Lyman (1989) defines a prison gang as an organization which operates within the prison system as a self-perpetuating criminally oriented entity, consisting of a select group of inmates who have established an organized chain of command and are governed by an established code of conduct. The lives of inmates are affected by what is referred to as inmate subculture as much as it is by the official prison organization. This prison subculture comprises a set of informal norms, values, languages roles and beliefs that gives prisoner a different perspective from the outside world. At the core of this subculture is the inmate code which is a set of values and norms adopted within the prison system.
The norms and values of the inmate code form the core of an inmate subculture, providing its members with informal means to gain power and status and, thereby, a way to mitigate their sense of social rejection and compensate for their loss of autonomy and security (Bondesson, 1989; Sykes & Messinger, 1960). According to the important theory developed by Irwin, prison subculture is brought in from the outside by offenders who developed and adopted norms and values from gangs on the outside. When an …show more content…
Looking back on the effects of prison gangs as in the early 1960’s and 1970’s, there was a more laid back approach to the formal prison system that enabled the importation of street gang characteristics into the inmate subculture. It was because of prison crowing and penal harm movement that in the 1980’s and 1990’s those trends started to be reversed and the threat of restoring the pains of imprisonment returned. It is these changes in the formal and informal structure in the prison system that results in the shaping of the informal inmate
The norms and values of the inmate code form the core of an inmate subculture, providing its members with informal means to gain power and status and, thereby, a way to mitigate their sense of social rejection and compensate for their loss of autonomy and security (Bondesson, 1989; Sykes & Messinger, 1960). According to the important theory developed by Irwin, prison subculture is brought in from the outside by offenders who developed and adopted norms and values from gangs on the outside. When an …show more content…
Looking back on the effects of prison gangs as in the early 1960’s and 1970’s, there was a more laid back approach to the formal prison system that enabled the importation of street gang characteristics into the inmate subculture. It was because of prison crowing and penal harm movement that in the 1980’s and 1990’s those trends started to be reversed and the threat of restoring the pains of imprisonment returned. It is these changes in the formal and informal structure in the prison system that results in the shaping of the informal inmate