A Country Called Prison #5

            Chapter 4 is concerned with living in the country called Prison. The chapter explains how there are four subcultures in prison, which include licensed professionals, inmates, and security personnel. The members of each of these subgroups have learned the culture of their own group through instruction, imitation, observation, and reinforcement. Every group has created their own ideologies, language, principles, relationship patterns, and perceptions of power. Looman and Carl present a strategic proposal to “modify prison environments to promote cooperative behavior and prosocial American values” (126). The central idea of their proposal is to provide training in social sciences and psychology to professionals, staff, and security employees to encourage empathy, dignity, and honor, and to minimize helplessness among the prisoners. The objectives are to reduce recidivism and encourage humyn development and growth, instead of humyn degradation.