A Theory of Prison Systems.

This paper suggests that scholars and practitioners in correction should turn their attention to the prison system as a crucial unit of analysis. Almost every state has a centralized correctional department with jurisdiction over a variety of institutions ranging from traditional custodial maximum-security warehouses to community-based innovative halfway houses and treatment centers. How prisoners and resources should be distributed among these institutions is the key problem. The central thesis of this paper is that any prison system can be described and analyzed according to the functional relationships among its institutions. The "hierarchical" system is based on a highly elaborated punishment-reward structure that holds out the incentive of minimum-security living conditions in exchange for cooperation with administration. In this system social control is shifted from the individual institutions to the system as a whole. The "differentiated" system is designed for the delivery of treatment services, but it requires a degree of autonomy that correctional systems currently do not enjoy. Finally, the "autonomous" system is made up of small, functionally independent institutions with heterogeneous populations; though attractive because of low cost and moral neutrality with respect to the etiology and treatment of crime, it is also unstable because the type of institution that evolves depends largely on the warden anal the natural history of the particular institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]