The Inmate Subculture in United States Prisons: An Overview

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The Inmate Subculture in United States Prisons: An Overview The Subculture Phenomena within Prisons To be able to discuss the issue of the inmate sub-cultures in prison I will first have to discuss what subcultures are and major reasons that they form. First of all the term subculture in general is kind of like a small culture within and not always accepted by members of a larger one known as a society. Societies as a whole are very large and contain many individuals within them, and let us face it it is human nature to group together or congregate with individuals that have similar interests. This causes the whole to split off into smaller groups and this process is how subcultures form; however, if you eliminate certain elements such as freedom of movement or safety from the equation you will accelerate and intensify the subculture process. Subcultures in prison Prisons exist in this country as a means to administer retributive justice for those that break the laws in our society or to state it simply prisons punish criminals that are to receive a sentence of incarceration for more than one year. There are two main sub-cultures within the walls of prison the sub-culture of the Department of Corrections (which consists of the corrections officer, administrators, and all of the staff that work at the prison and go home at the end of their day) and the actual prisoners themselves. As you can imagine these two sub-cultures are dualistic in nature and this makes for a very stressful environment for both sides of the fence. While in prison, the inmates experience the same conditions as described in the previous paragraph only more intensified and there are several factors in a prison setting that would result in the ... ... middle of paper ... ...ces Taylor, D. L., & Palacious, W. R. (2002). The Inmate Subculture in Juvenile Settings. In R. L. Gido, & T. Allemen (Eds.), Turnstyle Justice: Issues in American Corrections (pp. 60-61; Tables 5.2, 5.3). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Jeff Jhonson. (http://www.justice.gov/ndic/pubs27/27612/estimate.htm) National Drug Intelligence Center Attorney General's Report to Congress on the Growth of Violent Street Gangs in Suburban Areas April 2008 http://books.google.com/books?id=ZVmEkugKxUsC&pg=PA356&lpg=PA356&dq=Juvenile+Inmate+subculture&source=bl&ots=55uQlg5FXk&sig=XL2Mqe1xh0psna8hxCk9lzN-LTk&hl=en&ei=vec0TJOkE8KB8gaYscDICw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CEQQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=Juvenile%20Inmate%20subculture&f=false Robert M. Regoli, John D. Hewitt, E.B. (2009) Exploring Criminal Justice: The Essentials. chap. 13 Jones & Bartlett Learning (pubs.)

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