Prison Riots, Social Order and the Problem of Legitimacy

This paper situates the most influential explanations of prison riots in relation to the problem of order as conceived in social theory. Although it acknowledges that Useem and Kimball's (1989) synthesis of disorganization and deprivation perspectives remains the most sophisticated discussion of prison unrest, it identifies a number of difficulties in their influential work. Taking the problem of legitimacy as its central target, the paper argues that prisons generate diverse forms of social order. In particular, it reveals how the dull compulsion of prison rituals produces an uneasy peace most of the time and argues that while riots are rare events, they do not happen spontaneously, nor are they inevitably caused by administrative disorganization, legitimation crises, or prisoner deprivation.