institutional aggression (prisons) AO1

Question 1

what is the dispositional explanation?

Answer 1

an explanation of behaviour that highlights the importance of the individual’s personality (I.e their disposition).

Question 2

who came up with the importation model?

Answer 2

irwin and cressey

Question 3

what does irwin and cressey’s importation model argue?

Answer 3

• that prisons are not. completely insulated from everyday life outside in the ‘real world’. prison inmates come from the outside world and they import a subculture typical of criminality
• this includes beliefs, norms, attitudes and a history of learning experiences as well as other personal characteristics - gender and ethnicity

Question 4

this dispositional explanation is based on ….. nature (e.g inherited temperament) and also ….. (e.g social environment)

Answer 4

this dispositional explanation is based on individual nature (e.g inherited temperament) and also nurture (e.g social environment)

Question 5

what reflects the lives of prisoners before they were imprisoned?

Answer 5

the willingness of inmates to use violence inside prison to settle disputes reflects their lives before they were imprisoned

Question 6

what did thomas and mcmanimon say?

Answer 6

• ‘people who prey on others on the streets also prey on others in the prison’
• inmates import such behaviours and characterisitcs which then influence their use of aggression to establish power, status, influence and access to resources (the ‘convict’ subculture)

Question 7

what did delisi et al study and what was their procedure?

Answer 7

• a group of juvenile offenders in californian institutions who had negative backgrounds (e.g childhood trauma, anger, histories of substance abuse and violent behaviour).
• these individuals were importing these characteristics (and the resulting dispositions) into prison.
• the researchers compared this group with a control group of inmates who did not have these negative features

Question 8

what did delisi et al find?

Answer 8

the ‘negative’ inmates were more likely to engage in suicidal activity, sexual misconduct and acts of physical aggression

Question 9

who came up with the deprivation model?

Answer 9

clemmer

Question 10

what did clemmer’s deprivation model say?

Answer 10

• places the causes of institutional aggression within the prison environment itself I.e a situational explanation
• harsh prion conditions are stressful for inmates who cope by resorting to aggressive and violent behaviour.
• these harsh conditions include psychological factors (e.g deprived of goods ad services)
• deprivation of material goods is closely linked to aggression because it increases competition amongst inmates

Question 11

apart from prison environments, what else influences aggression according to the deprivation model?

Answer 11

• aggression is also influenced by the nature of the prison regime. if it is unpredictable and regularly uses ‘lock-ups’ to control behaviour, then this creates frustration, reduces stimulation by barring other more interesting activities and reduces even further access to ‘goods’ (such as tv).
• this is a recipe for violence which becomes an adaptive solution to the problem of deprivation

Question 12

what did steiner investigate?

Answer 12

steiner investigated factors predicting aggression in 512 us prisons

Question 13

what did steiner find?

Answer 13

• steiner found that inmate-on-inmate violence was more common in prisons where there was a higher proportion of staff who were women, overcrowding and more inmates in protective custody.
• these are prison-level factors because they are independent of individual characteristics of prisoners. they reliably predicted aggressive behaviour in line with the deprivation model