Leadership Among Prison Inmates

Friends in locked places: An investigation of prison inmate network structure

“…Outside of prison, many of these outcomes are driven, at least in part, by social processes that began behind bars. Understanding prison social conditions from a network perspective can offer insights to improve inmate well-being (Moreno 1934) and inform prison policy (Schrag 1954). …”

“…Moreno documented several features that have come to be prototypical network patterns, including unequal degree distributions, propinquity (based on housing location), subgroups, race/ethnic homophily, and peer influence. Drawing upon Moreno’s method, Schrag (1954) examined the network of leadership nominations among men in a Washington state prison. Key among his findings was homophily on ethnicity, intelligence, and type of offense (though the latter is offset by violent offenders being more popular), but no evidence of homophily on age or education level.…”

“…Second, we are better able to ascertain the relative importance of attributes like race, religion, and prison tenure for network structure. With the exception of Schrag’s (1954) mixing matrix, prior research has not quantified the strength of attribute-based associations nor assessed their contribution to network structure net of other processes. Third, we focus on a prison unit without a large gang presence.…”

“…We thus provide an alternative illustration of prison informal organization that complements the multitude of contemporary case studies set in high security or gang-infested environments. Fourth, following Kreager and colleagues (2015), we provide a systematic and replicable analysis of prison social structure that can be used to inform prison policy (Schrag 1954; Killworth and Bernard 1974). …”

High-Status Group Members as Exemplars

“…Subgroup members nominated inmates similar to themselves in the nature of their offense, sentence length, previous criminal record, institutional adjustment, ethnic status, and intelligence. All of the findings were significant at the .05 level or better; data were not reported (Schrag, 1954).…”