CRJ 555

Corrections: Institutions and Field Operations

Do not concentrate the study of the punitive mechanisms on their repressive effects alone, on their punishment aspects alone, but situate them in a whole series of their possible positive effects, even if these seem marginal at first sight. As a consequence, regard punishment as a complex social function.

Analyze punitive methods not simply as consequences of legislation or as indicators of social structures, but as techniques possessing their own specificity in the more general field of other ways of exercising power. Regard punishment as a political tactic. -- Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish

As other forms of institutionalization decrease the prison is becoming increasingly identified as the central and dominant form of confinement. The punishment paradigm, with its emphasis upon increased use of prisons and greater penal austerity, has become the operative social response to reduce crime and increase public safety. The current incarceration solution for crime is comparable to approaches used in Victorian times. Specific problem groups--for example, drug users or the unemployed--become loosely grouped as a category reminiscent of the dangerous classes of the 19th century and for which only the loose label underclass appears applicable. An attending and troubling aspect of the current incarceration policies is the dramatic re-emergence of the private-for-profit prison industry. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Norwegian criminologist, Nils Christie, has warned of rapidly approaching western-style gulags as a form of industry.

As noncompetitive government agencies, correctional institutions do not compete for clients and have little to no control over the velocity and scale of incarceration rates. The traditional bipolar prison of the past has now been fully transformed into a modern-day, complex tripolar prison, consisting of an interplay between constituent interests that belie the traditional interactional dyads of officer-inmate relations of past times. Recidivism is now characterized as a built-in feature of the criminal justice system. Be it either offenders returning with past custodial sentences or offenses committed while still on parole, the facts indicate that correctional services are increasingly admitting, processing, and managing past clients of the system.

The recycling of veteran inmates has a contagious effect on both inmates and staff. Hardened, repeat offenders, bring an operative and contagious form of social violence into correctional facilities. The infiltration of gangs in the prison environment has become institutionalized. This recycling process has come to serve some of the more sophisticated gang enterprises as an opportunity for recruiting and reconnoitering in the staging of their illicit activities and sub-rosa control of the general population. Gang activities are now present in juvenile facilities and in adult women's prisons.

True sanction of political laws is to be found in the penal legislation; and if that sanction is wanting the law will sooner or later lose its cogency. He who punishes the criminal is therefore the real master of society. -- Alexis de Tocqueville, On the Penitentiary System in the United States, Carbondale, IL.: Southern Illinois University Press:87.

Incarceration trends amplify the prison system's social and legal complexities. The size and velocity of the prison population are a result of many factors, including the nation's crime level, sentencing laws, and law enforcement policies (e.g., crack cocaine and related drug offense penalties). The primary factor governing this situation is the enactment of mandatory sentencing legislation in all 50 states, with the United States Congress legislating the predominant approach to deter potential offenders and incapacitate convicted criminals. This especially applies to the new get-tough mandatory minimum sentences aimed at repeat offenders.

THE HISTORICAL SHADOW

The historical structure of the eighteenth century penitentiary continues to thrive in the contemporary para-military and bureaucratic penal enterprise worldwide. Bentham's Panopticon is the architectural figure of this psycho-historical composition. The Panopticon assures the automatic functioning of power by inducing in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility.

The panoptic gaze is ever present, penetrating every part of the cells and corridors of the building. It follows the smallest movements of the inmate, who is always within the gaze and understands this. Even if the inspector's lodge were left empty for some time, the inmate would never be able to tell. The guards, additionally, needed to be distantly watched; the inspector's lodge also monitored the activities of all the staff. Hence we have a hierarchy of continuous surveillance; the institution itself is open to the general public and the inspection of a judge or governor. The panopticon was to have no closed areas, no secrets; it was to open to the inspection of the world and, thereby abuse of power was impossible Is this the model of hell, or of a perfect organization? -- And what of the effects upon the inmate? -- W. Morrison, "Modernity, Imprisonment, and Social Solidarity" in Prisons 2000: An International Perspective on the Current State and Future of Imprisonment, (p110).

This formidable right to punish "concretely" continues to fully influence the management of prisons in all societies. So, too, does the need to establish a principle of moderation for the power of punishment. Importantly, Foucault cites the intrinsic and universal tension of penology and punishment in Jean Paul Marat's classic essay: Plan de Legilation criminelle - 'What are the means of alleviating the rigor of the penal laws in France without damage to public Safety' - Academie de Chalon-sur-Marne, 1780.

Here the principle takes root that one should never apply "inhumane" punishments to a criminal, who, nevertheless, may well be a traitor and a monster. If the law must now treat in a "humane" way an individual who is 'outside nature' (whereas the old justice treated the 'outlaw' inhumanely), it is not on account of some profound humanity that the criminal conceals within him, but because of a necessary regulation of the effects of power. It is this 'economic' rationality that must calculate the penalty and prescribe the appropriate technique. 'Humanity' is the respectable name given to this economy and to its meticulous calculations. 'Where punishment is concerned, the minimum is ordered by humanity and counseled by policy.' (Foucault, 1979:92)

MODERN PENOLOGY AND DILEMMA THEORY

A socio-historical context is essential in maintaining a balanced perspective, as Jacobs (1983:121) has noted: "It is also well to remember that the nature of punishment and confinement is not a constant but a social and political outcome that varies from age to age and from place to place."

This swing of the pendulum characterizes the history of many phenomena including, most definitely, the history of penal reform. This oscillation or dithering between alternatives or values of a dilemma creates systemic stress and strain as well. Especially in America, much of the time involved in prison management is spent acting and reacting to the accession and recession of opposing policy positions and external influences. Affect replaces effect as the common denominator of administration. Consequently, well-meaning attempts to improve prison conditions lead instead to a worsening of the overall situation. Thus, reforms designed to reduce prison population increase it. Every effort to influence the institutional culture from outside results in greater powers and discretion for the institutions. Every emphasis on a benevolent conceptualization of the system leads instead to a strengthening of an opposing view.

As a survival measure, the penal institution has in fact transposed what was once seen as its failure to rehabilitate (high recidivism rates), into its success in supervising (high return rates). In doing so, the penal institution has achieved a double success: by isolating itself from the strong critiques launched against it, and by providing itself with a solid (although questionable) internal measure of its own system performance.-- A. Amoretti and P. Landreville, "Recycling Offenders: Re-Incarceration Trends in Quebec Federal Penitentiaries," Critical Criminology, 7(4),1996::21.

The magnitude of the incarceration industry in the United States provides an Orwellian laboratory of 21st century prison operational priorities. For example, we are witnessing an increasing incorporation of sophisticated cyber-surveillance and video-technology and the construction of SUPERMAX PRISONS to further service an unprecedented industrialized incarcerative-capacity.

THE PARADIGMS OF CORRECTIONS

The dilemmas of corrections are related and represent the conflict between two paradigms, or patterns of a priori assumptions about the nature of what we are trying to understand.

Paradigm 1 holds that reality consists of things and objects of solid mass and clear physical dimension. Understanding and explanation are achieved through analysis, reduction of the whole, and isolation of the parts. Phenomena are assumed to be cumulative, linear, and sequential, and knowledge is based upon cause and effect, prediction and control, as well as manipulation.

Paradigm 2 holds instead that reality consists of processes, waves, and patterns. Understanding and explanation are reached through synthesis, relating, and by building a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

The dilemmas of corrections may be aligned within these two paradigms: