Information about the Prisonisation

This is a concept developed by Donald Clemmer in 1940. According to Clemmer, prisonisation is a process of assimilating prison culture or a process of taking on in a greater or a lesser degree the folkways, mores, customs and general culture of a prison in integrative steps. The main elements of prisonisation are:

i. Every prisoner is prisonised.

ii. Prisonisation takes place in stages.

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iii. Degree of prisonisation may be low, medium or high.

iv. Prisonisation depends upon several factors like age, cell-inmates, nature of crime, term of imprisonment, type of relationships before imprisonment, and relations with the outside world.

v. There could be deprisonisation and reprisonisation also. The integrative steps in prisonisation are:

vi. Acceptance of an inferior role by wearing jail clothes and becoming an anonymous figure.

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vii. Accumulation of facts concerning the structure, organisation and the norms of prison, i.e., learning about ranks, titles and authority of various officials.

viii. Development of somewhat new habits of eating, dressing, working and sleeping.

ix. Learning and adopting local language and nicknames, i.e., jail argot.

x. Recognition that he is not obliged to anybody for the food, clothes, etc. he gets in jail.

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xi. Demands more facilities and desires a good job.

Wheeler (1961), Wolfgang (1961), Caldwell (1956), Sykes and Howard Jones (1977) empirically verified Donald Clemmer’s concept of prisonisation and adjustment of prisoners in prison culture. Wheeler studied 237 prisoners in a close-custody prison in the United States and °und that the degree of prisonisation varies with the length of time rived.

Wolfgang found that: (a) young prisoners (below 35 ytars) adjust than the middle-aged prisoners; (b) felons adjust less than misdemeanours; (c) short-termers (imprisoned for less than six months and between six months and two years) indicate high conformity to jail norms than long-termers (imprisoned for more than two years), and (d) marital status has no effect on prisonisation.