Institutionalization

The term institutionalization is typically used to describe an ongoing process by which individuals are intimately shaped by the institutional environment in which they live. Institutionalization within a prison/jail occurs when incarcerated individuals gradually become used to the many restrictions associated with institutional life. Understanding institutionalization is important, for it gives insight into the power of institutional environments to transform people. There has been considerable research documenting the many phases or stages incarcerated individuals experience as a part of the institutionalization process.

Institutionalization has been described since the 1960s as a process that completely encompasses an incarcerated individual's life. Drawing on his own research of a range of institutions including monasteries, boarding schools, psychiatric hospitals, and prisons, Erving Goffman produced a typology of characteristics associated with what he considered to be a “total institution.” Some features include hierarchy, routine, rituals of degradation, initiation, and segregation. For Goffman, a total institution is a place of work and residence where similarly situated individuals, typically cut off from the larger society for a lengthy amount of time, live together in an enclosed and formally administered life.

Craig Haney, a social psychologist and researcher who studies the psychological effects of different forms of incarceration, discusses institutionalization as a process that includes some or all of the following psychological adaptations: (1) dependence on institutional structure and contingencies; (2) hypervigilance and interpersonal distrust; (3) alienation and psychological distancing; (4) social withdrawal and severe isolation; (5) incorporation of exploitative norms of prison culture; (6) diminished sense of self-worth and personal value; and (7) post-traumatic stress.

The first stage suggests that incarcerated individuals acquire a dependency for their [Page 481]institution—directly or indirectly—due to the prison system forcing them to adapt to their institutional boundaries. For inmates, the process of institutionalization includes limiting their routine activities and is implemented by the many rules and regulations embedded in prison life. Incarcerated individuals find themselves living in a very controlled environment. They are constantly watched, a feeling that further reinforces the totality of their institutional experience. Institutionalization therefore renders incarcerated individuals dependent on their regulated prison life. In turn, they gradually lose the capacity to rely on themselves or their close network of friends and family. Individuals who have been institutionalized for a long amount of time not only find it difficult to function independently but also find it problematic to relate to others.

As a further consequence of an inmate's institutionalization, the second phase suggests that hypervigilance (being watchful of one's surroundings), interpersonal distrust (being suspicious of others), and feelings of uncertainty (having doubt) are common. Prisons are dangerous, therefore, prisoners adopt a cautious persona where they are continuously on the lookout for potential harms done to either themselves or to someone close to them. As part of the institutionalization process, research has found that some prisoners actually learn to project a tough façade (harsh outward demeanor) that helps keep others at a distance. Many incarcerated individuals believe that without this threatening persona, they are likely to be victimized.

Richard McCorkle's 1992 study of a maximum-security prison is a good example of different kinds of behavioral strategies prisoners use to help them navigate and survive their dangerous prison environment. This study found that fear led over 40 percent of inmates to avoid certain high-risk areas of the prison. About an equal number reported that, as a precaution against potential victimization, they purposefully spent more time in their prison cells. Additionally, roughly three-quarters of inmates reported that they had been forced to “get tough” with another prisoner to avoid victimization. Similarly, more than a quarter of all inmates said that they kept a “shank” or other weapon nearby to defend themselves if needed. These are just some of the typical behaviors inmates use to minimize their chance of victimization, another important aspect of institutionalization.

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