Term coined by Donald Clemmer to describe the process of accepting the culture and social life of prison society; This often transforms the inmate into a career criminal.

• A. Rehabilitation
• B. Normalization
• C. Prisonization
• D. Assimilation

Answer: (C)

Prisonization is the process by which an inmate absorbs the prison’s social world, adopting its rules, values, and ways of life. Donald Clemmer described this in The Prison Community, explaining how the inmate population creates its own subculture with distinct norms, hierarchies, and codes of conduct. As people internalize these norms, their identity and behavior shift toward what the prison culture promotes, including attitudes and routines that can persist after release. This internalization can contribute to a criminal career by reinforcing behaviors like mistrust, toughness, and opportunism that are useful inside prison and may carry over into life outside, making recidivism more likely.

Rehabilitation aims to restore lawful behavior, not to absorb prison culture. Assimilation is a broader term for fitting into a group or culture in general, not the specific prison subculture Clemmer identified. Normalization is a general idea about making something seem ordinary, but it doesn’t capture the precise criminological process Clemmer described.