Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T17:32:41.205Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ruling by Favors: Prison Guards' Informal Exercise of Institutional Control

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Alexander Z. Ibsen
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This ethnographic research addresses the control strategies employed by Norwegian guards in everyday interactions with inmates under institutional conditions in which the use of official negative sanctions is restricted. The article explains how a complicated informal system of favors develops that forms a new basis for punishment through the withdrawal of rewards. By distributing favors liberally, giving an inmate only what he is entitled to serves as a substitute for negative sanctions. Inmates are not opposing the informal system, and its effect on ensuring institutional control does not challenge the intentions of formal prison rules. Still, the informal system must be monitored and protected against overuse by inmates and must also be kept hidden from the officials making up the prison administration who oppose all departures from the official rules.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , Spring 2013 , pp. 342 - 363
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Adler, Michael, and Longhurst, Brian. 1994. Discourse, Power and Justice: Towards a New Sociology of Imprisonment. London/New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Anon. 2007. Kriminalomsorgens årsstatistikk [Correctional Services Year Statistics]. Oslo: Norwegian Correctional Services.Google Scholar
Basberg, Cecilie. 1999. Omsorg i fengsel? Oslo: Pax.Google Scholar
Benaquisto, Lucia, and Freed, Peter J. 1996. The Myth of Inmate Lawlessness: The Perceived Contradiction between Self and Other in Inmates' Support for Criminal Justice Sanctioning Norms. Law & Society Review 30 (3): 481–511.Google Scholar
Benguigui, Georges. 1997. Force, Bargaining and Gift-Giving in Prison. Sociologie du Travail 39 (1): 1–17.Google Scholar
Bosworth, Mary. 1999. Engendering Resistance: Agency and Power in Women's Prisons. Aldershot: Ashgate Pub. Ltd.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1997. Marginalia—Some Additional Notes on the Gift. In The Logic of the Gift: Toward an Ethic of Generosity, 231–43. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bowles, Samuel. 2004. Microeconomics. Behavior, Institutions, and Evolution. New York: Russell Sage Foundation/Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Burawoy, Michael. 1982. Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process under Monopoly Capitalism. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Burawoy, Michael. 1998. The Extended Case Method. Sociological Theory 16 (1): 4–33.Google Scholar
Carrabine, Eamonn. 2005. Prison Riots, Social Order and the Problem of Legitimacy. British Journal of Criminology 45 (6): 896–913.Google Scholar
Carrabine, Eamonn, and Bosworth, Mary. 2001. Reassessing Resistance: Race, Gender and Sexuality in Prison. Punishment & Society 3 (4): 501–15.Google Scholar
Clemmer, Donald. 1940. The Prison Community. Boston, MA: Christopher Publishing.Google Scholar
Cressey, Donald R. 1959. Contradictory Directives in Complex Organizations: The Case of the Prison. Administrative Science Quarterly 4 (1): 1–19.Google Scholar
Crewe, Ben. 2007. Power, Adaptation and Resistance in a Late-Modern Mens Prison. British Journal of Criminology 47 (March): 256–75.Google Scholar
Cullen, Francis T. 1989. The Correctional Orientation of Prison Guards: Do Officers Support Rehabilitation? Federal Probation 53 (1): 33–42.Google Scholar
Dari-Mattiacci, Giuseppe, and De Geest, Gerrit. 2010. Carrots, Sticks, and the Multiplication Effect. Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 26 (2): 365–84.Google Scholar
de Certeau, Michel. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Trans. Steven Randall. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques. 1992. Given Time: I. Counterfeit Money. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Desmond, Matthew. 2006. Becoming a Firefighter. Ethnography 7 (4): 387–421.Google Scholar
Ellickson, Robert C. 2005. Order without Law: How Neighbors Settle Disputes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Faulkner, Paula L., and Faulkner, William R. 1997. Effects of Organizational Change on Inmates' Status and the Inmate Code of Conduct. Journal of Crime and Justice 20 (1): 55–72.Google Scholar
