Institutional Aggression within groups Essay

Submitted By James-Cowie
Words: 439
Pages: 2

Institutional Aggression within groups

AO1
Institutional aggression – aggression which occurs and becomes the norm within any form of institution.

IMPORTATION MODEL
Irwin + Cressey (1962) claim prisoners bring own social histories + traits into prison. This influences their adaptation to the prison environment.
They argue prisoners are not blank slates when they enter prison + many of the normative systems developed on the outside world be ‘imported’ into prison.

DEPRIVATION MODEL
Paterline + Peterson (1999) – prisoner aggression is the result of the stressful + oppressive conditions of the institution itself. Oppressive conditions include crowding, staff exp etc.
Hodgkinson et al. (1985) found trainee nurses are more likely to suffer violent assault than experienced nurses + in prison setting, length of service was also a sig factor with more exp officers being less likely to suffer an assault (Davies + Burgess, 1988).

HAZING
Bullying/disciplining younger members of a group in order to maintain ‘pecking order’.
Feb. 2006, Private Andrei Sycher was brutally beaten by older soldiers in Russia. He had to have his legs + genitalia amputated (Vyugin, 2006).
An extensive study of 11,000+ US students involved in teams showed over half had exp hazing.
It happens because social context is a powerful influence on peoples willingness to aggress.

AO2
Harer + Steffensmeier (2006) collected data from 58 US prisons + found black inmates had sig higher rates of violent behaviour but lower rates of alcohol + drug related misconduct. These patterns parallel racial differences in US society + so support importation.

McCorkle (1995) found overcrowding, lack of privacy + lack of meaningful activity all significantly influence peer violence.
However, research inconsistent. Research into psychiatric institutions (Niijman et al. 1999) found increased personal space failed to decrease violence among patients.
McCorkle (1992) found in prisons, domination of the weak was seen by inmates as essential to maintaining status, with passive behaviour