NCJ Number
179052
Journal
Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 27 Issue: 5 Dated: 1999 Pages: 427-441
Editor(s)
Kent B. Joscelyn
Date Published
1999
Length
15 pages
Annotation
This research examined the structural and social psychological determinants of prisonization among a sample of 239 male inmates in a maximum-security prison.
Abstract
The prison housed 2,200 male felons, and 440 were randomly selected for the study. A total of 239 inmates were successfully interviewed. Twenty independent variables were used as predictors of inmate prisonization. "Prisonization" is generally described as "the process of accepting the normative structure of the inmate social system." The measure of prisonization was provided by a seven-item Likert-type scale. The variables were in the general areas of criminal history, current offense, prior incarceration, marital status, preprison income, deprivation, contextual alienation, change in life satisfaction, attitude toward violence, postrelease expectations and future life satisfaction, and self-conception. Study results show that although deprivation model variables were shown to be the better predictors of prisonization, certain importation model variables (factors inmates bring with them into prison) were not without significant impact, and the two models do explain more variance together than either one separately. Measures of self-conception were of limited value in predicting prisonization. 2 tables and 57 references