Understanding informal relationships in prison

The present study examines communication patterns and interactions as well as informal powers inside the prison. The importance of informal power can be recognized in its direct impact on formal authority as well as on the social life of prisoners, including communication patterns, interactions, patterns, and economic equations. The conceptual framework of the present research is based on the qualitative and exploratory understanding of the situation, rather than the use of preconditioned concepts. Goffman and the symbolic interaction theory is a reference framework for this study to understand the logic of informal interactions and communications. The logic of symbolic interaction, language, action frameworks, rites and rituals, identity processes, and the logic of power relations are fundamental concepts for this research, which are considered from the horizons of symbolic interaction thinkers, especially Goffman. The applied research method is narrative research and the data is collected through interview technique. The studied population is the prisoners in the central prison of Karaj and I have tried to have a random sample from the list of prisoners, although, in some cases snowball method has been used due to research purposes. The results of this study reveal that, the common understanding of the prison atmosphere is a unilateral understanding and the prison atmosphere is viewed through the legislator's perspective.action formations, in contrast to the formal authority of the prison, comprise a range of complicity, confrontation, concealment and so on, which can be defined as a forms of resistance.