What does prisonization mean? Describe the U-shaped curve developed by Stanton Wheeler to illustrate the concept of prisonization. How can an understanding of Wheeler’s U-shaped curve help prevent recidivism?
What will be an ideal response?
Prisonization is the adaptive process each inmate undergoes soon after arrival in a prison setting. During prisonization, inmates learn the prison lifestyle and criminal values. Wheeler’s U-shaped curve represents the process through which inmates abandon conventional values held at the beginning of their incarceration and increasingly adopt the criminal values they encounter in the prison setting. As offenders near release, however, commitment to prison values lessens. Since the curve reflects the degree of commitment to subcultural values characteristic of the prison, it is shaped like the letter U. One way that an understanding of Wheeler’s U-shaped curve might help in preventing recidivism is by acknowledging the evolutionary process inmates go through and perhaps better preparing for the transitions.
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