Showing papers on "Prison published in 1975"

Introduction to criminology

Abstract: Barlow's Introduction to Criminology is a comprehensive introduction to crime, criminality, and societal responses from a sociological perspective. Strong coverage of historical trends is a key feature of the text, allowing students to examine recent events within a context of social change. This edition has been updated throughout with current information and examples to reflect society's changing response to criminal behavior, including new coverage of small business crime, motorcycle gangs, community policing, AIDS in prison, and the theories behind intelligence and crime and female crime.

The Incapacitative Effect of Imprisonment: Some Estimates

Abstract: Recent research on the functions of imprisonment has begun to provide quantitative, empirical knowledge of its rehabilitative and deterrent effects.' Much less is known, however, about the incapacitative effect of imprisonment. While it has long been understood that the physical segregation of prison inmates prevents them from engaging in some criminal activity (as well as much non-criminal activity) during the period of their confinement, quantitative estimates of the size of this effect have been lacking.2 Leaving aside all deterrent or rehabilitative and counter-rehabilitative effects, it is of some interest to know whether

Stratification and Conflict among Prison Inmates

Abstract: Prison studies have most often emphasized the inmate code, inmate distributive systems and the colorful argot roles which are said to be functional for the emergence and persistence of both normative and distributive systems. Little systematic attention has been paid to the significance of racial, political, and religious stratification or to formal inmate organizations. Yet, systems of stratification and formal organizations are the background against which primary groups, attitudes, and individual and group conflict develop. Inmate behavior cannot be understood without reference to these allegiances and commit-

Multidimensional Locus of Control in Prison Inmates1

Abstract: This study examined public offenders' generalized expectancies of control as they relate to length of time in prison and behavior within the institution, in order to demonstrate the usefulness of a multidimensional modification of Rotter's locus of control scale with a prison sample. Inmates (N= 145) serving sentences in a large, state prison responded to three locus of control scales designed to measure separately expectancies of internality, of control by powerful others, and of control by chance forces. It was reasoned that if the separation of control into these three orientations is meaningful, then changes in perceptions of control by powerful others should be particularly relevant to the prison experience. As predicted, scores on the Powerful Others scale were significantly related to length of time in prison and number of times punished by solitary confinement.

The Just Community Approach to Corrections: A Theory

Abstract: This paper represents the attempt to apply to the prison situation the principles of moral development derived from the study of moral development in children. Existing correctional institutions do not provide the kind of experience which would foster moral growth in their inmates. In order for this to happen democratic situations have to be created in which staff and inmates can freely discuss moral issues and where staff are sufficiently aware of the nature of moral development that they can stimulate inmates to move to higher levels of moral thinking. An account is given of preliminary efforts to do just this.

Introduction to criminal justice

Abstract: Part 1 The system: the crime problem in the United States ideological framework and models of crime control explaining crime the criminal justice decision network. Part 2 The police: policing in American society police decisions issues in modern policing. Part 3 The courts: jail, pretrial release, and defense lawyers the prosecutor's decisions and plea bargaining arraignment and trial sentencing criminals and appeals. Part 3 Corrections: capital punishment prisons and correctional institutions release from prison and revocation community corrections. Part 5 The juvenile justice system: juvenile crime and juvenile justice.

Race, Socio-Economic Status, and Perceived Similarity as Determinants of Judgements by Simulated Jurors.

Abstract: Eighty-four simulated jurors judged a defendant on trial for armed robbery after reading trial transcripts and other background information in a 2 × 2 factorial design which varied the defendant’s race and socioeconomic status (SES). Higher SES (middle class) defendants were judged less guilty and assigned fewer years in prison than low SES defendants regardless of race. A race x SES interaction on attributed blameworthiness of the defendant, which was inversely related to the jurors’ judgments of the defendant’s similarity to them, was also found. Theoretical and methodological implications of these findings for jury simulation studies are discussed.

Social work in prison

Abstract: envisaged in the Younger Report.8 That is not of course to say that the problems could be any more effectively dealt with by other methods, for example, by incarceration in institutions. At the very least, the complexity of the problems to be tackled amongst this group of offenders and the limitations of available techniques will have been illustrated by these two studies. But should the various methods of treatment at our disposal be judged to be either undesirable, unethical or ineffective, what will be the implications for penal policy? If, in spite of all their acknowledged limitations, these two courageous studies contribute to a more honest and informed debate about such issues they will have been amply worthwhile.

