Does Prison Create Criminal Personalities

The basic concept behind the creation of prisons, which dates back in Ancient years, is that there should be a place where all people who do not obey the law, in any way, should be put in. The intention behind this act was the isolation of these people, prisoners, from the rest of the community. This had a double purpose: Firstly, to punish the criminals for their illegal acts and secondly, to prevent the rest of the citizens to do anything similar. However, as good as it may sound, the gathering of a big number of criminals in the same space for a significant amount of time has definitely created problems over the years. Even though nowadays, there is no prison without proper supervision and appropriate for the circumstances staff, in many cases there is an inability to prevent

But why does this happen? Is it because of the amassed anger? Is it because of the living conditions that many times bring discomfort to the inmates? Could the state somehow avoid those kind of situations? Would things be different if the amount of prisoners in a jail was reduced? All these questions have their roots in one main query: Does prison create criminal personalities?

There have been several theories that deal with this issue, each one supporting a different effect of prison in the lives of inmates. The two that outstand from the others are:

• The Deterrence Theory, which has to do with

1. Severity

2. Certainty

• The Schools for crime Theory

The Deterrence Theory

This Theory supports that through the imprisonment of criminals, there are higher chances for a decline in the criminality rates. The fact that, according to the theory, the prisoners are going to be less immoral is due to their