The Culture of Adult Male Prisoners Serving Life Sentences: A Qualitative Study

The Culture of Adult Male Prisoners Serving Life Sentences: A Qualitative Study

Nearly 42,000 individuals served a life sentence without a possibility of parole in federal or state prison in 2014. Such a high number is a testament to a continued trend in existence for several decades.  In the year 1992, approximately 70, 000 prisoners served a life sentence in the United States. Interestingly, an average of 98% of life sentence inmates is male with those from black community accounting for 50%. Worth noting is that Black American population is less than 15% of the total (Travis et al, 2014).

The uniqueness of a life sentence without parole is that it represents a decrease in severity of the sentence for particular offenses and an increase for others. It is a possible alternative to executions and death sentences in the case of first-degree murder offenses, while for noncapital offenses, life sentences are the most serious option available (Brereton, 2013). The existing literature has shallow information regarding the mental health, overall health, and availability of social support services for adult male inmates serving life sentences.  Physical health entails prolonged healthcare issues to ensure an active pursuance of a healthy lifestyle for incarcerated persons.  On the other hand, mental health issues arise due to hopelessness and depression . The situation escalates as inmates spend more time in prison. Lastly, cease of social service provision is increasingly becoming common, thus resulting in an alarming rate of suicides for prisoners on life sentences.

Research Questions and Hypotheses

R1. What is the relationship between the culture of adult male inmates serving a life sentence and racial background?

H1o There is no relationship between the culture of adult male inmates serving a life sentence and racial background.

H1a There is a relationship between the culture of adult male inmates serving a life sentence and racial background.

R2. How do prisoners serving a life sentence without parole adapt to the prison culture?

H2o. Prisoners serving a life sentence without parole adapt to prison culture.

H2a. Prisoners serving a life sentence without parole do not adapt to prison culture.

R3. What is the relationship between prison warden’s actions and the culture adopted by the prisoners?

H3o. There is no relationship between prison warden’s actions and the culture adopted by prisoners serving life sentences.

Ha. There is a relationship between prison warden’s actions and the culture adopted by prisoners serving life sentences.

R4. What is the relationship between adult male inmates’ behavior prior to sentencing and behavior after sentencing?

Ho. There is no relationship between adult male inmates’ behavior prior to sentencing and behavior after sentencing.

H1. There is a relationship between adult male inmates’ behavior prior to sentencing and behavior after sentencing.

Problem Statement

Adult inmates are effective humans behind bars who are suffering to get their privileges, rights, and legal assistance to access easily to justice. The impact of their race, civilization, and culture does not help them deal with their legal needs in prison. In spite of their culture, the occurrence of money, social wealth increases many caseloads with no judicial accountability. The mixture of prison culture or subculture may engender the phenomenon of sexuality among inmate adults with no religious rehabilitations. In fact, the history of America’s federal prosecutors is a huge impact to blow out the tension between proficient and partisanship independence within a court of law (Liebling & Maruna, 2013).  Then, judges, prosecutors need to be hired from diverse countries to esteem the culture, the ethnicity of each inmate adult in the prison system. Cultural impacts become visible over and above more practical issues of assets, funds, properties, access to assistance with lawful troubles and personal capability. In the criminal justice system, the impartiality is to be viewed efficiently to elect judges, prosecutors who will esteem all inmate adults' culture, subculture, ethnicity, traditions, and integrity. In addition, lawyers just need to be done with the prosecution by forcing adult inmates to plead guilty in order to avoid the length of the trial and increase more caseloads.

There is little information in the existing literature on how life sentence inmates adapt to a prison environment. In addition, the emotional and psychological stressors likely experienced in such an environment are not adequately addressed. Future dangerousness of inmate population is also not explored exhaustively. Therefore, an exploratory study such as this will examine in detail multiple factors that wield an impact on how adult male offenders jailed in federal or state prison conform to their physical environment and their know how that chances of getting out of prison alive are dismal.

Application

The results of this research can be used to create a lasting solution to the prevalent rates of suicides in the federal and state prisons. The study is aimed at identifying the source of the problem, thus easing in the sourcing of a mitigation strategy. Moreover, as the prisoners are interviewed, they will be encouraged to disclose all the necessary information. Therefore, there is a high chance that the researcher will learn about the problems inmates face as when striving to adapt to a new environment. As a result, the information received will be used to provide recommendations to the state and federal authorities on how to improve the lives of the inmates.

Available information on inmates serving life sentence is scarce. As such, the study outcome will form the basis of future research in a similar field. This study adds and updates the existing information on the culture of inmates serving life sentences. Social service providers will also regard the research outcome as useful given that it will provide information on the needs of offenders (Griffin & O’Donnell, 2012).

Research Objectives

The research focuses on the sampling of adult male inmates serving life without parole sentences in a state penitentiary. As such, there is an application of qualitative methods like a face-to-face private interview with an individual study subject. It necessitates the utilization of an interview guide approach by each participant to ensure effective data collection.  In fact, this approach presents the interviewer with a chance to adjust the wording and order of questions in response to individual dynamics of the interview process.

