Homosexual and Drug Behavior in Prison: A Test of the Functional and Importation Models of the Inmate System

Abstract

Which of the two major models of the inmate system, the importation or the functional, better accounts for two forms of in-prison behavior of inmates, drug use and homosexual behavior, is tested in a sample of inmates from seven U.S. prisons. The prisons were classified into three types along a custody-treatment continuum. The reported levels of these two kinds of behavior in the different types of prisons are examined against their relationship to seven inmate background characteristics. The analysis reveals that the amount of drug and homosexual behavior among inmates is more a function of the type of prison which holds them than the social characteristics which they bring with them from the outside.