Abstract
Marvin E. Wolfgang was at the cutting edge of the major criminological issues of the day over his entire career. In 1961, he published an article titled “Quantitative Analysis of Adjustment to the Prison Community” (Wolfgang, 1961). The research reported in the article followed a sample of the homicide offenders he studied in his seminal Patterns in Criminal Homicide during their imprisonment (Wolfgang, 1958). During the period from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, the study of prison organization and culture, and the responses of inmates to prison, were major foci for criminologists. Major criminological thinkers of the time, such as Richard Cloward, Donald Cressey, Lloyd McCorkle, Lloyd Ohlin, Gresham Sykes, and Stanton Wheeler, were studying American prisons and inmates’ responses to prison. Characteristically, Marvin Wolfgang focused his attention on the topic as well and brought a quantitative research perspective to bear on it. His 1961 article is a quantitative study of the correlates of adjustment to prison that broke new conceptual and empirical ground in its development of a multidimensional prison adjustment index. Specific findings are discussed below.
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Collins, J.J., Spencer, D.L., Dunteman, G.H., Siegel, P.H. (2002). Truth in Sentencing and Prison Infractions. In: Silverman, R.A., Thornberry, T.P., Cohen, B., Krisberg, B. (eds) Crime and Justice at the Millennium. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-4883-3_17
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