Discusses how prison socialization deemphasizes and even denigrates legitimate authority and middle-class values. Prison-based therapeutic communities are intended to improve the attitudes and orientations of participants. Three groups within a single-prison community are examined: 24 general-population inmates, 20 therapeutic-community participants (TC inmates), and 28 inmates eligible for the TC to determine the extent to which levels of prisonization can be used to predict group membership. The general population inmates exhibited sufficiently strong levels of mental health staff rejection that they were distinguishable from "wannabes" largely on the basis of this variable and the presence of a violent-personal-crime conviction. Moreover, inmate code adoption (a 2nd measure of prisonization) and violent-crime convictions provided a basis of distinguishing between general population and TC inmates. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)