Catalysts for Prison Violence
There are many catalysts that are reported as being typically identified as problems inherent in American prisons. Many feel these problems are the catalysts of any and all violence found in American prisons. Without considering and acting on these problem areas, there can be no realistic hope of lessening the amount of prison violence, or the potential of its occurring. These problems include crowding, antiquated architecture, budgeting, poor facility management, mandatory sentencing, antiquated inmate classification, poor security, inherent inmate friction, absence of proper training, and low pay (Levinson, 2002).
In prison sociology two well-established, but contrasting perspectives are the deprivation model and the importation model. The deprivation model holds that the prison environment and loss of freedom cause deep psychological trauma so that for reasons of psychological self-preservation prisoners create a deviant prison subculture that promotes violence. The importation model emphasizes what prisoners bring into the institution, their histories, personal attributes and social networks, including links to criminal, groups (Homel & Thomson...
How a prison is organized in time and space, how individuals interact with and help shape a dynamic environment, and the role of specific situational factors in precipitating or regulating violence. Factors found to be related to violence in clued pre-existing prisoner characteristics, structural or situational factors, management practices, and outside environmental influences. Poor prison management resulting in dysfunctional forms of control emerges as a major cause of interpersonal violence, and by implication modification of these practices (especially the removal of arbitrary coercive controls) is effective in reducing violence (Homel & Thomson 2005).
Today the United States has over 2 million people in prison, more than any other country in the world. This translates to 715 prisoners for every 100,000 persons. Of these about 50% of the inmates in federal prison are there for crimes related to drugs and around 20% of inmates nationwide in state prisons are there for drug related offenses (Behrens, 2010). Many feel this…
