Escape from Death Row: A Study of “Tripping” as an Individual Adjustment Strategy Among Death Row Prisoners

[Excerpt] “The literature on stress and coping in American prisons tends to focus on the social dimensions of prison life. This literature describes a prison culture that shapes prison adjustment; such a culture entails norms, roles, and groups (including gangs) that dictate norms of adjustment. The literature also suggests that prisoners have to find a way to get along in the more public areas of the prison (such as the prison yard or mess hall) or retreat to smaller worlds within the prison while carving out “niches” that allow them to adjust in ways they find more familiar—in their jobs, educational or vocational classes, or even in a regular regimen of television in the cell. While there is much of value in this literature, recent trends in correctional management have produced more sharply subscribed prison environments that greatly reduce social activity among prisoners and presumably reduce the salience of cultural forces in the prison world.”