Prisons in Turmoil John Irwin

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Prisons in TurmoilJohn Irwin

• June 4, 2001

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The Big House

• Physical Description
• Very large, walled prison
• Stacked cell blocks
• Isolation of individuals and the institution
  itself
• Jackson Prison and Michigan Reformatory
• Social Organization
• Characterized by a very stratified social system
• Formal routine monotony
• Convict code very complex inmate system based
  on prestige, power, and privilege
• Right Guys

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The Big House

• Irwin argues that this environment has a specific
  impact on the inmates psyche
• Stupefacation insensibility of mind or feeling
• going stir
• Serving time in the big house lead most men to
  experience embitterment, stupefaction and/or
  going stir

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Correctional Institution

• History
• The development of the correctional institution
  was driven largely by societal changes
• During this time there was a growing number of
  college educated prison administrators
• correctionalists
• Assumption Behavior was caused by identifiable
  and changeable forces
• Rehabilitative Ideal

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Correctional Institution

• Indeterminate sentencing system
• Release prisoners when they have been fixed
• Parole boards played a large role in the
  imprisonment process
• Classification
• Elaborate, significant diagnostic process
• You need to identify the problem to provide a
  solution
• Do we know a cure for criminality??

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Correctional Institution

• Treatment
• Therapeutic
• Group counseling very popular
• Academic
• GED
• Basic Skills
• Vocational
• Job training

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Soledad(not the newscaster)

• Opened in 1952 in California training
  facility
• The architecture of the prison was very different
  from the big house
• The prison offered a wide range of vocational and
  training opportunities
• Informal life
• Members of different racial and ethnic groups
  formed into groups within the prison
• The prison population was becoming more diverse
  every day.

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Soledad

• Ambience
• Relatively optimistic, tolerant, and agreeable
  mood.
• Social Organization
• Tips- networks of people known from the same
  cultural networks. Larger groupings
• Cliques- smaller groups that could cut across tips

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Soledad

• Rehabilitative Ideal
• Directly promoted social order
• Conformity to the prison routine was the
  principal indicator of rehabilitation
• If you mess up, you were not let out on parole
• Rehabilitative downfall
• The influence of the civil rights movement
• A lack of trust in the rehabilitative ideal

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The Contemporary Prison

• The contemporary prison is characterized by
  divisions
• Racial Divisions
• There is little interaction among races people
  stick to groupings that were developed before
  prison
• Violence-oriented groups dominate many large
  prisons

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The New Convict Identity

• Toughness is the new hero in prison
• Stubbornly opposes the administration
• Takes advantage of the weak
• Extremely assertive of his masculinity
• Withdrawal
• Inmates are less involved in a social system as
  before.

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Concluding Remarks

• Sources of conflict in the contemporary prison
  are embedded in cultural and social orientations
• Going stir from the institutional environment
  doesnt happen much
• Conflict is filtered into the institution from
  the outside