prison culture

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PRISON CULTURE

INTRODUCTION

With crime rates rising almost daily , and the methods for tracking down criminals becoming advanced , more and more criminals are caught and sent to prisons . As a convicted criminal enters the prison for the first time he is faced with a completely different world , he is considered a new fish ' by other inmates , and he is exposed to a world he could have never imagined . It is strange what the walls of a prison or as inmates would call

it Big House ' can do to a person a convict enters a prison and discovers that he must adjust to a completely new environment . Prisoners have their own culture , norms , values , language and social structure . The basic advice given to any new fish ' is to keep his head down , don 't make eye contact , don 't speak to anyone and never accept anything from anyone . Criminals who are awarded life sentences or decade long sentences are usually the ones who must learn to survive the prison life as there 's not much to do in a prison except to wait around for the next day , in to survive their long sentences these criminals come up with their own little ways to ensure that time passes quickly for them as the worst thing about prisons according to inmates is having nothing to do

NORMS OF THE PRISON CULTURE

Prisoners in accordance with their crimes are put into prisons of different security levels upon entering the facility prisoners are put through various tests , these tests are mostly psychological tests to determine the inmates IQ levels , medical tests are also conducted to test the prisoner 's overall health conditions . Prisoners then are assigned cells depending on the kind of facility they are in , they maybe assigned individual cells or they may have to share a cell . Racism is the major issue in prisons as people from all kinds of class , culture and race end up in prisons , often issues rise related to racism , which is also a major cause of violence in prisons , and often weaker inmates are bullied by the stronger inmates for no apparent reason

VIOLENCE IN PRISONS

Violence is one of the major problems faced by all the prisons . When several hundred convicted dangerous men are put together in one facility it is pretty much obvious that something will go wrong , even in maximum security prisons inmates often find some poor weak inmate to torture just to show off or prove them selves stronger . Even in maximum security prisons inmates have ways to sneak in items which are not allowed by the facility like cigarettes , whiskey , cards and sometimes even weapons These items are used as a currency inside the prisons an inmate can exchange a couple of cigarettes for another item that he may want . Even though the warden and the guards are aware of this back door dealing they let it slide once in a while . Catastrophe struck...