The Open University Law School’s Public Legal Education in Prisons: Contributing to Rehabilitative Prison Culture

There is a massive unmet need for legal knowledge in prisons. The Open University Law School, through its Open Justice Centre, has trialled various ways in which to meet this unmet need. Most prison-university partnerships in England and Wales follow a model of prisoners and university students being taught together as one group in a traditional higher education learning format. The Open University Law School’s public legal education in prisons follows instead the Street Law model to disseminate knowledge of the law throughout a prison, either through prison radio or through the work of the charity St Giles Trust. While this article confirms other research findings which evidence the personal benefit law students derive in researching and delivering audience-appropriate public legal education, it also considers the benefit for those imprisoned in the context of rehabilitative prison culture.

Perceived Procedural Justice Enhances Correctional Officers’ Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Correlational and Causal Evidence From Israel

Procedural justice refers to unbiased, caring, respectful, and participative treatment by decision makers. It positively associates with employees’ citizenship behavior, an expression of motivation and commitment that consists of voluntary helpful acts toward the organization or fellow employees. In view of scarce research on these variables in correctional facilities, we conducted two studies among Israeli correctional officers. In a survey ( N = 336), procedural justice by the commander moderately associated with organization- and individual-targeted citizenship behavior. In addition, commander procedural justice predicted perceiving organization procedural justice, which in turn strongly associated with organization-targeted citizenship. In an experiment ( N = 311), commander procedural justice enhanced organization- but not individual-targeted citizenship behavior. These studies provide new statistical and causal evidence for procedural justice effects on correctional officers, which can inform prison administrations’ practices. They also generalize justice effects to the Israeli prison culture and provide knowledge on Israeli officers, hitherto notably understudied.

Informal Names of Penitentiary Institutions

The article deals with the study of the emergence of informal names of institutions of the penitentiary system. A brief description of the most famous places of detention, the history of their origin and the reasons for the occurrence of their names are given. The penetration of “prison culture” into society is studied. The deep meaning of informal names of institutions of the penitentiary system is considered. The names of famous figures of Russia, whose fate is somehow connected with places of imprisonment, are given. A conclusion about the relationship between the breadth of distribution of informal names of prison institutions and their purpose for life imprisonment is drawn.

В погоне за жар-птицей… Языковая объективация концепта ДУША в казахской, русской и польской лингвокультурах

This article explores the concept of the SOUL based on slang and prison culture. The starting point for the argument is the belief that the soul symbolizes the man and his inner being (from the presence of high moral and ethical qualities to statements of spiritual death) in all cultures, as evidenced by the presence of a large number of phraseological and paremiological units with identical values. The purpose of the study is to consider and characterize the linguistic objectification of the concept of the soul. The conducted comparative analysis allows us to conclude that the perception of this concept among the Slavic and Turkic peoples is largely matching. The concept of the soul in all comparable languages is multilayered, in which cognitive traits are reflected, corresponding to the semantic components of the tokens representing it. The presented variety of semantic and conceptual variations facilitates the modelling of a wide interpretation field of this concept.

Chinese Culture and Its Influence on Prison Society: Women’s Experience

Based on interviews with 30 female parolees/ex-inmates and 10 prison officers, this article argues that custody relationships among women incarcerated in China are “not easy,” and this is due primarily to distrust in prison society and a hierarchical prison culture. Even so, women inmates are motivated to form and maintain harmonious relationships with others. This article suggests that this behavior pattern is greatly influenced by the Chinese culture of pragmatic Confucianism, which further explains the women’s low interest in forming a prison subculture.

Branding a Memorable: Case Study on Residivist Streetwear Bandung

The trust issue occurred toward the former prisoners made it difficult for them to return to society. Based on this issue, an effort was made to counter the stereotypes developed in the community. Unlike other clothing businesses, Residivist Streetwear has a unique concept, which manifested in the design of its products. Residivist Streetwear uses the idea of "Prison Culture" in every designs. Moreover, 99% of its employees are recidivists. With the stigma and discrimination that the ex-prisoners received, it is not easy for Residivist Streetwear to make its brand known and accepted by the community. This article aims to find and to analyze Residivist Streetwear’s branding strategies. The method used in this study is a qualitative method with a case study approach. Based on the research, it was found that Residivist Streetwear’s branding strategies included, (1) increasing brand appeal through product maker’s background, brand name, product hang tag, and the use of product design with the "Prison Culture” concept; (2) communicating brands through endorsement, sales promotion, social media, television, and various events and programs of the Anugerah Insan Residivist Foundation; (3) the use of product design with the concept of “Prison Culture” is a hallmark of Residivist Streetwear in changing the stigma aimed by the community to ex-convicts.

Introduction

Contemporary American culture is infused with carceral logics that foreground punishment. However, the United States also has a rich tradition of abolitionism, which catalyzes social movements against entrenched injustice. Just as American prison culture is imbued with religion, American abolition culture is also imbued with religion. For this reason, the authors ask what role religion played in underwriting the explosive growth of prisons over the last five decades, as well as what role religion plays in sustaining mass incarceration today. In doing so, the authors weave religion into stories about economics, race, and politics that are told to explain the explosive growth of prisons in the United States. For the movement to “end mass incarceration” to win, this book argues, it must embrace abolitionism, not just reform. Religious ideas and rituals have much to contribute to this process, resourcing a social movement to end the carceral state and its attendant injustices.

Prison Culture, Management, and In-Prison Violence

Academic attention to violence and other forms of in-prison misconduct is on the rise, although most research continues to be framed within now stale perspectives. A broader framework is needed that builds on the more contemporary aspects of these perspectives and incorporates other elements of prison culture and management that potentially influence violent offending and victimization in prison. This article begins with an overview of cumulative knowledge on prison culture to highlight relevant ideas on inmate adaptation to confinement and how violence might manifest from (mal)adaptation. How prison management shapes and reflects culture is also discussed with an emphasis on how prison officers affect inmate safety. A bi-level framework is presented that brings together the piecemeal contributions of research to date to provide a more comprehensive understanding of offending and victimization that should facilitate crime prevention in prison while improving the humanity of the prison experience.