Abstract
This explorative field study approaches the prison institution from the point of view of its actors. Despite the various literary productions on penitentiary, we still lack serious information on prison subcultures in current male prisons.
The aim of the research is to answer a question: How do the inmates interpret their social reality? The research is set in qualitative paradigm in social sciences and the waypoint for the study is symbolic interactionism philosophy. I realized semi-structured interviews with seven informers located in a male prison type-C.
These data were analyzed by grounded theory methodic by Strauss and Corbin. This study overcomes an existing prevalent approach to a prison subculture and therefore is a contribution to explore humanity under specific circumstances.