The Analysis of Effects of Imprisonment on Prisoners Based on “Gabriel Tarde’s Imitation Laws”

Imprisonment as main punishment, has received lots of criticisms in all countries around the world. One of most important critiques on imprisonment is the problem of imitation and learning of crime inside the prison. “Crime Learning” theory first was published in French scholar -“Gabriel Tardes”- works, and led to triplet” Imitation Laws” by him. The main object of this article is to examine the crime learning theory in the light of his imitation laws. Methodology of research is combination of descriptive and field-setting method and instrument of research is researcher-made questionnaire. Justifiability of questionnaire has been confirmed by professors of law and social sciences and its stability has acquired 73% using Cronbach’salpha. Statistical population has been all 130 Iranian Female prisoners in Zanjan, Qom and Arak prisons in 2012. For verification of Tarde’s laws, three hypotheses were extracted based on his triplet laws; these hypotheses then are analyzed using descriptive statistics, “F” analysis and correlation coefficient. Two hypothesizes out of three were proved. In other words, the relation between kind of crime and intercommunications inside the prison was proved; in addition, relationship between kind of crime and being affected by mode of crime was demonstrated; while there was no meaningful relationship between kind of crime and criminal background of prisoners.