WITNESS
Dr. James M. Byrne is a Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where he has taught since 1984. Dr. Byrne (M.A., Ph.D., Rutgers University) has written extensively on a wide range of topics, including the community context of crime causation and control, prison violence and disorder, the effectiveness of correctional interventions, and the offender reentry issue. Dr. Byrne is the Co-Principal Investigator of a multi-site evaluation of the National Institute of Corrections' ongoing Institutional Culture Change Initiative.
His publications include The Social Ecology of Crime (Springer-Verlag, 1986, with Robert Sampson); The Effectiveness of the "New" Intensive Supervision Programs (National Institute of Corrections, 1989, with Arthur Lurigio and Chris Baird); Smart Sentencing: The Emergence of Intermediate Sanctions (Sage, 1992, 1994, with Arthur Lurigio and Joan Petersilia); Day Reporting Centers, volumes 1 and 2 (National Institute of Justice, 1995, with Dale Parent, et al.); and Tools of the Trade: A Guide for Incorporating Science Into Practice (National Institute of Corrections, 2004, with Faye Taxman, et. al).
Dr. Byrne is currently working on a new text, Violence in America: Causes, Prevention, Treatment, and Control (Sage, with Eve Buzawa), and an edited collection, The New Technology of Crime, Law and Social Control (Criminal Justice Press, with Don Rebovich). He will serve as the guest editor for an upcoming special issue of The Journal of Offender Rehabilitation on "Prison Culture and Offender Change" (with Nancy Wolf, Rutgers University).
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STATEMENT
Despite the ongoing debate on the nature and extent of gang involvement in violence, it would be a mistake to ignore the potential influence of gang culture in both institutional and community settings. Researchers studying community level violence have consistently found that gang influence appears to be strongest in areas where informal social controls are weakest. I would argue that you will find a similar relationship in prison communities. Reidel and Welsh (2002:148) have stated the problem succinctly: "The gang's most important role is to provide a source of identity for young males and ,to a lesser extent, females. Trapped in high-crime neighborhoods, attending poor schools, victims of racial and ethnic discrimination, gangs provide a source of identity and pride to young people who believe they have few other alternatives."
…While there is some evidence that the inmate, staff, and management-centered strategies…can reduce prison violence and disorder, it appears that further research on each of these three broad approaches to the prison violence problem is needed before we can assess "what works" in this area. However, we do have a mounting body of evidence that in prisons - as in our communities - informal social control mechanisms are more effective than formal social control mechanisms in reducing levels of violence and disorder. The commission needs to consider strategies for strengthening these informal control mechanisms, while simultaneously reducing our reliance on formal control technology. The key is to identify the optimal "tipping point" in violence prevention and control strategies that attempt to utilize both formal and informal social control mechanisms in prison settings.
Excerpted from a written statement submitted to the Commission
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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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