of anger/irritability
• The situational explanation for institutional aggression is the deprivation model proposed by Clemmer (1958) which claimed that it is the characteristics of the prison itself rather than the individuals that account for prison violence
• Harsh prison conditions are stressful and in order to cope, individuals are more likely to engage in violent conduct. It is thought that as inmates experience these ‘pains’ their response is to engage in interpersonal violence.
• De Lisi et al (2011) studied 813 juvenile delinquents confined in institutions in california
• A limitation of the importation model is that Steiner’s research disputes this model and offers support for the deprivation model
• Steiner (2009) investigated the factors that predicted inmate aggression in 512 prisons in the US
• A limitation of the deprivation model is that De Lisi's research disputes this model and offers support for the importation model.
• A more plausible explanation is the interactionist model which considers both the dispositional and situational explanations equally. Jiang and Fischer-Giorlando suggest that the importation model is better at explaining violence between inmates, whilst the deprivation model is more useful at understanding violence against prison staff
• The dispositional explanation for institutional aggression is the importation model
• the importation model was proposed by Irwin and Cressey (1962)
• Particular characteristics mean inmates are more likely to engage in violence
• De Lisi found inmates with several negative dispositional features were more likely to engage in suicidal activity, sexual misconduct and committed more physically violent acts brought to the attention of the parole board, than the control group (inmates with less negative dispositional features).
• Prison characteristics leading to aggression:

  • The loss of freedom of heterosexual relationships
  • isolation
  • boredom
  • discomfort
  • loneliness.
• Steiner found that inmate-on-inmate violence was more common where there were higher proportions of female staff, African-American inmates, Hispanic inmates, and inmates in protective custody for their own safety. These are all prison-level factors because they are independent of the individual characteristics of prisoners.
• There are issues with generalisability in both De Lisi's and Steiner's studies