END-OF-CHAPTER DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. How is the prison subculture for inmates and correctional officers often interrelated?
2. Compare importation theory with exportation theory and explain which one you believe is the stronger influence on prison subculture.
3. Explain some of the common outlooks and views of prison subculture. How does this contrast with the conventional logic of outside society?
4. How have professionalization and the diversification of correctional staff impacted the prison subculture?
5. Explain what is meant by “hyena logic” among inmates and provide some examples of how this impacts group behavior in some prison facilities.
6. Identify at least three prison gangs and explain how they have impacted corrections in their respective jurisdictions. Note their allies and adversaries in the prison and explain how this impacts prison operations.
7. Explain what prison systems can or should do to control gang problems that occur in their facilities.
8. Within the prison subculture, explain how labeling theory is related to prison rape.
Chapter 10: Prison Subculture and Prison Gang Influence 263
264 Introduction to Corrections
KEY TERMS Blood in—blood out
Convict boss/officer
Convict code
Hogging
Hustle
Importation theory
Mule
Pains of imprisonment
Prisonization
Punk
Respect
Snitch
Symbiotic prison relationship
APPLIED EXERCISE 10.1
You are the assistant warden of a large medium-security facility within a state prison system in the south- eastern United States. Your facility has a disproportionate number of African American inmates (common in prison systems throughout the United States) and a disproportionate number of men, particularly Caucasian male officers.
In response to concerns from the Grievance Department regarding inmate allegations of racism from officers inside the facility, the warden has asked you to develop a comprehensive diversity training program for the security staff in your facility. Currently, your facility holds an annual one-day “refresher” course for staff. This course is actually only a four-hour block of instruction provided at the state training facility where employees around the state complete their annual in-service training to update their knowledge and skills. Everyone throughout the system knows that the four-hour block of instruction is not taken seriously and is simply offered as a means of documenting that the state has made the training available.
Your warden desires to change this within your facility for two reasons. First, it is just a good and ethical practice to take diversity seriously. Second, the dollars used from grievances and other allegations are get- ting costly enough to make diversity training a fiscally sound alternative to potential litigation.
With this in mind, you are given the following guiding information regarding the training program that you are to implement:
1. The program should be 1.5 days in length, given once annually.
2. The program should address numerous areas of concern, including race, gender, age, and religion.
Students should keep in mind that workplace diversity has two components: First it involves fair treatment and the removal of barriers, and second it addresses past imbalances through the implementation of special measures to accelerate the achievement of a representative workforce. Further, workplace diversity recog- nizes and utilizes the diversity available in the workplace and the community it serves.
Workplace diversity should be viewed as a means to attaining the organizational objectives of the correc- tional facility—not as an end in itself. The link between the agency objectives and the day-to-day processes that occur among staff in the facility is crucial to the success of workplace diversity initiatives.
For this assignment, outline the content that you would recommend for the 1.5-day training session and explain your rationale behind your recommendation. Also, explain how you will “sell” these ideas to prison staff to ensure that they take the training seriously. Lastly, explain how this training, if successful, can improve security and safety in the institution. Your submission should be between 500 and 1,000 words.
“WHAT WOULD YOU DO?”
You are a caseworker in a state facility and work closely with the institution’s classification department on a routine basis. You have one inmate on your caseload, a pedophile named Jeff, who has presented with a number of challenges. Jeff is a 35-year-old male who is an inmate in your maximum-security facility. Jeff has
