The Inmate Prison Experience

This book deals with a subject that is most timely—the United States today incarcerates more people than any other industrialized country in the world. The incarceration rate is growing rapidly, and minorities are disproportionately represented among correctional populations. This book provides a comprehensive examination of who the inmates are and what prison does to them, and places it in a historical context with the use of both recent and older research on the subject.

This collection of articles deals with one component of corrections—the inmate prison experience. By "inmate prison experience" the authors mean the impact of prison on inmates. How does living in prison affect people? This book is intended to serve as a reader for courses in corrections. It is comprised of selected articles, all of which focus on how inmates adjust to prison, and the factors, which influence this adjustment.

This collection of some of the best articles dealing with what it is like to live in prison, the authors combine qualitative and quantitative research. The book examines issues of primary concern to inmates, such as violence, race relations, gender issues and inmate-staff relations, and provides greater depth of coverage on the issue of inmate life in prison than standard correctional sourcebooks.

The authors examine inmate adjustment to prison, individual adjustment factors, institutional adjustment factors and societal adjustment factors.

For individuals interested in understanding the prison inmate experience.

Mary K. Stohr is an Associate Professor and the Chair in the Department of Criminal Justice Administration at Boise State University. She holds a Ph.D. in political science from Washington State University. She has an abiding interest in the nature and operation of correctional institutions and her research and teaching has generally been focused in that direction.

Craig Hemmens is an Associate Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice Administration at Boise State University. He holds a J.D. from North Carolina Central University School of Law and a Ph.D. in criminal justice from Sam Houston State University. He has conducted research on the attitudes of prison inmates and staff, and on the operation of prison drug treatment programs.