School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ, United States of America.
Department of Sociology, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2020 Nov 30;15(11):e0242910. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0242910. eCollection 2020.
There is considerable speculation that prisons are a breeding ground for radicalization. These concerns take on added significance in the era of mass incarceration in the United States, where 1.5 million people are held in state or federal prisons and around 600,000 people are released from prison annually. Prior research relies primarily on the speculation of prison officials, media representations, and/or cross-sectional designs to understand the imprisonment-extremism nexus. We develop a tripartite theoretical model to examine continuity and change in activism and radicalism intentions upon leaving prison. We test these models using data from a large probability sample of prisoners (N = 802) in Texas interviewed in the week preceding their release from prison and then reinterviewed 10 months later using a validated scale of activism and radicalism intentions. We arrive at three primary conclusions. First, levels of activism decline upon reentry to the community (d = -0.30, p < .01), while levels of radicalism largely remain unchanged (d = -0.08, p = .28). What is learned and practiced in prison appears to quickly lose its vitality on the street. Second, salient groups and organizations fell in importance after leaving prison, including country, race/ethnicity, and religion, suggesting former prisoners are occupied by other endeavors. Finally, while we identify few correlates of changes in extremist intentions, higher levels of legal cynicism in prison were associated with increases in both activism and radicalism intentions after release from prison. Efforts designed to improve legal orientations could lessen intentions to support non-violent and violent extremist actions. These results point to an imprisonment-extremism nexus that is diminished largely by the realities of prisoner reentry.
人们普遍推测监狱是激进化的温床。在美国大规模监禁的时代，这些担忧显得尤为重要，当时有 150 万人被关押在州立或联邦监狱，每年约有 60 万人从监狱获释。先前的研究主要依赖于监狱官员、媒体报道和/或横断面设计来理解监禁与极端主义的关系。我们制定了一个三方理论模型，以研究离开监狱后激进主义和激进意图的连续性和变化。我们使用来自德克萨斯州的一个大型囚犯概率样本的数据（N = 802）来检验这些模型，这些囚犯在离开监狱前一周接受了采访，然后在 10 个月后使用经过验证的激进主义和激进意图量表再次接受采访。我们得出了三个主要结论。首先，重新融入社区后，激进主义水平下降（d = -0.30，p <.01），而激进主义水平基本保持不变（d = -0.08，p =.28）。在监狱中学到和实践的东西似乎很快就在街头失去了活力。其次，在离开监狱后，重要的群体和组织变得不那么重要了，包括国家、种族/族裔和宗教，这表明前囚犯忙于其他事务。最后，虽然我们没有发现极端主义意图变化的相关因素，但监狱中的法律犬儒主义水平越高，出狱后激进主义和激进意图的增加就越大。旨在改善法律取向的努力可以减少对非暴力和暴力极端主义行为的支持意图。这些结果表明，监禁与极端主义之间的联系在很大程度上被囚犯重新融入社会的现实所削弱。
