The principal flaw of current institutions is that they encourage inaction, irresponsibility, and withdrawal from any communal purpose -- all attitudes characteristic of delinquents' lives on the outside. Institutionalized inmates exhibit apathy, disinterest, and resistance to changes in the accustomed, undemanding regime. If prisons and their effects upon inmates are to change, it should be in the form of providing motivation for involvement and activities that resemble social interaction in real life. This should be promoted by the introduction of creative programs (theater, pottery, graphic arts) in which inmates not only find a means of expressing themselves, but experience personal commitment to a joint goal. Their involvement should encompass decisionmaking functions and responsibility toward others for one's share of the common effort. This kind of programing would provide experiences they lacked in their original socialization process and might better serve the rehabilitation goals professed by institutional spokesmen, prison reformers, and society at large.