Most research has been conducted with the institutional setting of prisons. There are 2 major models for explaining institutional aggression. Irwin and Cressey suggested with the importation model prisoner brought their own social histories and traits with them into prison which influenced how they adapted in the prison environment. Pre-existing ideas of inmates e.g. due to age, race or gender may affect aggression shown. Prisoners may be part of subcultures within societies which value and respect violence or aggression, therefore has been reinforced outside of the prison environment, resulting in it being imported into the prison setting.
The deprivation model proposes that aggression from those in institutions is caused by stressful or oppressive conditions and the deprivations prisoners suffer. Sykes outlined 5 deprivations in prison institutes; deprivations of liberty, autonomy, goods and services, heterosexual sex and security. These can all link to lack of freedom, which is taken away from prisoners. Therefore these deprivations can lead to stress and some prisoners may behave aggressively to reduce stress or obtain resources. Therefore aggression in prison may be used to gain control.
Harer and Steffensmeier collected data from 58 US prions including racial background and misconduct in prisons. Afro-Caribbean inmates had higher rates of violence but lower rates of alcohol and drug related misconduct, than white inmates, mirroring that of US society, supporting the importation model. An explanation of this is, within both society and prisons, Afro-Caribbean individuals may be subjected to more segregation and abuse and use aggressive responses in defence. Further supporting the importation model. However, correlational data cannot determine cause and effect and other confounding variables may affect aggressive tendencies e.g. genetics. Research focuses on Afro-Caribbean inmates creating methodological issues such as lack of external validity and limited generalisations as findings may not explain how other cultures may or may not have imported behaviours into the institutional setting.
Jiang et al analysed prison records in terms of predictions of the deprivation and importation model and found a correlation between prisoner background and violations. Further results showed overall support for both models. Findings suggest that several factors can influence the aggression shown within prisons. Therefore research can help make predictions of aggression from inmates helping to create more control over aggressive behaviours in prisons.
Research from such studies has helped gain further understanding of how institutional aggression may be caused. However, both relied on use of prisoner record to measure aggressive behaviour. This may be more objective than using research methods with the prisoners themselves, as they may displayed demand characteristics. However, there are issues of whether all reports we accurate and whether all relevant incidents were reported. Biological influences will likely play a role and yet both studies ignore this factor making them reductionist. Research is based on the assumption that environmental factors pre-dispose individuals to violent behaviour with an institutional setting, however this is not the case. Genes and hormones are extraneous variables which are not considered which may have influences results. Therefore neither model can claim to have research support that is highly reliable or valid.
Research into institutional aggression in prisons could lead to prison reforms as the deprivation model could suggest improving conditions would lead to less aggression. Whereas the importation model could be applied in terms of counselling for prisoners with difficult backgrounds. However, it is argued that prison should not be comfortable and many in society would be against improving conditions.
The models ignore the role of free will, making them deterministic, even within an institutional setting we have the power to control behaviour. Also no interaction between the models is considered, when an individual may act aggressively due to reasons highlighted in both models. Attributing exact reasons for aggression is difficult making the contribution of each model difficult to identify. therefore a combined approach including elements of the deprivation and importation models with consideration towards biological and social predisposing factors may be needed to determine the cause of institutional aggression.
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