Prisonization Study

This study examined the process of organizational assimilation and how it was affected by social skills, within the context of a midwestern correctional facility. Participants were inmates housed in a maximum-, medium-, or minimum-security prison. A survey was distributed that measured frequency of inmates' external communication, sources of internal communication, prisonization, powerlessness, and social skills. Results supported links between prisonization and amount of internal and external communication and powerlessness. However, inmates' prisonization was not related to their social skills. Results indicated that inmates' assimilation into prison culture is influenced by intra- and extraprison variables.

Socialization has a long history in organizational research, providing a unique view of one of the processes through which people organize. A number of researchers have studied socialization in relation to several organizational communication variables such as identification (e.g., Bullis & Bach, 1989; Cheney, 1983) and structure and content of messages (e.g., Stohl, 1986). Closely tied to socialization (or assimilation) are social skills, which

ution and found that each was moderately correlated to prisonization. Lanza-Kaduce and Radosevich (1987) studied prisonization as it related to opposition to staff, adherence to the inmate code, and nonadherence to official norms and substance abuse. The study uncovered a relationship between the abuse of specific substances to negative attitudes and isolation. Finally, in perhaps the most comprehensive study of its kind, Bondeson (1989) found a positive correlation between prisonization and the amount of argot (prisoner jargon).

Early research in criminology and sociology, which preceded modern analyses of organizational assimilation, provided a unique addition to the research currently being conducted in the field of organizational communication. As early as 1940, Clemmer coined the term prisonization to refer to the assimilation process of inmates into the inmate subculture.

Another limitation concerns the self-report nature of the data collected for this investigation. Despite the fact that certain, more desirable, methodological options such as in vivo behavioral assessment are nearly impossible with incarcerated populations, some of the well-known limitations of self- report data collection methods become especially salient with these populations. For example, social desirability may be especially prevalent among groups of individuals who have an intense interest in getting paroled and presenting an image of doing time with good behavior.

Hypothesis 4: Prisoners' degree of social skills and prisonization will be positively related.

Some topics in this essay:
Zamble Porporino, Van Maanen's, Wittenberg Reis, PRISONIZATION Hypotheses, Thomas Zingraft, Clemmer Fox, Lanza-Kaduce Radosevich, Research Question, Thomas Zingraff, PRISON INMATES, social skills, external communication, degree prisonization, negative assertion, prisoners' social skills, prisoners' social, information seeking, et al, length incarceration, conflict management, correctional facility, inmates' social skills, social skills variables, social skills prisonization, et al 1988,