Institutionalised aggression

Question 1

What does institutionalised aggression refer to?

Answer 1

Violence within an organisation

Question 2

What are the two types of institutionalised aggression?

Answer 2

Instrumental aggression: to gain reward/outcome and to achieve goals

Hostile aggression: results from emotional states of feelings

Question 3

Explain Irwin and Cressey’s 1962 Importation model

Answer 3

A dispositional explanation for aggression in prisons
Inmates as ‘bad apples’
Importing aggressive behaviours into prison to establish status and resources

Question 4

Name some preexisting factors in inmates that cause affect levels of aggression in prison

Answer 4

Neglected upbringing
Substance abuse
Poverty
Discrimination
Lack of education/opportunity
Gang membership

Question 5

Name the three subcultures Irwin and Cressy say that preexisting factors lead to the development of inevitable conflict creating aggression?

Answer 5

Criminal: ‘career criminals’, repeat offenders, numerous sentences (highest level of aggression)
Convict: Raised in the system, possessing power&influence, a souce of info and resources among inmates
Conventional: innocents/one time offenders, reject other cultures

Question 6

Using the importation model can you explain how institutional aggression may have occurred in Attica where an uprising killed 39 people?

Answer 6

54% inmates black origin, poor socio economic backgroud where gang membership common
Likely to be poorly educated, exposed to racial discrimination/drug abuse
Norms and values predisposed instutional aggression

Question 7

What Delisi’s supporting evience for the importation model show about inmates who suffered from childhood trauma,histories of drug abuse and violent/irritble behavior?

Answer 7

813 juvies studied for institutional aggression
More likely to engage in acts of violence, sexual misconduct and suicidal activity compared with to a control without such histories

Question 8

How do these findings increase the validity of the importation model?

Answer 8

The show that prison aggression is linked to pre existing factors that predispose inmates to aggression

Question 9

What are methodological issues with the research?

Answer 9

Drug abuse/trauma not manipulated, no control over EVs (genetic abnormalities)
Reduces validity as unsure of causation

Question 10

What are the alternative explanations for institutional aggression?Dilulio

Answer 10

Ignores the roles of prision officials.
Poorly managed prisons = extreme violence from inmates
Administrative control model suggests: weak/indecisive leadership, informal rules, different staff and lack of education opportunies= extreme violence/rioting in prisons.

Question 11

What is meant by Syke’s Deprivation model?

Answer 11

Situational explanation of aggresision within prisions

Claiming characteristics of prison itself rather than population that accounts for voilence

Question 12

What conditions do prisions have that inmates turn to aggression as a coping mechanism for? Violence may be against other inmates or staff.

Answer 12

Santised (harsh) conditions, stress and frustration

Question 13

What does aggression become?

Answer 13

An adaptive solution to the problem of deprivation.

Question 14

What does deprivation often involve?

Answer 14

Lack of access to goods and services i.e heat, noise and overcrowding (comfort)

Question 15

Name some factors of inmates’ experiance that contribute to instutional aggression

Answer 15

Deprivation of…
Autonomy: no freedom/independance
Liberty: no control of power & have few choices
Heterosexual relationships: single sex environment

Question 16

What do the deprivation of these factors lead to?

Answer 16

Aggression as a coping mechanism

Question 17

Explain how instutional agression may have occued in the Strangeways prison using the deprivation model

Answer 17

Inmates subjected to deprivation of exercise and sanitation causing frustration to lead to violence

Question 18

How does evidence from Mccorkle and Light support the deprivation model?

Answer 18

Overcrowding, lack of privacy/meaningful activity = likelihood of inmates violence
Overcrowding in male prisons increasing= levels of violence increase

Question 19

How does this evidence increase the validity of the model?

Answer 19

By showing that deprivation is linked to IA and could be the cause

Question 20

These factors do not occur in collective acts of IA, what does this mean for the deprivation model?

Answer 20

That is does not explain all types of IA, only individual acts of violence

Question 21

What does the contradictory evidence from the study of 256 males and females in Missippi prisons show?

Answer 21

Conjugal visits= no sexual depriviation
No reduced levels of aggresion
Reduces validity of deprivation of heterosexual relationships linking to IA

Question 22

What happened when the deprivation conditions at HMP Woodhill were improved and what does this mean?

Answer 22

Levels of violences significantly decreased

Unreliable explanation as it is linked to IA in some prisions but not others