What are the two types of explanations for institutional aggression?
- Dispositional (importation model
- Situational (deprivation model)
Explain aggression at an institutional and/or at group level
- Behaviours occurring within an institute (prisons, hospitals, army bases) that is motivated by social forces rather than anger or frustration
- These processes at work are more complex than aggression at an interpersonal level.
- IA can lead to terrible consequences for its victims
- There are two explanations for institutional aggression within prisons; the deprivation model and importation model
What is the importation model?
A dispositional explanation stating that behaviour is a result of personal characteristics as opposed to the situation
What is the deprivational model?
A situational explanation, stating that behaviour is a result of the context an individual is in opposed to personal characteristics.
What is ‘code of the street’ ?
- set of informal rules
- governing interpersonal public behaviour, including violence
How does the ‘code of the street used to explain the importation model?
- Used to explain importation model
- Irwin and Casey
- Claim that inmates bring their violent past into prison with them
- Draw on their experiences in an environment where toughness and physical exploitation are important survival skills
- Prisoners are not blank states when entering a prison and many of the normative systems may have be imported into prison
What is the heart of the code?
- Respect
- being granted the deference that one deserves
What is the deprivation model?
- Cooke et al claims that in order to understand institutional aggression, we need to consider the situational context where violence takes place
- Violent prisoners are only violent in certain circumstances
What are the circumstances for the deprivation model?
- overcrowding
- Heat and noise
- Job burnout
In the importation model what does gang membership mean?
Gang membership leads to ASB
What researchers looked into the importation model using gang membership?
- Drury and Delisi
- US gang members significantly more likely to commit murders and acts of assault than non-gang members whilst being incarcerated
A03 Research to support the deprivation model
- research to support that peer violence is a response to the deprivation experienced in institutional cultures, such as prisons.
- McCorkle et al
- Major study of 371 US prisons
- found overcrowding and lack of privacy lead to inmate-on-inmate violence and inmate-on-staff
- prisons which major % of population was involved in education/ vocational programmes had lower incidence of violence
- Suggests that depriving inmates of meaning activity increases violent behaviour, as predicted by the deprivation model
A03 Challenges to the deprivation model
- link between situational factors and institutional aggression is challenged by findings of studies of prison violence
- Harer and Steffensmeier
- Collected data from more than 24,000 inmates from 58 prisons across US
- included importation variables (race/criminal history)
- and deprivation variables (staff-to-prisoner ratio/ security level)
- tested which variable predicted likelihood of aggressive behaviour in prison
- concluded race, age, and criminal history were the only significant predictors of prison violence
- whereas none of the deprivation variables were significant
A03 Support for the importation model
- Mears et al
- tested the view that inmate behaviour stems in part from the cultural belief systems they import with them
- measured code of the street belief system and prison experience of inmates
- results supported argument of code of street system affects inmate violence
- effect pronounced when inmate lacked family support and involved in gangs beforehand
- concluded, that it does not directly cause violent behaviour it calls for proactive responses to perceived insults and provocations.
- in prison setting it is likely to involve violence as a way of commanding respect.
A03 Challenge to importation model.
- Evidence from DeLisi et al
- claims that pre prison gang membership predicts violence in prison
- found inmates with prior street gang involvement were no more likely than other inmates to engage in prison violence
- Neither street gang or prison gang membership significantly predicted involvement in prison violence
- lack of association can be explained by the fact violent gang members are isolated from general inmate population, therefore reducing opportunities for violence.
- For example, Fischer found isolating known gang members reduced rates of serious assault by 50%
