Discuss explanations of institutional aggression.

(16 marks)
One dispositional explanation of how aggression develops within prisons is the importation
model (Irwin and Cressey). It argues that prisons are not completely insulated from the
happenings of everyday life outside in the ‘real world’. The prison inmates come from the
real world where they bring with them a subculture typical of criminality. This includes
beliefs, norms, attitudes and a history of learning experiences as well as other personal
characteristics such as gender, race and class. The willingness of inmates to use violence
inside prison to settle disputes reflects their lives before they were imprisoned. Prisoners
import such behaviours as a means of negotiating their way through the unfamiliar and
frightening prison environment in which existing inmates use aggression to establish power,
status, influence and access to resources. Thus, aggression is due to individual
characteristics rather than the prison environment.
One situational explanation is the deprivation model, placing the cause of institutional
aggression within the prison environment itself. Harsh prison conditions are stressful for
inmates, who have to cope by resorting to aggressive and often violent behaviour. These
conditions are being deprived of freedom, independence, safety, sexual intimacy.
Deprivation of material goods is especially important because it increases competition
against inmates to acquire them, and is accompanied by an increase in aggression.
One weakness of these explanations is that there are alternative explanations. Dilulio claims
that the importation model is an inadequate explanation of aggressive behaviour because it
ignores the role of prison officials and factors relating to the running of prisons. He proposes
an administrative control model (ACM) which states that poorly managed prisons are more
likely to experience the most serious forms of inmate violence, including homicides and
rioting. Poor management includes weak leadership, a thriving culture of informal and
unofficial rules, staff who remain distant from inmates, and few opportunities for education.
According to the ACM, these factors are more influential in determining aggression than
inmate characteristics.
A weakness of the deprivation model is that, there is a lack of evidence to support it. The
deprivation model predicts that a lack of freedom and heterosexual contact should lead to
high levels of aggressive behaviour in prisons. However, the available evidence does not
support this. For example, Christopher Hensley studied 256 male and female inmates of two
prisons in Mississippi, USA which allows conjugal visits (visits from partners specifically to
have sex). There was no link between involvement in these visits and reduced aggressive
behaviour. This shows that situational factors do not affect prison violence.
Some research has suggested that the importation model is a better explanation of violence
between inmates, but the deprivation model is more useful in understanding innate
aggression against prison staff. Dobbs and Waid argue in favour of an interactionist model.
Inmates entering prison for the first time will suffer deprivation. But deprivation does not
necessarily lead to violence unless or until it combines with the individual characteristics
imported into the prison by inmates, and which influence the prison’s culture.