Segmenting the Prison Population: Who eats who in prison

Posted Apr 02 in Opinion tagged correctional psychology, Prison, prison segmentation

Ever been to prison? You’ll quickly discover not all inmates are the same, a quick and dirty segmentation reveals a wild array of characters. Like any market you can segment it in different ways; what ethnic gang they belong to, or what mental illness they have, or even what level of ‘dangerousness’ they are (C1, C2, or C3). However, the unofficial segmentation preferred by the inmates and officers is behavioural – and based on what crime you’ve committed. Here it is.

At the top of the tree, the most respected inmate by officers and other inmates alike is the old school armed bank robber. They rob as a career choice and importantly they are not drug effected. They are brazen, cock-sure, and relatively intelligent. They’ll regale everyone with their narcissistic stories. Next, it’s the murderer – but only if the victim is another male, and again is not committed in a drug-affected state. The murderer often walks around with a calmness and intensity reserved for those who are clearly not quite like us. Next in the hierarchy comes the rapist. Sad but true that sexual violence against a woman is (at least partially) condoned whilst all other violence towards them is condemned. After these relative opinion leaders it becomes a little messy, but next up would be the general drug effected petty crims doing B&E’s and other crime to support their habit.

Then, at the bottom of the prison animal kingdom we have the groups who are not tolerated by the rest of the prison system. They are sometimes put into segregation or protection* (or indeed there are special prisons that house only these types of inmates). In this group we often have those who have murdered or bashed women. Second to the bottom are those who have committed infanticide, those who killed children (interestingly infants make up over half of all murder victims). At the bottom of the segmentation is the pedophile, delightfully named ‘rock spiders’. The pedophile in prison has a very difficult time of it (interestingly even within pedophiles there is a hierarchy – at the top are people with older female victims, men having sex with very young males (toddlers) and many victims are at the lowest). A clear segmentation understood by everyone who operates within that market.

It surprises me that so few marketers fully understand the market they are playing in – and the influences that exist within it. I’d say approximately 50% of marketers have an operational segmentation, and only a quarter of these understand the relationship between all of the different segments. To not only know your different segments but how information and influence flows across them is a marketing gold mine. However, it takes discipline and 3 months work to do it. Further, it takes a long-term vision of success – the investment won’t be paid back within the first year.

With the opportunity to do multi-modal communications these days and have different messages targeting different segments it has become increasingly important to understand how your market segments, and these information flows. Within the prison system if we wanted to institute a new behaviour, or in some way change something we knew exactly who to get on board with the message. We knew which groups were the opinion leaders, who were the disseminators, who were the receivers, and whose opinion didn’t matter.

The prison system is a controlled market. However, so to can be the market you’re operating it. Take a strategic approach to understanding and segmenting your market, and you’ll be able to ‘control’ it much more efficiently. Consider taking these for steps to understand and better control your market:

• Define it
• Segment it
• Understand its key dynamics
• Understand and exploit the emerging opportunity areas

*Even today in Australia some inmates on ‘protection’ are locked in their cells for 23 hours a day for weeks or months on end – truly barbaric.

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About Me

Fritz Bachen is a Consumer Psychologist and Founding Partner at Naked Communications. Fritz can be seen, read or heard at; The Gruen Transfer, ABC Radio (Sunday nights), Adnews columnist, as well as The Australian, Cleo, Mumbrella, Shop Till You Drop and so on. He speaks at numerous conferences on marketing, ideas, contemporary culture, and consumer behaviour. Fritz has degress in clinical psychology and commerce (marketing). A registered psychologist and has worked in private practice, forensic settings, advertising (Saatchi & Saatchi) and marketing consultancy (Added Value). He was also state under 12 chess champion on WA, and has a board game called The Analyst selling well in the Benelux countries.

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