Sociopolitical Approach to the Reproduction of Violence in Canadian Prisons (From Violence in Canada: Sociopolitical Perspectives, P 250-283, 1995, Jeffrey Ian Ross, ed. -- See NCJ- 171562)

• NCJ Number: 171571
• Author(s): M Welch
• Date Published: 1995
• Length: 34 pages
• Sale Source: Oxford University Press
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: Canada

Annotation

This analysis of aspects of prison violence considers motives, levels, forms, and causes; it concludes with a critical examination of policies commonly used to control inmates and violence.

Abstract

This sociopolitical analysis of the reproduction of violence in Canadian prisons notes that collective violence (riots and disturbances) tends to be instrumental (based on incentive- motivated aggression) insofar as such incidents are typically goal-oriented, usually toward institutional reform. Individual violence among inmates (assaults and other types of victimization), however, stems from the fragmentation of the inmate society, which is commonly related to the underground economy, particularly the violent drug market. Individual violence is also instrumental insofar as assaults based on revenge are planned, calculated, and focused. Both collective and individual violence are produced and reproduced by repressive prison practices. Such correctional practices are dialectically contradictory and self-defeating, since they tend to reinforce or reproduce the very behavior they intend to correct. Reiman (1995) proposes that prisons should be both civilized and civilizing. If inmates do not become more civilized during their incarceration, citizens cannot feel safe when inmates are released back into society. 7 tables and 73 references