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Prison-based therapeutic communities (TCs) are a widespread, effective way to help incarcerated individuals address substance abuse problems. The TC philosophy is grounded in an explicitly relational paradigm that entails building community and conditioning residents to increasingly take responsibility for leadership therein. Although TCs are based on cultivating a network that continuously integrates new residents, many common structural features can jeopardize TC goals and are hence discouraged (e.g., clustering, homophily). In light of this tension, analyzing the TC from a network perspective can offer new insights to its functioning, as well as to broader questions surrounding how networks integrate new members. In this study we examine a men's TC unit in a Pennsylvania prison over a 10-month span. Using data on residents' informal networks, we examine: (1) how well individuals integrate into the TC network across time, (2) what predicts how well residents integrate into the TC, and (3) how well the TC network structure adheres to theoretical ideals. Results suggest that individual integration is driven by a range of hypothesized factors and, with limited exceptions, the observed TC is able to foster a network structure and integrate residents consistent with TC principles. We discuss the implications of these results for evaluating TCs and for understanding the process of network integration.

The current study investigates informal social structure among prison inmates. Data come from the Prison Inmate Network Study (PINS), a project focused on a unit of a Pennsylvania medium security men's prison. We focus on 205 inmates and their “get along with” network – an approximation of friendship in other settings. We find a weak subgroup structure dominated by two groups of “old heads” and characterized by moderate (non gang-based) race/ethnic clustering. Structurally, the network resembles adolescents in schools, suggesting that prison inmates are capable of successfully building peer associations. We conclude that under the right conditions self-organizing inmate society can foster social integration reminiscent of other social settings.

Research of inmate social order is a once-vibrant area that receded just as American incarceration rates climbed and the country's carceral contexts dramatically changed. This study reengages inmate society with an abductive mixed methods investigation of informal status within a contemporary men's prison unit. The authors collect narrative and social network data from 133 male inmates housed in a unit of a Pennsylvania medium-security prison. Analyses of inmate narratives suggest that unit "old heads" provide collective goods in the form of mentoring and role modeling that foster a positive and stable peer environment. This hypothesis is then tested with Exponential Random Graph Models (ERGMs) of peer nomination data. The ERGM results complement the qualitative analysis and suggest that older inmates and those who have been on the unit longer are perceived by their peers as powerful and influential. Both analytical strategies point to the maturity of aging and the acquisition of local knowledge as important for attaining informal status in the unit. In sum, this mixed methods case study extends theoretical insights of classic prison ethnographies, adds quantifiable results capable of future replication, and points to a growing population of older inmates as important for contemporary prison social organization.

In October 2018, Canada legalized and regulated its entire recreational cannabis supply chain via the Cannabis Act. One of the objectives of this new policy was to take revenue away from organized crime groups. Five years after the Cannabis Act went into effect, we address the following question: what do we know about the impacts of cannabis regulation on organized crime? A review of the gray and academic literature revealed that there is little and inconclusive research on the matter, as well as a lack of diverse and relevant data sources from which to draw conclusions. Using Canadian and international literature, we developed recommendations for indicators that could be used to assess such impacts. These indicators could be particularly useful for policymakers and researchers in countries that have yet to regulate cannabis to allow for pre‐ and post‐legalization comparisons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mid-twentieth century witnessed a surge of American prison ethnographies focused on inmate society and the social structures that guide inmate life. Ironically, this literature virtually froze in the 1980s just as the country entered a period of unprecedented prison expansion, and has only recently begun to thaw. In this manuscript, we develop a rationale for returning inmate society to the forefront of criminological inquiry, and suggest that network science provides an ideal framework for achieving this end. In so doing, we show that a network perspective extends prison ethnographies by allowing quantitative assessment of prison culture and illuminating basic characteristics of prison social structure that are essential for improving inmate safety, health, and community reentry outcomes. We conclude by demonstrating the feasibility and promise of inmate network research with findings from a recent small-scale study of a maximum-security prison work unit.