Against Imprisonment

An Anthology of Abolitionist Essays

Scott, David, Bell, Emma

• Publisher: Waterside Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781909976542
• eBook ISBN: 9781910979532
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

A collection of writings by Dr David Scott which build on his work teaching criminology for over 20 years. Against Imprisonment includes topics such as 'The Changing Face of the Prison', justifications of punishment, prison violence and the shortcomings of prisons and the mega-prisons. Very much against the current political obsession with increasing incarceration this book is a wake-up call for all those who feel the use of imprisonment is failing to achieve a reduction in crime.

Preface

All the chapters in this book share the stance of arguing against imprisonment. In a time when prisoner populations are literally at bursting point a book taking such an explicit stance could be seen as relevant on this basis alone. But the problems confronting prisons today are much more deep-seated than merely the number of people they hold. The current extensive use of imprisonment implies the prison is a success in terms of meeting its stated goals and aims. Common-sense and governmental justifications of the use and legitimacy of imprisonment are often based on unreflective assumptions that because it exists somehow prison must “work”: prisons work, allegedly, because they protect society; or because they safely remove dangerous people; or that they are places where “criminals” can be “reformed” via either medicalised or discipline-based regimes; or they are institutions that can curb an individual’s enthusiasm to offend; or they perform a necessary penal function where the offender receives pain in order to pay back the harm perpetrated. The plausibility of such answers, most carefully articulated in the philosophy of punishment literature as social defence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, individual and general deterrence and retribution, however, do not appear quite so watertight or persuasive when compared to the actual reality and consequences of penal incarceration.

When people engage in rational and informed discussion about the prison place — a phrase adopted to emphasise the harmful place characteristics shaping the daily routines, interactions and relationships of imprisonment and subsequent negative impact upon self-identity (Medlicott, 2001) — they are more likely to adopt a critical stance, for there is overwhelming evidence prisons do not protect us from dangerous people; that they neither rehabilitate nor deter; and retributive justifications always fall foul of the “two wrongs don’t make a right” and “last judgement” moral objections. This book therefore engages with the ethical and political justifications and realities of imprisonment and evidences further the necessity of collectively saying NO to the prison place. Consequently, Against Imprisonment is a direct intervention aiming to contribute to rational public debate and help facilitate a culture where people develop a “bad conscience” (de Haan, 1991) towards morally condemning other people.

One of the central claims of this book is that we have an ethico-political responsibility to acknowledge and visualise the experiences of people on the margins of society — those who have been exploited, dominated and oppressed. This means eliciting knowledge and understandings easily erased in mainstream penological studies — the unnecessary suffering and impact of institutionally-structured violence on the everyday life of those imprisoned. On the surface the daily prison regime seems relatively mundane yet one of the most insidious and harmful aspects of the prison place is the manner in which the enforced boredom of everyday life leads to an increased sense of time consciousness (Cohen and Taylor, 1973/1981). There is no obvious language available to prisoners or necessarily penal commentators to describe the sense of waste, longing and loss generated through the awareness of the passing of time; and this lack of social or cultural understanding only adds to the pains of imprisonment (Scott, 2014, 2015a, 2015b, 2016a). What we need is a new common-sense — a shared understanding and interpretation — of the lived realities of the marginalised and excluded and a commitment to identifying structural denials of voice and the systematic generation of harmful outcomes (Cohen, 2001; Fricker, 2007; Scott, 2016c).

As part of this contribution to a more public critical interrogation of the prison place, the chapters of Against Imprisonment collectively revolve around the concepts of ontology, epistemology and action (Mills, 1959; Haiven and Khasnabish, 2014). First, in terms of ontology (the nature of reality), the chapters articulate a clear abolitionist approach towards the nature of suffering in the prison place. The ontology of penal reformers is that whilst the prison is an environment justified on the grounds of punishing offenders, it can also be a place that can generate positive human change. Prisons can act as conduits for prisoner rehabilitation. They can be places that can, under the right circumstances, habituate virtue. Penal reformers argue, however, that existing prison conditions often fail to meet the necessary requirements to do this. The prison’s potential to bring about positive transformations of the human soul is only possible if the prison in the future meets the requirements of a good, healthy, virtuous and moral institution. The ontology of the prison abolitionist is very different. For the abolitionist the prison is an inherently harmful place characterised by the systematic generation of violence, suffering and death. Although there are moments in prisons which can promote vitality and sustain human life, these are the exceptions that prove the rule. Prison cannot be successfully reformed because it is a place of iatrogenic harm, misery and degeneration characterised by institutionally-structured violence. As prisons will always be inhumane and immoral institutions, abolitionists argue that they should be closed down and different life-affirming alternatives promoted in their place (Scott, 2016c).

