NCJ Number
85072
Journal
Social Problems Volume: 29 Issue: 5 Dated: (June 1982) Pages: 449-463
Date Published
1982
Length
15 pages
Annotation
The 1980 riot at the Penitentiary of New Mexico was the most brutal in U.S. penal history, involving extreme violence and fragmentation among inmates, which resulted from administrative obliteration of the inmate power structure.
Abstract
In the early 1970's the New Mexico prison was relatively calm, becoming increasingly more violent and disorderly after 1975. This change in the level of disorder cannot be accounted for by security lapses, poor food and basic services, crowding, alleged mid-level administration conspiracies, or a new breed of violent inmates. During the orderly period inmate power was accommodated by the administration, with strong inmates induced into maintaining order by acceptance of their sources of power over other inmates through formally established programs or informally tolerated drug trafficking. Administrative changes in 1975 wrested control of the prison from inmates by removing them from administrative positions in programs and clamping down on all possible conduits for drugs. The major formal and informal incentive controls were thereby removed and the inmate power structure destroyed. Characteristics of the riot indicate no clear inmate leadership; inmates were divided into small groups committing crimes, competing for control, or fighting to escape the mayhem. There was rapid, spontaneous takeover of the prison by inmates from the violent, new-breed cliques, a drive among inmates. Reform should be pursued by redirecting funding toward rehabilitation and positive incentives for inmates, expanding existing citizen prison committees, instituting more flexible administrative policies and accountability for line personnel, enhancing political collectivism among inmates, and researching empirical problems in prisons. Footnotes and about 100 references are given.