Jail and prisons all have a certain subculture that they
abide by, more so than the law at times. There are a lot of different roles an
inmate can play while incarcerated. It is so interesting to me that things that
would be considered horrible outside of jail and prisons, are considered
admirable inside them. For example, if an inmate kill an officer, they
immediately are one of the cooler of the inmates. The worse the crime the more
admirable the criminal is. However, this does have exceptions, like child
molesters and rapists are not considered admirable. There are so many things
that inmates need to make sure to keep up with as far as the subculture go.
Just
like the child rapists and molesters, the “snitches” and “rats” get treated
terribly. There have been accounts of them getting severely tortured or even
murdered for their actions. The rapists and molesters sometimes get raped by
several men. A lot of the inmates consider themselves situational homosexuals
because outside of prison they are heterosexual. This is really interesting to
me because they all have different nick names. The aggressive more masculine is
considered one of the “wolves” or “pitchers”, “punks” are the usually younger
and weaker ones, “fags” are the ones who have been homosexual since before jail
or prison. There are many kinds of roles inmates play while in jail or prison.
“Swag
men” are another group of people inmates. These men are the ones who will steal
things like sandwiches from the cafeteria, smuggle drugs, and toiletries to
sell to the other inmates. There are a lot more roles and for the inmates it is
very important for everyone to play their parts. Inmates feel the need to form
these subcultures in order to adjust to the prison life better. It helps them
adjust to the loss of liberty, sexual relationships, material items, and so
forth. Some believe that this behavior is due to their criminal past and how
that has shaped how they behave. In other words, if a group of people who had
not committed any crime went into the same type of confinement, they would
create a different type of subculture.
The
subculture that is created in these types of environment is strictly based on
the inmates criminal behavior and how
that has influenced there characteristics. I definitely believe that the
incarceration plays a role because these people all of the sudden lose a lot of
their rights, but I do not think it plays as big of a role as people think it
does. Donald R. and Irwin Cressey both came up with the importation theory
which validated this idea (Prisons: Prisoners - Inmate Subcultures And Informal
Organizations). The gang influence and division is very apparent in jails and
prisons, and often times the cause for these subcultures.
The vast
majority of Latino and African American individual causes separation itself,
but the relation to gangs make it much more divided. Most gangs are divided by
race and even though there are less Caucasian inmates they still separate
themselves from the other gangs to prove loyalty to their gang/race. This is
not say that none of them can get a long, but they definitely side with one
group more than the other. Most other races are such a small minority that they
usually keep to themselves or pick one of the gangs to get involved with. Other
gangs and ethnicities are getting bigger in jails and prisons.
Take the
Asians, there has been an increase in their incarceration in recent years. This
is because there has been more criminal activity and more Asians migrating to
the United States. They are having issues adjusting to the subculture of jails
and prisons because they are trying to create their own (The curious eclipse of
prison ethnography, 375). This has caused an even bigger divide among all the
gangs versus the Asians, so much so that the Asians are in their own tier in
the Los Angeles County Jail. It is crazy to see how when you get a large number
of people, the less they get along. This is in part because they have criminal
and violent history.
Learning
about the subculture and culture of jails is crucial to being able to have any
kind of job in this field. It is important to know their behavior and why they
act the way they do. I went on a jail tour once and the officer who directed
explained how at first it was hard for him to adjust to the different
personalities and how the more he understood it the smoother things ran.
sources:
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1466138102003004012
http://law.jrank.org/pages/1796/Prisons-Prisoners-Inmate-subcultures-informal-organizations.html
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