Prison as a Social Institution

Abstract

Some of the social studies done on prisons discovered a private culture in prison, making it a mini-society; its members consist of criminals who are spreading standards based on challenging the laws and circumventing on them, including the prison’s internal regulations. The author of this book begins from talking about a phenomenon, which is the repetition return of criminals to crime (RTC), and the relation of prisons with (RTC), addressing that the criminals have adapted with the prison’s environment. As the author is discussing this phenomenon based on the prison as a sub-culture of the outside society, and the author clarifies the benefits of punishment by concentrating on penal philosophy, utilitarian doctrine and their effects. The author then moves to talk about the Islamic law and the idea of correction, clarifying the principal of the traditional and status school about this matter, and the modern principals of treatment, correction and punishment science. The author then talks about the relation between the happenings of events and the indicators that lead to (RTC), and the methods to correct this phenomenon, and then he talks about means other than punishment, which aims to treat and rehabilitate the perpetrators. Finally, the author addresses the topic of adapting with the prison environment as a sub-culture; he also refers to: the social adapting of criminals, the effect and quantity of family and relatives’ visit and contacts, evaluating career situation and getting a job after release, the effect of past crimes and the number of crimes of every (RTC) classes, the role of the (RTC) age when committing the first crime, the role of the level of the educational and economical attainment of (RTC) in committing crimes.