Abstract:
A large proportion of writings that have flowed into professional view on prisons and penology have emphasised the involved nature of life within the walls. Clemmer and Sykes Clemmer, D. "The Prison Community". Holt, Rinehart, Winston. N.Y. 1940. Sykes, G. "The Society of Captives". Princeton U.P. (1958). initiated a tradition of vigorous and sensitive accounts of the patterns of interpersonal relations in the prison setting. They paid special attention to the interplay of roles and the mutual imposition of role definitions by inmates.
From this narrow focus on prisons and prisoners and the social systems therein, generalisations contributing to general social theory could be made. This prompted Cressey Cressey, D. "Prison: Studies in Institutional Organisation and Change". Holt, Rinehart, Winston Inc. N.Y. 1966. p. 3.to remark that studies were suffering from too great an emphasis on social theory and that prisons were merely being used as a convenient methodological setting.
