Values, Rules, and Keeping the Peace: How Men Describe Order and the Inmate Code in California Prisons

For this article, I use interview data to examine how former male inmates describe how and why they follow the inmate code. Previous work shows that convicts use the code to structure and define informal rules (Bronson 2006 Bronson , Eric. 2006 . “Medium Security Prisons and Inmate Subcultures: The ‘Normal Prison’.” The Southwest Journal of Criminal Justice 3 ( 2 ): 61 – 86 . [Google Scholar]). I attempt to explore this issue from the other direction. I focus on how inmates describe informal rules and how the code may or may not fit into these rules. As Howard Becker (1963 Becker , Howard S. 1963 . Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance . New York : The Free Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) points out, people in any society form groups and subcultures who create their own set of rules and norms. The men in my study describe leaders, called shot-callers, who focus on illegal businesses such as the drug trade. They use violence to control their own gangs in order to reduce the chance of riots. In short, they value peace and profit. This differs from previous work that focuses on the inmate identity and how convicts value the code. The men in my study value safety and the underground economy as well as maintaining a solid convict identity.