prisonizev.
/ˈprɪzənʌɪz/, U.S. /ˈprɪzəˌnaɪz/ transitive. To cause (a person) to become unduly adapted to prison life, esp. to its attitudes and social behaviour. Frequently in passive. Cf. institutionalize v. b.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > punishment > imprisonment > imprison [verb (transitive)] > adapt a person to prison life
prisonize1940
1940 D. Clemmer Prison Community xii. 300 First offenders..‘wise up’, as the inmates say, or in other words, by association they become prisonized.
1963 T. Morris & P. Morris Pentonville vii. 170 While the majority of inmates become ‘prisonized’ in some aspects, few are wholly prisonized.
1970 P. Selwyn in R. Apthorpe People Planning & Devel. Stud. iii. 54 In so far as prisoners become institutionalized (or ‘prisonised’ to use the term of Terence and Pauline Morris), they may become less fitted for living in the outside world.
1988 Washington Post (Nexis) 21 Aug. c5 In effect, D.C. has succeeded in ‘prisonizing’ the community, flooding it with the detritus of prison underlife and neglect.
2003 National Catholic Reporter (Nexis) 30 May 11 Numerous studies have shown that incarceration ‘prisonizes’ offenders by indoctrinating them into a dog-eat-dog society whose rules are at odds with those of the outside world.
Derivatives
ˈprisonized adj. (also prisonised) that has been prisonized; affected by the attitudes and social behaviour of prison life.
ΚΠ
1963 T. Morris & P. Morris Pentonville vii. 170 A certain type of prisonized man whose behaviour forms the hard core of inmate subculture.
1970 T. Parker Frying-pan v. 180 Bernie was possibly the least ‘prisonised’ inhabitant of Grendon.
1998 V. R. DeRosia Living inside Prison Walls 144 While several examples of adherence to an inmate code will be presented, none so candidly or vividly portrays this subculture as the first excerpt by a violent and highly prisonized white recidivist.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2007; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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v.1940