Institutional Aggression: Prisons

Q: Studies on Dispositional & Situational Aggression

**Harer and Steffensmeier (1996)** investigated the dispositional explanation of violence in prisons. **Magargee (1977)** investigated the effect of overcrowding (population density) in prisons and violent behaviour.

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Dispositional Explanation of Aggression

Institutional aggression refers to an aggressive or violent behaviour that takes place within the social context of a formal organised setting. It can be explained in terms of disposition or situation.

Disposition or situation

Institutional aggression can be explained in terms of disposition or situation:
- Dispositional explanations highlight the importance of individual personality (a.k.a. their disposition!)
  - One dispositional explanation is known as the importation model.
- Situational explanations identify causes of behaviour that exist within the environment.

The importation model

Developed by Irwin and Cressey (1962), the importation model is the most influential dispositional explanation of how aggression develops within prisons.
It argues that prisoners are not completely insulated from life outside; prison inmates come from the real world and bring with them a subculture typical of criminality.
- This includes beliefs, values, norms, attitudes, and a history of learning experiences, as well as other personal characteristics such as gender, race and class.

The convict subculture

The willingness of inmates to use violence inside prison to settle disputes reflects their lives before they were imprisoned.
Inmates, therefore, import behaviours as a means of negotiating their way through the unfamiliar and frightening prison environment.
In this environment, existing inmates use aggression to establish power, status, influence and access to resources; in other words, the convict subculture.

Predisposed aggression

Aggression is therefore the product of individual characteristics of inmates and not of the prison environment.
Inmates predisposed to using violence would be likely to do so in any setting.

Delisi et al. (2011)

Delisi et al. (2011) studied 813 juvenile delinquents confined in Californian institutions.
These were inmates who brought into confinement several negative dispositional features such as:
- Experiences of childhood trauma, high levels of anger and irritability, a history of substance abuse, and a history of violent behaviour.

Delisi et al. (2011) findings

These inmates were more likely to engage in suicidal activity and sexual misconduct, and committed more acts of physical violence when compared to a control group of inmates with fewer negative dispositional factors.

Situational Explanation of Aggression

Situational explanations

In contrast to dispositional factors, situational explanations identify the causes of behaviour as existing within the environment, which may include other people.

The deprivation model

Clemmer (1958) developed the deprivation model.
This places the causes of institutional aggression within the prison environment itself.
According to Clemmer, harsh prison conditions are stressful for inmates, who have to cope by resorting to aggression and often violent behaviour.

Prison conditions

These conditions include being deprived of freedom, independence, goods and services, safety, and heterosexual intimacy.
Deprivation of material goods is especially important because it increases competition amongst inmates to acquire them, which is often accompanied by a corresponding increase in aggression.

Prison regime

Aggression is also influenced by the nature of the prison regime.
Prison regimes can be unpredictable and regularly use ‘lock-ups’ to control behaviour.
This creates frustration, reduces stimulation by barring other more interesting activities, and reduces access to goods even further.
This is a recipe for violence, which becomes an adaptive solution to the problem of deprivation.

Steiner (2009)

Steiner (2009) investigated factors that predicted inmate aggression in 512 US prisons.
In this study, the factors reliably predicted aggression in line with the deprivation model.

Steiner (2009) results

Steiner found that inmate-on-inmate violence was more common in prisons where there were higher proportions of:
- Female staff,
- Black inmates,
- Hispanic inmates,
- Inmates in protective custody for their own safety.
These represent prison level factors because they are independent of the individual characteristics of inmates.
This supports the deprivation model.

Studies on Dispositional & Situational Aggression

Harer and Steffensmeier (1996) investigated the dispositional explanation of violence in prisons. Magargee (1977) investigated the effect of overcrowding (population density) in prisons and violent behaviour.

Harer and Steffensmeier method

Case study.
Data was examined from 58 male prisons in the US. They looked for racial differences in violence and drug/alcohol misuse.

Harer and Steffensmeier results

Results
- Black males were more likely to be involved in violent incidents, whilst white males were more likely to be involved in drug/alcohol misuse.
Conclusion
- Supports the importation model which suggests inmates ‘import’ their outside of prison behaviour into prison. Also supports the dispositional explanation of aggression that suggests that aggressive behaviour is a character trait and not a result of the situation.

Harer and Steffensmeier evaluation

Strengths
- Ecological validity.
- Large sample.
Limitations
- Racism – cultural bias.
- Ignores socioeconomic factors outside of prison.

Magargee (1977) method

A correlation.
A prison for male young offenders was studied for 3 years. The population density and number of violent incidents were correlated.

Magargee (1977) results

Results
- A positive correlation was discovered. The more overcrowded the prison was, the more incidents of violence were recorded.
Conclusion
- Chronic overcrowding, which is common in many prisons, increases violence. Suggesting situational factors have a large influence on aggression.