WITNESS
Douglas Thompkins is a junior faculty member in the Sociology Department at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice/City University of New York. He is a former winner of the Ford Foundation Pre-Dissertation Fellowship and the American Society of Criminology Minority Fellowship. Professor Thompkins served time in prison in Indiana and was a leader of the Gangster Disciples street gang. He is completing his doctorate in criminology at the University of Illinois, Chicago. He has done extensive research into the culture of violence behind prison walls. He has written articles looking at the prison community, race and the criminal justice system, and school violence.
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STATEMENT
"…The progressive stripping away of formal and informal opportunities for inmates has resulted in the extreme weakening of offender social organizations around the country and a corresponding extreme strengthening of the power of prison staff. The lack of power by inmate social organizations may seem to make prisons more secure but in fact removes the most effective layer of social control in prisons.
"…Control over the offender population is now based on controlling offender movement and restricting their access to both the formal and informal organizations of the prison community. Offenders around the country are being confined to their cells for longer periods of time with many being denied access to those institutional assignments and programs that help to relieve the stress associated with being in prison and which help facilitate a smoother transition upon release.
"Has increased control over the inmate social organization increased levels of security or improved the safety of offenders and staff? While there are exceptions and no two prison communities are the same, the suggestion here is that increased control over the inmate social organization has produced the illusion of security…"
Excerpted from a written statement submitted to the Commission
Download the complete written statement
Note: Some witnesses submitted documents in addition to the written statement they prepared for the hearing. In most cases, those documents are not available on the Commission's web site.
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