An Exploratory Study of Institutional Change: Personal Control and Environmental Satisfaction in a Gang-Free Prison

Abstract

This study explores inmates' perceptions of institutional change when a Midwestern state converted a minimum-security prison to a gang-free facility. The discussion examines inmates' perspectives of the prison environment using H. Toch's 1992 eight prison environmental dimensions through focus-group interviews with three different subgroups. The first group consisted of inmates imprisoned at the facility pre- and postconversion. The second was composed of inmates transferred to the gang-free facility from other minimum-security facilities as part of the conversion. The third focus group consisted of newly admitted offenders sent directly to the facility from the correctional system's reception and classification centers. The findings suggest that two dimensions of personal control—choice and predictability—influenced inmates' acceptance of major institutional environment change. Implications for program design and institutional management are discussed.