| One of the important cognitive premises of interpreting the prison culture is to reasonably choose reference frames of the prison culture. In general, such reference frames can be chosen as the reference frame of jurisprudence or legal philosophy, the reference frame of culture, the reference frame of history or history of laws, and the reference frame of anthropology. The disciplinary nature of the studies of the prison culture is determined by the nature of a prison."A prison is an organ of the State for executing criminal punishments."The prison law is a law in accordance with the norms of which freedom penalty is executed, so it belongs to the category of the criminal execution law. The prison law is an independent legal section, and it, together with the criminal law and the criminal procedure law, constitutes a state's criminal legal system. Therefore, the prison law science, of which the object is the prison law, is an essential part of the criminal law science; the prison science, of which the object is a prison, is an essential part of the law science; the prison culture, of which the object is the prison culture, is an essential part of the studies of legal culture. The studies of the department law of legal culture include such studies as the culture of constitutional government, the culture of criminal law, the culture of civil law, the culture of commitment, the culture of judge, the culture of prison, and so on. Hence, it is indeed a dramatically realistic and greatly practical strategy of academic studies to qualify the studies of the prison culture as the studies of the culture of department law. It is a complex and systematical project and involves many social fields for a prison to execute criminal punishments to a criminal, which determines that the research of the prison culture is a comprehensive subject of the legal law science, and it dose not only closely relate to such studies as the culture of criminal law and the culture of commitment, but also such subjects as legal philosophy, culture, sociology, management, education and economics, so it is necessary to comprehensively apply theories and methods of the relevant subjects.From the view of legal philosophy, the prison culture is the general designation of the classified conceptual pattern and the classified behavioral pattern of the life in prison. This definition means the prison culture possesses a classified character, reflects the conceptual pattern in prison, and shows the behavioral pattern of the life of persons in prison. From the view of jurisprudence, the analysis of the prison culture can be discussed in a broader sense and a narrower sense as well. In the broader sense, the prison culture can be defined as: all legal phenomena in prison, i.e. the total of prison ideology and prison system, organizations and institutions applicable to it; the special cultural system comprised of prison system, prison theory, and prison legal concept; the general designation of the theory on the execution of criminal punishments related to prison, and such practices and results of executing criminal punishments as norms, facilities and arts. In the narrower sense, the prison culture is such an element related to law that only exists in people's minds, and can be defined as: the tradition of executing criminal punishments in prison, the theory on the execution of criminal punishments, and the attitude toward life, the mode of life, belief, thought and the view of value of persons in prison; prison organs; the classified cognition, evaluation, mentality and behavioral pattern of prison rights and obligations. From the view of cultural philosophy, the prison culture is the persons'survival pattern historically formed under the prison context. This suggests that the prison culture is the product of human beings'history, possesses the character of artificiality, and inclines towards the object of the human beings' nature activities; the prison culture embodies that culture possesses internalized freedom and creativity; the prison culture possesses a classified character, and is a common behavioral norm that is gradually formed during the history of criminal punishments and that is complied and recognized by the class. From the view of cultural studies, the prison culture is the norm, value, sign, meaning and behavior related to prison. The prison culture does not only focus on the elite culture in prison, but also the mass culture in prison, especially the form and meaning of the existence of the mass culture in prison. The prison culture focuses on the acceptance of cultural identification under the prison context and on"speech hegemony"in prison under special conditions. The prison culture focuses on the understanding of the modern character, and seeks the methods of prison's modernization. The prison culture studies the encoding and decoding of the cultural signs in prison, focuses on the sense of overturning postmodern culture, and hence renews the"reform philosophy"in prison. The prison culture focuses on Chinese prison culture's transfer to foreign culture and inheritance from native culture under the global context, and strives for reconstructing the prison culture under the legal context.In general, the prison culture consists of such three elements as the prison cognition, the prison affection, and the prison evaluation. Normally, the prison cognition, the prison affection, and the prison evaluation compose a harmonious integrity, and the dramatic change of any of these three elements means the whole system of the prison culture, i.e. both people's conceptual pattern and behavioral pattern, will change. Analyzed from a broader perspective, the prison culture has transcending and creative function, practical function, value function and behavioral norm function, and some social functions such as politics and economics. The pattern of the prison culture has various classifying ways, and is generally classified into material culture, systematic culture and spiritual culture in prison. The prison's material culture possesses both universal character and particular character. Fist of all, the prison's material culture should satisfy the need of executing criminal punishments, and although the survival need of the material culture in the universal sense is essential, it is not the most important. Aiming at the need of executing criminal punishments, the prison constructs its own material culture including food, clothing, housing and transport. All in all, no prison's material culture is not greatly characterized by criminal punishments. The prison's systematic culture covers all aspects of executing criminal punishments in prison. As to the prison's systematic culture in the contemporary China, it consists of a series of systems, including the system of the execution of criminal punishments, the system of prison management, the system of educational reform, the system of prisoners'labor, and