Have prisons developed their very own social structure?

Question

It seems that prisons have their own politics that noone likes to speak about. Whether they are called a rat, or whatever. Does anyone here know anything about prison politics and how things work within this new social class that has been created by the American prison system?

Try to be objective about it, as this is the nature of the question.

Answer 1

New? American? Why was that tacked on? Can you describe what is new or american that you want discussed?

I read there was to have been an objective nature to the question. Perhaps you want to ask it again in an objective form to make it answerable.

Answer 2

From what I've seen on the National Geographic channel and the Discovery Channel there seems to be a 'sub-culture' existing within the 3 million inhabitants of America's prison population which should not exist.

Obviously the prison guards are not doing their jobs.  Obviously the American public are not doing their jobs either by policing the police and policing the prison guards.

Answer 3

Many prisoners hate s*x offenders, much more so than the average

non-criminal.

Answer 4

"Society" is an amalgamation of overlapping social groups within groups. All humans belong to an array of groups of some kind (gender, class, education, language, nationality....), hundreds even, and fulfill various and changing social roles within each group to which they belong. Prison is a microcosm of this system, with its own social structure and hierarchy. I do not think this is any great secret: in fact, the concept of prison hierarchy is as much a fixture of the concept of "prison" as are jumpsuits and bars. Is there really a new social class created by the American prison system? Internally or externally? Internally, I would say it's hardly new, and it's hardly different than what goes on in any prison system. Externally of the prison walls (in the unincarcerated American social spectrum), there exists a group of people affected by the prison system, whether by their own former incarceration or by the prior or ongoing incarceration of a friend or relative. Do these people represent a new "class"? Hardly- they are simply yet another social organization to which some humans -humans who also belong to the social group of Americans- belong, but it would be wrong to assume that this or any group can exist independently of other groups (one is not simply a convict or the wife/brother/buddy of a convict-- a person belongs to hundreds of social groups).

Objectively, I would say that prisons, like any social group, exhibit social organization in the form of rank and hierarchy. By right of physical isolation, they serve as an easily identifiable social microcosm. Have they developed this structure? Not really- not in the sense of innovation: structure is inherent in any social group. Perhaps a better view would be that prisons demonstrate and partake in the endless spectrum of social groupings.

Answer 5

Under isolation any group of people will develop a form relationship that will distinguish them from others. Still, prison conditions are highly determined by prison politics, and only marginally by the “free will” of those imprisoned. Anyway, they surely develop rules and regulations that depend on hierarchy and survival (at least).