The research attempts to decipher the relevance of life in prison, if any, to the offender.  It seeks to answer a question regarding the effectiveness of the existing American system, especially to the prisoner. Do the authorities respect the rights of most adult male inmates during the course of their stay in the penitentiary? Besides, this research uncovers the problems faced by inmates in the course of their sentence. It is worth noting that first-hand information is gathered from multiple sources. It will assist to authenticate claims of harassment, poor services or mistreatment by fellow prisoners or prison wardens.

As another objective, the study seeks to unearth the reasons behind the prevalence of suicides among adult male prisoners serving life sentences without a possibility of parole (Nellis & Chung, 2013). While most scholars have highlighted concerns for Prisoner’s life, a few categorically highlight some of the triggering factors for the death of prisoners. Information s is sought on the possibility of foul play on the side of prison authorities or the inmates. 

Most scholars are convinced that life without parole sentence is an alternative to the death penalty because it bears the same traits as death by incarceration. A total of 48 states consider this sentence as an alternative to a death penalty. Many of the prisoners serving life sentences are regarded as a social problem: the society and social service providers are least concerned. Available literature focuses on empirical research. It is rare to locate a published document on how the individuals incarcerated for a lifetime adapt to the harsh reality of a prison setting. Due to such a literature gap, it is imperative to draw cases and inferences from inmates serving non-life sentences.

In addition, the study is intended to reveal how life sentences inmates bond and the factors that cause the relationship between them. The researcher shall also gather data on the extent of the relationship and how external factors contribute to such. Furthermore, the reasons behind inmate bonding and relationship establishment shall be discussed.

Adapting to Prison Culture

Prisonization refers to the process involved for an inmate to assimilate to a prison setting. It involves getting accustomed to mores, customs, and folkways of the penitentiary. Some of the factors that influenced prisonization include the development of positive correlations prior to imprisonment, maintenance of healthy relationships with non-prisoners while serving a sentence, and length of imprisonment. Effects of prisonization can be lessened by primary group’s codes of conducts and beliefs. In addition, there is a need for a chance placement with workmates and cellmate that lack leadership traits and are disintegrated into the culture of prison, and the willingness to participate in recreational and work programs instead of participating in excessive gambling and abnormal intimate behavior.

Male adult inmates that serve a lifetime in jail exhibits psychological effects that are as lethal as physical punishments, especially if they are deprived of sex, autonomy, liberty, heterosexual relationships, and goods and services.  In fact, an inmate’s perception of personal worth or personality is damaged by these deprivations.

Adaptation to horrible prison conditions centers on prisoner’s reaction to prevalent deprivations.  Three of the worst problems experienced by prisoners include material deprivation, sexual frustration, and sexual rejection.  In prison quarters, official punishment recipient languishes in the cheerless companionship of other inmates equally resentful, hopeless and miserable (Emery, 2013). An atmosphere of loneliness, hate, futility, sexual frustration, and monotony pervades cold hangers and dark dungeons as months turn into years.

Extra or pre-prison factors wield a great impact on the prisoner’s adaptation process. There are inmate subcultures: legitimate, thief and convict subcultures. Convict subculture members associate with criminality both outside and within the jail. On the other hand, legitimate subculture incorporates the individuals that cannot freely identify with the thief subculture before they are incarcerated besides rejecting thief and convict subcultures after delivery of judgment. The majority of prison population form part of the legitimate subculture. Therefore, they segregate themselves from individuals belonging to convict or thief subcultures.  As such, they conform regularly to the prison administration’s behavioral expectations. Notably, religious, political and racial stratification among inmates (mostly related to extra or pre-prison influences) contributes to the prisoners’ process of adaptation.

Research Gaps

A prison is an enclosed environment. It is not easy for the researchers to gain access and to study the lifestyle of inmates.  There are multiple gaps addressed by this research. One of them includes prior incarceration effects. Professional literature gives little attention to this factor. In fact, a few sources bearing its information focus only on identification of evident characteristics and description of sample sizes. Therefore, the researcher shall bridge this gap by describing in detail the distinct homogeneity of first-time life sentence inmates and those that were incarcerated previously.

It is also imperative to add knowledge on the role of external support network in the provision of moral support to the inmate. Such people include family members, relatives, and friends. Most inmates that lack external contacts end their lives early while those that receive support and regular visitation can easily cope with the reality of spending their lifetime behind bars. Addressing this phenomenon is important for future research.

Mental health is another area of concern. Currently, studies are yet to be conducted on mental health disorders and psychological adjustment of prisoners serving on life sentences. Any additional information from this research will be useful in establishing a link between such disorders and the inmate’s fears of lengthy periods in jail (Loeb & AbuDagga, 2014).

References

Brereton, S. (2013). Life Sentence Prisoners. Probation Journal, 60(4), 439-440

Emery, F. E. (2013). Freedom and Justice Within Walls: the Bristol Prison Experiment. London: Routledge.

Griffin, D., & O'Donnell, I. (2012). The life sentence and parole. British Journal of Criminology, 52(3), 611-629.

Liebling, A., & Maruna, S. (Eds.). (2013). The effects of Imprisonment. London: Routledge.

Loeb, S. J., & AbuDagga, A. (2014). Health‐related Research on Older Inmates: An Integrative Review. Research in Nursing & Health, 29(6), 556-565.

Nellis, A., & Chung, J. (2013). Life goes on: The Historic Rise in Life Sentences in America. Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project.

Travis, J., Western, B., & Redburn, F. S. (2014). The growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences.