A CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF CRIME WITHIN PRISONS
When most Americans think about crime, they tend to think of crime that occurs in the community such as personal attacks, corporate crime and bank robberies. Yet crimes also occur within institutional settings such as mental institutions and prisons. This research considers crime in prisons from the perspective of four different contextsùcriminal behavior, offender attributes, victim characteristics and situational contextùand evaluates methods that could be implemented to reduce crime within each of those four contexts.
The first context to be considered is the type of criminal behavior that occurs. Crimes within prisons may include personal physical attacks, including assaults and homicide, as well as sexual attacksùrape. Crimes may also include robbery, extortion or selling illicit or illegal materials. These materials might include drugs or contraband such as weapons (St. Gerard, 2003).
Preventing or reducing crime based on criminal behavior can be difficult within the confines of a prison. Already prisoners are separated from the rest of society, and their days are typically highly-structured and regulated. There are numerous rules designed to minimize criminal activity, but the primary purpose of prisons is not to maximize prisoner safety, but to punish and, in some cases, to rehabilitate. Prison administrators might be able to reduce criminal activity by considering each type of crime separately.
Prisoners typically do not have many personal belongings, and even fewer belongings that would be considered valuable by those not incarcerated. Robbery therefore tends to be a personal crime intended to demonstrate power. A radio, for example, stolen by another inmate will most likely be discovered. Limiting the number of personal items may decrease robbery, but will not eliminate the underlying need of some prisoners to exert power over others. Violent crimes are...