| The purpose of this research was to investigate the social bases of power and erosion of traditional authority within a maximum-security prison. The prison examined was the Huron Valley Men's Facility (HVMF), located in Ypsilanti, Michigan. This prison represented a modern approach to prison construction, with an emphasis on computer technology in the operation and control of prisoners.;In addition, an analysis was done on certain "focal concerns" of the institution. These included: contraband, race relations, homosexuality, and institutional misconducts. A comparative examination was used in an exploration of HVMF with a traditional prison structure on these focal concerns. In total, over eight hundred pages of interview data, quantitative figures, newspaper accounts, documentary material, and physical drawings were collected for analysis purposes.;The data revealed that regardless of the advanced technology employed at HVMF, there was an erosion of authority existing within the institution. Based on a typology of power provided by the literature, inmates and officers exhibited more varied forms of power. On the other hand, administrators displayed fewer types of power within the institutional environment.;Concerning the focal concerns examined, it was found that HVMF had an underdeveloped contraband system, good race relations, fewer problems with homosexuality, as compared to a traditionally designed prison, and differences in the type of misconduct report issued by officers dependent upon the social location of the offense. Furthermore, the analysis suggested that HVMF was physically more appealing to inmates than the traditionally structured prison.;The research method was a qualitative procedure into the prison setting, which included seven continuous months of participant observation and interviewing. Interviews were conducted with three distinct groups: inmates, officers, and administrators. Over one hundred interviews were conducted with inmates, consisting of formal and informal approaches. There were twenty interviews with corrections officers and eleven interviews with administrators. The interviews varied in time from forty-five minutes to four hours. Many of the interviews were tape recorded and transcribed at a later date.;However, it was also maintained that HVMF displayed alienation among the groups, particularly between inmates and administrators. . . . (Author's abstract exceeds stipulated maximum length. Discontinued here with permission of author.) UMI. |
