The world subverted.
Everything that is known--the foundations of life, what we call "love," the myriad considerations that keep us together and in harmony (for the most part) so that we can function as a society--all of it is turned on its head in there. So that up is down. Love is hate. Understanding is torn top to bottom. "This hellhole," writes an inmate of
Your friends become your enemies, and the people who punish you are besotted with their power. Or perhaps it is their powerlessness after all. Who knows anymore.
When we lock up animals, for the crime of being voiceless, we call it a zoo. Depriving a creature of its freedom to follow its biological imperatives--to move, to fulfill basic needs for companionship, safety, food, space around the body, to know who is who--causes well-documented neuroses. Animals take to what are called stereotypies: pacing, cribbing, ceaseless licking, self-mortification. They slowly go out of their minds. They turn on one another in acts of aggression; unwarranted aggression, it is termed. And when the animals are humans called prisoners, these behavioral last resorts are then considered proof of their unfitness to be returned back to the outside. And so on the inside they stay, further ruined for the possibility of freedom.
Yet sometimes, prisoners are let go. Then they become frightened because it looks like the rules have changed once again--the subverted world is quickly turned right-side up once more, hence nothing that worked for them previously (the strange rules of exchange; the hard methods of self-protection; the awful plays of power that pass for the expression of love, as in the forcible taking of the weak, the new, the unguarded) will work out here. It is terrible, suddenly, this freedom. And so, another crime. At least they can go back to the familiar. Recidivism rates are currently around 67.5 percent. That is a number to think about. Think hard. It tells a strange tale, of inside and out.
The institutions are called "correctional." This in itself becomes part of what is subverted: the presumption that inside, things are taught, things are learned. That there is, in the end, hope.
There is not. Because we are not honest about what we are doing here. Is this not then, strangely enough, a crime we commit?
In his book Coercion and Its Fallout, Dr. Murray Sidman, a foremost behavior analyst, writes (in a chapter titled "Between a Rock and a Hard Place," an apt title for any exploration of our prison system),
Ordinary standards of justice are suspended in these citadels
of law enforcement, so even conformity to regulations does not
ensure the avoidance of punishment. The slightest suspicion of
any departure from the rules brings the authorities swooping down
on the whole inmate population. Because constant observation of
everyone is not feasible, accurate assignment of blame for
instigating disorder is impossible. Indisciminately and
capriciously, therefore, they administer the approved measures
of solitary confinement, lockup, ruthless questioning, revocation
of privileges, and surreptitious viciousness. The guards, their
uniforms, the very sound of their footsteps, and all aspects of
the prison environment become signals for unavoidable punishment.
Depression is common among prison inmates. Yet, because it keeps
them "well behaved," it is not considered a serious problem.
It is from (very unfortunate) animal experiments that we have learned precisely what happens when punishment--say, electric shock--is administered "indiscriminately and capriciously." Not knowing when it is to occur, and therefore not knowing how to avoid it, the rat ceases even to try. He dissociates from his fear, from his anxiety; those emotions were designed to assist in preparing for action, after all, and now no action will be of help. He gives up. "Learned helplessness." Or, in another word, depression.
The lie is given. "Correction"? What then is being taught? Perhaps it is merely a lesson in how terribly humans can act toward other humans.
From afar, they are imposing, and dismal. It is clear they are hiding something. They are hiding something big from our eyes. Something we do not wish to see. So that prisons are most of all hiding a truth about what is inside all of us.
Behind these locked gates, these stone and concrete and tempered steel walls, 2.3 million Americans now live.
It is tempting to ask where this all might end. It is also necessary. Or else we might find more and more of us inside, and only a few beyond the gates, beckoning. If we are willing to keep what is hidden in plain sight a secret inside our hearts, they too will rot. Like the humans whose various pains we are all too happy to forget. It is necessary to look inside. So that we might see how it is that the world turns upside down, reversing all that we think we know about ourselves. It is necessary to look at the walls, the bars, the weapons that are made from objects once innocent, now fearsome in their new shape. Human ingenuity is the one thing that remains unchanged, inside.
Prison photos (c) Andrew Garn
6 comments:
I only spent one night there. It was all I need. But also, it wouldn't trade the experience for anything, not even a new motorcycle or an ocean crossing. Since it was just one night it was like a special gift of an experience few are allowed, and it was enhanced by my not knowing how many nights it would end up being. I was in the "drunk tank" where we were left to sleep on the concrete floor. My eight new friends rooming with me were shocked to meet someone who had never before been in jail. All but one of them was there for a parole violation... and the door revolves. It was the most intense educational experience of my life.
A funny thing about our society is that nobody cares what happens in our jails because up-standing people tend to believe that if you are in there it's because you belong there, so you deserve whatever might happen to you. I am not the first, nor will I be the last, to point out that our treatment of prisoners is a greater measure of our morality and ethics than is our treatment of people in the street.
I am waiting to be less mad before I write about it. So far, I've been waiting for four years and not much has shifted yet. I'll tell you the whole story sometime over a beverage.
Ah, Peter, you fell into the rabbit hole! Thus you experienced an uncomfortable and socially not permitted slippage: you became Other.
And saw they They are Us.
The gatekeepers wished to keep this information from us.
I don't think you should ever get un-mad about this. But you should buy me a drink.
Interesting thoughts, Melissa. But what to do with the violent amoung us?
Yes, absolutely: society must be kept safe from the violent. But hopefully not by locking them away, forgotten, so that society may perpetrate violence on them in retaliation.
The truism about punishment is that it only stops ongoing behavior; it does not teach what should be done instead.
And--I know this is an unpopular stance, but I can't escape taking it--the statistics on childhood abuse among prison populations are pushing nearly 100%. "Well, that doesn't give people the right to hurt others, the fact they've been hurt themselves!" one might protest. Right, no. But truth, yes. Precious few of us act consciously; we are all responders to that which is buried in us by our pasts.
Now that's something I'd like to see addressed.
Chuck Colson thinks only a small fraction of the existing prison population actually needs to be kept locked up. He thinks we can find other solutions for the vast majority. It's a big topic and there's lots of work done in the area.
Noel, you (and Mr. Colson) offer more food for thought: I think "other solutions" is exactly the need; locking people away is the *easy* solution, but easy is rarely best. There's also the matter of cost--big money, and the spiritual cost of a society addicted to punishment (because as learning theory shows, punishment is reinforcing to the punisher. We need to put *that* in our pipe and smoke it).
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