The Changing Social Structure of Prisons and Gang Order
This paper examines the evolving social structure of American prisons from the mid-twentieth century to the present day. Drawing on Clemmer's 1940 description of an atomized prison community, the paper traces how racial tensions, gang formation, and the underground economy of contraband have fundamentally reorganized life behind bars. It argues that gangs have replaced traditional authority as the primary source of order in prisons, functioning much like competing corporations or governmental bodies. The paper also addresses how shifting racial demographics among the incarcerated population and the legacy of social upheaval in the 1960s and 1970s have reinforced gang-based social structures, with implications for policy, corrections management, and our broader understanding of incarceration.
- Introduction: Prison as microcosm; gangs now define order
- Gangs as the Custodians of Prison Order: Gangs govern prisons like competing organizations
- Racial Tensions and Their Role in Prison Social Structure: Race and gang affiliation shape prison divisions
- Contraband and Sex in Prison: Gang-controlled markets govern contraband and sex
- Conclusion: Gangs replaced authority as prison social order
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper opens with a compelling dual framing — prison as both a microcosm of society and a world unto itself — that anchors the entire argument and gives readers a clear conceptual lens.
- It grounds historical claims in concrete evidence, such as Clemmer's 1940 description and the Canon City Riot of 1975, giving the argument a clear chronological arc rather than relying solely on abstract assertions.
- The use of the market/corporate analogy to describe gang governance is an effective rhetorical move that makes an unfamiliar social structure accessible to a general academic audience.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates effective synthesis across multiple source types — a classic sociological text (Clemmer, 1940), a political economy monograph (Skarbek, 2014), a policy analysis article (Dryburgh, 2009), and journalistic research (Wood, 2014) — to build a unified argument. Rather than summarizing each source in isolation, the writer integrates them to support a single evolving claim about how and why prison social order has changed.
Structure breakdown
The paper follows a clear thematic structure: an introduction establishing the historical baseline, a central section on gangs as the dominant organizing force, a section on racial tensions as a complicating variable, a combined section on contraband and sex as expressions of gang-governed social norms, and a conclusion that synthesizes the argument. Each section builds on the last, moving from broad structural forces to specific behavioral manifestations of those forces.
Introduction
In one sense, prison is a microcosm of the society outside its walls: an extremely concentrated reflection of the social forces at work in the civilization that has erected it. In another sense, prison is its own world — a unique environment in which social structure is determined by the interplay of forces that, outside prison, would never find themselves confined together in such close quarters. That confinement, however, creates the context for a new social structure to emerge — one which today is predominantly organized by gangs. This formation is evidence of the changing social structure of prisons.
In 1940, Clemmer described the prison community of the average American penitentiary in these words: "The prisoner's world is an atomized world. Its people are atoms acting in confusion. It is dominated and it submits. Its own community is without a well-established social structure. Recognized values produce a myriad of conflicting attitudes…" (p. 1). Those words no longer ring so true. Today's prison community does indeed have an established social structure — thanks to the gangs that perpetually occupy its cells and corridors. There is a way of life in prison that inmates are obliged to accept: it is a way that shares some similarity with the outside, at least for inmates who are familiar with gangs in the broader community. Since 1940, prisons — like much of society — have changed substantially. This paper explains the changing social structure of prisons, including gangs, racial tensions, contraband, and sex in prison.
References
Clemmer, D. (1940). The prison community. New Braunfels, TX: Christopher Publishing House.
University. (2017). Past, present, prison. Retrieved from
Dryburgh, M. (2009). Policy implications of whistle-blowing: The case of Corcoran State Prison. Public Integrity, 11(2), 155–170.
Sentencing Project. (2016). Trends in U.S. corrections. Retrieved from http://sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Trends-in-US-Corrections.pdf
Skarbek, D. (2014). The social order of the underworld. Oxford University Press.
Wood, G. (2014). How gangs took over prisons. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/10/how-gangs-took-over-prisons/379330/
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