Institutionalization In Prison

Prisonization is the process of accepting the culture and social life of prison society. It can be described as a process whereby newly institutionalized offenders come to accept prison lifestyles and criminal values. Prisonization also forms an informal inmate code. Prison inmates slowly accept these institutional features and codes of the prison in their struggle for survival. Prison violence occurs through the process of deprivation. Deprivation works by taking away things that let you feel like a normal human. This deprivation of contact with family members, particularly their children, is a severe pain that many inmates experience when, they are unable to have regular interactions with their own children or have any control over their child’s environment on the outside.

An inmate’s access to significant others in the outside world is limited to visiting where touching is only minimally allowed. Autonomy for the inmate is also severely restricted throughout the rule bound prison. Everything inmates do are predetermined by the rules of the institution. Inmates can make very few choices regarding their lives while imprisoned, and all of those choices are shaped by their time of imprisonment. The lack of security can lead to anxiety on the part of inmates and the belief that at some point they are likely to be forced to fight to defend themselves or to submit to the abuse of others. These pains of imprisonment have the cumulative effect of destroying the psychological mind of the inmate. Eventually, if the products that individuals are accustomed to living their daily lives with are taken away; they will have sooner or later have nothing to identify themselves as being a “normal” human being, thus leading to the de-humanization process of