Godelier, Maurice. 1999. The Enigma of the Gift. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1961. Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 2001. On Fieldwork. In Contemporary Field Research: Perspectives and Formulations, 2d ed., ed. Emerson, Robert M., 153–59. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, Inc.Google Scholar
Gray, Louis N., and Tallman, Irving. 1987. Theories of Choice: Contingent Reward and Punishment Applications. Social Psychology Quarterly 50 (1): 16–23.Google Scholar
Hammerlin, Yngve. 2008. Om fangebehandling, fange- og menneskesyn i norsk kriminalomsorg i anstalt 1970–2007. Oslo: Institutt for kriminologi og rettssosiologi.Google Scholar
Hepburn, John R. 1985. The Exercise of Power in Coercive Organizations: A Study of Prison Guards. Criminology 23 (1): 145–64.Google Scholar
Hepburn, John R. 1987. The Prison Control Structure and Its Effects on Work Attitudes: The Perceptions and Attitudes of Prison Guards. Journal of Criminal Justice 15 (1): 49–64.Google Scholar
Hirschkop, Philip J., and Millimann, Michael A. 1969. The Unconstitutionality of Prison Life. Virginia Law Review 55 (5): 795–839.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1987. Introduction to the Work of Marcel Mauss, 1st ed. Oxon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Marquart, James W. 1986. Prison Guards and the Use of Physical Coercion as a Mechanism of Prisoner Control. Criminology 24 (2): 347–66.Google Scholar
Marquart, James W., and Roebuck, Julian B. 1985. Prison Guards and “Snitches”: Deviance within a Total Institution. British Journal of Criminology 25 (3): 217–33.Google Scholar
Mathiesen, Thomas. 1965. The Defences of the Weak. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Mauss, Marcel. 1990. The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies. London/New York: Routledge Classics.Google Scholar
Posner, Richard A. 1981. The Economics of Justice. Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Pratt, John. 2008a. Scandinavian Exceptionalism in an Era of Penal Excess: Part I: The Nature and Roots of Scandinavian Exceptionalism. British Journal of Criminology 48 (2): 119–37.Google Scholar
Pratt, John. 2008b. Scandinavian Exceptionalism in an Era of Penal Excess: Part II: Does Scandinavian Exceptionalism Have a Future? British Journal of Criminology 48 (3): 275–92.Google Scholar
Rosecrance, Richard. 1981. Reward, Punishment, and Interdependence. Journal of Conflict Resolution 25 (1): 31–46.Google Scholar
Sahlins, Marshall. 1997. The Spirit of the Gift. In The Logic of the Gift: Toward an Ethic of Generosity, ed. Schrift, Alan D., 70–99. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sallaz, Jeffrey J. 2009. The Labor of Luck: Casino Capitalism in the United States and South Africa, 1st ed. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Simmel, Georg. 1971. The Stranger. In Georg Simmel: On Individuality and Social Forms, ed. Levine, Donald N., 143–49. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sparks, Richard, Bottoms, Anthony E., and Hay, Will. 1996. Prisons and the Problem of Order. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sykes, Grisham M. 1969. The Society of Captives. New York: Atheneum.Google Scholar
Trammell, Rebecca. 2009. Values, Rules, and Keeping the Peace: How Men Describe Order and the Inmate Code in California Prisons. Deviant Behavior 30 (8): 746–72.Google Scholar
Ugelvik, Thomas. 2011. The Hidden Food: Mealtime Resistance and Identity Work in a Norwegian Prison. Punishment & Society 13 (1): 47–63.Google Scholar
Ugelvik, Thomas, and Dullum, Jane. 2011. Penal Exceptionalism? Nordic Prison Policy and Practice. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Weiner, Annette B. 1992. Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox of Keeping—While Giving. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Worley, R., and Cheeseman, K. 2006. Guards as Embezzlers: The Consequences of “Non-Shareable Problems” in Prison Settings. Deviant Behavior 27 (2): 203–22.Google Scholar

Statutes Cited

Law of Correction (Straffegjennomf⊘ringsloven) of 2001. LOV-2001-05-18-21, JD.Google Scholar
Regulations to Law of Correction (Forskrift til lov om straffegjennomf⊘ring) of 2001. FOR-2002-02-22, No. 183, JD.Google Scholar