Prisoners' attitudes toward law and legal institutions

Abstract: Sociologists and criminologists have suggested that delinquents and criminals have withheld their attribution of legitimacy from certain of the norms maintained by law-abiding groups of the larger society and have given it, instead, to patterns of conduct defined as illegitimate by the official agencies of the society.' Moreover, American criminologists agree that the strong tradition of lawlessness, namely, that of the "fix" prevailing in the American society and the fact that people in the United States do not have the respect for law that people have in other countries, are two conditions which contribute to the high delinquency and adult crime rate in America.2 In view of the foregoing, it is reasonable to expect an unfavorable attitude of American prisoners toward law in general and legal institutions in particular, namely, courts, judges, prosecutors, juries, lawyers, and police. All of us, also, are aware that adult offenders have antisocial grudges and hostile attitudes toward society. Many of these attitudes develop early in life, while some develop later as a result of experience with police, courts, and prisons. Certainly a favorable attitude toward law and legal institutions is an indication of conformity as well as good adjustment to society. There has been a dearth of studies on this important aspect of criminology in the United States. Several studies have attempted to predict success or failure after release from prison or reformatory, according to various characteristics.3 A series of studies has also attempted to guage the impact of the penal institution on the inmate as

Social Policy Implications of the Inability to Predict Violence

Abstract: Much current social policy in the areas of mental health and criminal justice is based on the supposition that psychologists and psychiatrists can accurately predict those who will be physically violent to another A review of the empirical literature, however, reveals that violence is vastly overpredicted, regardless of who is doing the predicting or how the predictions are made This predictive inaccuracy has several immediate social policy implications: Indeterminate prison sentencing should be abolished, civil commitment and preventive detention should be substantially curtailed, and legal safeguards should be infused into early intervention programs Language: en

Social Psychology, Criminal Justice, and the Principle of Discretion: A Selective Review

Abstract: This paper argues that the legal principle of discretion forms an excellent basis for the participation of social psychology in the criminal justice system. Social and psychological factors that enter into arrest, investigation, selective enforcement, plea- bargaining, criminal sentences, and prison operation are reviewed. The bibliography includes 15 case citations and 132 references.

Murder: Effects of number of killers and victim mutilation on simulated jurors’ judgments

Abstract: Simulated jurors read a brief transcript of a jury trial involving a victim who had been beaten to death by either one or five killers. For half of the subjects in each condition, further information was given that the victim’s body was mutilated after death. Subjects assigned prison sentences and rated the crime and defendants on several scales. Results showed that murder followed by mutilization increased the severity of prison sentences by about 50 years. Attributions of insanity, evil nature of the crime, and attitude toward the death penalty also varied in an orderly manner as a result of the mutilation manipulation. It was concluded that simulated jury trials provide an excellent method for studying personal causation and attribution processes in general.

Psychiatric reflections on the death penalty

Abstract: Capital punishment is outdated, immoral, wasteful, cruel, brutalizing, unfair, irrevocable, useless, dangerous, and obstructive to justice. In addition, psychiatric observations reveal that it generates disease through the torture of death row; it perverts the identity of physicians from trials to prison wards to executions; and, paradoxically, it breeds more murder than it deters.

Prisons: Houses of Darkness

Abstract: Prisons: Houses of Darkness by Leonard Orland is a unique book in which the history of penal reformation and penal atrocity is found. Orland does an amazing job of delineating the stages of our penal history. The book is divided into two parts. The first part of the book examines the prison and its history. The second part of the book examines our legal system of jurisprudence and its profound effect upon our penal institutions.

Tear Down the Walls? Some Functions of Prisons

Abstract: Although prisons have been repeatedly exposed for their inherent de grading and dehumanizing effects, their survival suggests that they are fulfilling four important manifest functions, in varying degrees: (1) reformation, (2) incapacitation, (3) retribution, and (4) deterrence. More significant are eleven latent functions serving various interests and needs: (1) maintenance of a crime school, (2) politicization, (3) self- enhancement, (4) provision of jobs, (5) satisfaction of authoritarian needs, (6) slave labor, (7) reduction of unemployment rates, (8) scientific research, (9) do-gooderism, (10) safety valve for racial tensions, and (11) birth control. These latent functions, largely unintended and generally unrecognized, suggest that abolition of the prison may not be as assured as some reformers suppose.

