Summary Of Tracking Violence By Daniel Lockwood

Introduction I chose to write my critical reflection paper on the supplemental reading “Targeting Violence,” written by Daniel Lockwood. I chose this reading because I have always had a strong interest in prison violence and what the true consequences of that violence are. I was also hoping to gain more understanding of what inmate violence is like.
Brief Overview of the Reading The reading begins by explaining that prison violence occurs because violent people and people from violent subcultures are the people who inhabit prisons and because of their violent nature we have prison violence. Lockwood goes even deeper into the problem and explains that prison violence is the result of these inmates feeling vulnerable in the prison environment

The article also discusses how sexual aggression plays a very large role in violence overall, due to an inmate who is a sexual aggressor who uses violence on their victim and then the victim retaliating against the aggressor using violence, a type of behavior that is comparable to the eye for an eye ideal. Furthermore the article explains some of the other reasons that inmates get into fights, including, “accidental, real, or imagined insults combined with hypersensitivity, homosexual activities, pressuring for possessions, racial conflict, informant activities, and retaliation for past assaults.” Lockwood illustrates that there are several reasons that inmates are violent and that these are only a few of the reasons. Then the article states a study on when and how the violent acts were instigated, stating that of the 114 incidents observed 42 of them begun by “sexual overtures accompanied by offensive gestures and remarks,” 36 of them started with “polite propositions,” 21 of them starting with physical attacks and 15 of them beginning with verbal threats. Lockwood then comments on the rationales for this violence stating that they include,

I learned not only the reasons that these inmates are violent but also why they are violent and that this trait is a result of attitudes and subcultures that value and support violence outside of the prisons and inside of them. Also that people who are not particularly violent when they enter prisons are almost forced to become violent in order to protect themselves from inmates who already are violent in nature. The article makes it seem like it would be very hard to be a nonviolent inmate because you would become more of a victim to violence and possible sexual violence because you do not defend yourself. I also learned that these inmates are encouraged and told that violence is the solution to others being violent by their correctional guards. “I asked Sergeant Brown. And he told me to go ahead. “Pick up the nearest thing around you and hit him in the head with it.” He won’t bother you anymore.” There are several accounts of sergeants , lieutenants, and other staff members telling inmates not only that it is okay to be violent, that they encourage it and even give the prisoners ideas of how to be violent with other inmates. This is shocking to me and makes me think that one of the reasons it is so hard to stop prison violence is because our own prison guards