the system of institution procuratorial. These systems possess abundant cultural connotations, embodies contemporary cultural trends and inclinations of executing criminal punishments in prison. The prison's spiritual culture is composed of socio-cultural psychology in prison, spontaneous and experiential spiritual culture, and the result of spontaneous spiritual culture. The prison's spiritual culture lies in the prison's material culture and systematic culture, and is such a systematic and rational thing that lies in the depth of all activities of persons in prison. However, both material culture and systematic culture are the external expression or materialized form of spiritual culture. Discussing the category of the existent and spontaneous culture in prison is helpful for us to clarify the evolving and developing sequence of the prison culture, and is also helpful for us to understand the evolving system of the prison culture. The execution of criminal punishments is classified into broader sense and narrower sense. The execution of criminal punishments in the broader sense refers to the executing activity of various criminal punishments such as death penalty, freedom penalty, property penalty, and qualification penalty; the execution of criminal punishments in the broader sense refers to the executing activity of freedom penalty. The execution of criminal punishments herein refers to that in the narrower sense. As to the aim of executing criminal punishments which is the core of the execution of criminal punishments, the cultural mode of retributive execution of criminal punishments, utilitarian execution of criminal punishments, and justice execution of criminal punishments is worth focusing on.Prisons, especially Chinese prisons, are different from common judicial institutions, and need studying and recognizing from various aspects. As a political entity, the prison is a violent machine by which a state defends its regime, and safeguards social order, is the material expression of and the attachment to a state's substance, and hence requires the studies of political ideology; as a social institution, the prison is a special safeguard, defense and immune system, and hence requires the studies of sociology; as a legal institution, the prison is an organization that executes penalty, and a place that punish and reform criminals, assumes the mission of re-socialize criminals, and hence requires the studies of law; as a cultural text, the prison is the synthesis of political culture, ethical culture, and economic culture, assumes mutual influence between native culture and foreign culture, especially western culture, and dramatic collision between dominant culture and subculture, and hence requires the studies of culture, especially the science of culture, anthropology, etc. Therefore, in the contemporary context, the character of cross-field and cross-discipline of the prison studies determine that the studies of the prison culture are necessary, feasible and effective for the choice of the theory, methodology and tradition of cultural studies. In general, there are mainly four basic directions, i.e. the studies of the basic theories and methods of the prison culture, the studies of the traditions of the prison culture, the studies of the modernization advance of the prison culture, and the comparative studies of the prison culture.The prison culture in the contemporary China possesses the character of modernization, can be classified into such four periods as the period of the early establishment of reform philosophy, the period of the exploration of modern prison culture, and the period of law-governing speech, and owns such four post-modernization contexts as ideology, native tradition, western modernization, and digital replication. The contemporary Chinese prison is moving from"political and cultural prison"toward"knowledgeable and cultural prison", from"human-governing prison"toward"law-governing prison", and from"agriculture-oriented prison"toward"metropolitan prison". During the comprehensive switch of modernization, Chinese prison culture needs to make speech analysis of such profound cultural patterns as the development of human and the progress of prisons, the mutation and fission of spiritual culture, the dramatic change and paradox of daily life pattern and value view, the super hegemony of technological rationality. The prison culture in the contemporary China chooses the multi-switching strategy. Through such comprehensive modernization strategies as making the criminal law systematic, making the reform scientific, making the treatment humane, making the management informational, making the police knowledgeable, and making the prison metropolitan, Chinese prisons actively contend for the right of speech, strive for showing the cultural identification of"the window of social civilization", in order that the media starts to pay attention, the mass to evaluate, the intellectuals to visit, the power center to note, and the cultural context improves in many aspects and layers. Contemporary Chinese prisons focus on reconstructing"the hegemony of the prison culture". The group of police working in prison should firmly"reign"over the group of prisoners, and should make the culture of prison accepted by the criminals, i.e. prison's reforming philosophy, concept of executing penalty, pursuit of value is accepted and actively joined by criminals. Otherwise, it is difficult to stabilize the order in prison and realize the aim of reforming criminals. Chinese prisons focus on the mass culture in prison. The cultural phenomena characteristic of mass culture in prison are various and complex. Relatively typical mass culture in prison is song festival in the square of prison, criminals'troupe, gymnastics, unbosoming room, meeting with relatives, phoning from relatives, going home to visit prisoner's family, prison supermarket, psychological consultation on network, etc. Among those, the artistic creation is helpful for criminals to realize the survival meaning, and the unbosoming of affections to produce the sense of happiness; the prison supermarket has the significance of the social simulation of consumption culture, and the consultation on network is entertainment's understanding of technological rationality; recently, talking about law by criminals themselves and warning education is another kind of dialogue between the mass culture inside prison and outside prison. No significance of the mass culture in prison is more realistic than its helpfulness to the safety and order in prison. Reconstructing the mass culture in prison needs to focus on the studies of visual culture and consumption culture, and master the right of speech well. In the practice of contemporary Chinese prisons, advocating such liberalism concepts as freedom, justice and democracy conforms to the value pursuit of Chinese prison culture.
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