The Prison Birth of Black Power

Abstract: If ever America undergoes great revolutions, they will be brought about by the presence of the black race on the soil of the United States; that is to say, they will owe their origin, not to the equality, but to the inequality of condition.

Theoretical Perspectives on Alienation in the Prison Society: An Empirical Test

Abstract: A rapidly growing body of literature has linked variations in adaptations to confinement in correctional settings to such influences as social background characteristics, involvement in criminal careers, length of sentence and proportion of sentence served, quality of contacts maintained with the larger society, perceptions of postrelease life chances, interpersonal relationships within the prison, structural characteristics of the prison organization, and the alienative effects of incarceration (see Glaser, 1964; Ward and Kassebaum, 1965; Berk, 1966; Street et al., 1966; Giallombardo, 1966; Wheeler, 1961; Wellford, 1967; Wilson, 1968; Atchley and McCabe, 1968; Cline, 1968; Mathiesen, 1968; Edwards, 1970; Irwin, 1970; Tittle, 1972; Thomas, 1973; Thomas and Foster, 1972, 1973). In those types of

Compensations in a Total Institution: The Forms and Functions of Contraband

Abstract: An assessment is made of the deprivations experienced by in voluntary clients of total institutions, particularly prisons. Com pensations made by inmates in response to their restricted circum stances often involve stealing, fabricating, or smuggling in contra band (illicit commodities). Some observations are then made on the reactions by prison correctional officers to prisoners' compensa tions, and a final section is devoted to the forms of contraband in a penitentiary setting.

Psychosurgery, conditioning, and the prisoner's right to refuse "rehabilitation"

Abstract: The past several decades have witnessed major advances in the fields of psychology and neurology, specifically in the understanding of human behavior. Not only do behavioral psychologists and neurologists think they now have insight into why people act, they also believe they can shape and control human conduct to some extent.' If these claims are correct, it would seem anomalous not to apply such technological advances to individuals who have manifested socially deviant behavior patterns resulting in criminal activities.2 In fact some of the nation's prison systems have instituted such "treatment" modalities.3 Until recently, the Federal Bureau of Prisons has operated a program called START,4 a behavior modification project designed to alter the behavior patterns of troublesome prisoners by rewarding desired conduct with increased degrees of freedom.5 Initially placed in solitary confinement, the prisoners were required to earn their way to a less restricted environment.6 In addition to START, the Bureau has on its drawing board the establishment of a penal institution to be located in Butner, North Carolina, which will utilize modern behavior modification techniques.7 The states have also attempted to implement this new technology. In Michigan, physicians planned a psychosurgical operation on a mental patient-prisoner who had been committed to the state

Sentences and Other Sanctions in the Criminal Courts of Baltimore, Chicago, and Detroit

Abstract: The imposition of formal sanctions by government as embodied in our criminal courts arouses the interest of both the general public and social scientists. There is something dramatic and symbolically potent in the stripping of liberty and even life from a fellow human being. The significance attached to the imposition of a long prison term has led both the public and scholars to focus on the length of prison sentences. Most scholarly research has concerned itself with the relationship between sentence length and such variables as the proclivities of the judge, the social and economic characteristics of the defendants, the nature of the crime, and the manner of conviction (plea of guilty versus conviction after trial).' But the significant sanctions meted out by crimi-

Probation or Prison Applying the Principle of the Least Restrictive Alternative

Abstract: Although legal principles capable of remedying disparity and unjust prison commitments have been recognized and have been applied to sentencing, most trial and appellate courts resist adopting them, adhering to the old and failing concept of total autonomy of trial courts in sentenc ing. Some cases that apply these principles and others that do not are cited and analyzed. Adoption of the principle of the least drastic alternative, the foremost of the needed reforms, calls for supporting practices. It is recom mended by the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals, whose proposed criteria are set forth.