Institutional aggression in the context of prisons: dispositional and situational explanations
Psychologists disagree about why violence occurs in prisons. Some blame the personalities inmates bring with them. Others blame the brutal conditions of prison life itself.
Real World
Stanford County Jail (Abu Ghraib, 2004) saw US military guards — with no prior history of violence — commit serious abuse against Iraqi detainees, supporting the situational (deprivation) model over the dispositional explanation.
Exam Focus
Name both models (importation and deprivation) and link each to a specific study — Irwin & Cressey or Clemmer — for full marks.
Evaluation Scaffold
A four-step framework for high-quality evaluation. Use this for 'assess', 'evaluate', and 'to what extent' questions.
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