Second, in terms of epistemology (the nature of knowledge) each chapter provides a critical analysis of the pains and iatrogenic harms of imprisonment that both challenges common-sense assumptions and offers an alternative interpretive framework to problematise current penal practices. Epistemology is important because the kind of questions asked, and to whom, can lead to very different forms of evidence (knowledge) about the kind of society that we live in and thus reaffirm or question previous ontological assumptions. Different thinkers have different ontologies and epistemologies. Knowledge production is closely associated with power relations and therefore the proposition that there can be “value free” knowledge has been strongly contested (Behr, Gipsen, Klien-Sconnfeld, Naffin, and Zilmer, 2013; Schumann, 2013). In a well-known critique Schumann (2013) notes that the Capitalist State has historically drawn a distinction between “proper” criminologists — who advocate a “pseudo-science” of criminology; and “deviant” criminologists — who examine law in its social context. Schumann (2013) suggests that the former category performs a central role in legitimising the repressive practices of penal institutions, identifying various “deceptive practices” adopted by “proper” criminologists to demonstrate legitimation. Most notably, there is a claim that criminology is a unique and coherent subject which is able to explain “crime”. Noting that the only consistent feature of all “crimes” is that they are labelled as such by actors within the criminal process, Schumann (2013) crucially dismisses these claims as an “illusion” designed to obscure the partial application of criminal law against the poor, marginalised and excluded and reminds abolitionists and “deviant” criminologists of the importance of escaping the logic of “crime”.

Third, in terms of action (how we respond to ontological and epistemological assumptions), the chapters point to the importance of abolitionist activism, questioning penal hegemony and the promotion of an alternative libertarian socialist politics and ethics. For the great socialist thinker Enrique Dussel (2013), knowledge is shaped through the actual encounter (relationship) with the “Other”. For penal abolitionists one of the key encounters is with the “estranged Other”: the prisoner. Dussel (2013) reminds us that it is essential that we show solidarity to sufferers by taking responsibility for facilitating (communal) storytelling that can rebuild lives and world collectively alongside the political commitment to attempt to transform existing asymmetrical power relations. Abolitionists, then, are confronted with an ethical responsibility to continually search for new inclusionary visions of social reality that acknowledge difference and diversity whilst at the same time recognising what we share: our common humanity. As Haiven and Khasnabish (2014) argue, when generating knowledge we should stand alongside the dominated and exploited, locating ourselves as part of their struggle for justice and help to facilitate their critical and emancipatory potential for social transformation. In the spirit of the left-wing philosophy of “commonism” (working with the common people, for common goals in the common interest) Haiven and Khasnabish (2014) maintain that knowledge generation should be a collective endeavour that we do with and for others. As such, the ethics and politics of the knowledge production about “crime”, punishment and prisons intimately intertwine.

The book starts by critically considering the utopian myth that “prison works” and draws attention to the message of those who most consistently highlight the dystopianism of imprisonment: penal abolitionists. The second chapter grounds the abolitionist insights of the book within an autobiographical refection of my own first encounter with the prison place and those inhabiting it; and in so doing provides evidence of the importance of making an ethico-political stand against imprisonment.

When critiquing the prison, penal abolitionists often begin by unpicking the logic of “crime” (the ontology of criminal harm and the morality of criminal blame) and only then move on to question the justifications of punishment and the daily realities of penal incarceration. These three steps of penal abolitionism are the focus of chapters three, four and five, which explore each in turn. In so doing a case is presented challenging claims that the prisons house the most harmful lawbreakers; that a morally watertight justification of the deliberate infliction of pain has been successfully defended; and that official aims of imprisonment are even consistent with, never mind facilitate, positive human transformations.

The final four chapters of the book focus on abolitionist critiques of modern-day penal policy and practice. Chapter 6 considers if the currently much publicised “causal relationship” between prison officer numbers and prisoner violence is a form of “penal agnosis” (social production of penal ignorance), whereas Chapter 7 discusses ways in which campaigners have attempted to visualise and contest the “spirit of death” in prison. Chapter 8 continues the theme of investigating “abolitionist action” and explores in depth the abolitionist message of saying NO to Government plans to build new mega prisons in England and Wales. The final chapter ties together opposition to the prison with that against mounting economic and social inequalities and concludes with the promotion of radical social policy interventions from an “abolitionist real utopia” perspective.

Although initially I took a minimalistic approach to editing the original papers brought together in this anthology, some repetition has been removed and further text has been added to a number of the chapters. As a result, the chapters here are a little different to those previously published independently elsewhere. I have also consolidated all the references into a general bibliography to recognise the interconnections between ideas expressed in the book as a whole. Where repetition does remain, it indicates the centrality of these ideas and concepts to my understanding of taking a stance against imprisonment.

This book would not have been possible without the help and support of a great many people. First a massive thank you to all the editors and referees who commented and made suggestions on the previously published versions of the chapters of this book. For their support and kindness I would therefore like to thank Ida Nafsad, Per Jorgen Ystehede, Justin Piché, Jehanne Hulsman, Jenny Sloan, Rod Earle, Deborah Drake, Lizzy Stanley, Emma Bell, Anna Markina, Alana Barton, Howard Davis, Azrini Wahidin, Andrea Hucklesby and Yvonne Jewkes. Much appreciation to Emma Bell, Lynne Copson, Deborah Drake, Lisa White, Joe Sim and Corina Rogerson for reading the final version of the manuscript and to Emma Bell for agreeing to write the foreword to the book. Thanks also to Bryan Gibson and all involved in the production process at Waterside Press.

Permissions have been obtained for the republication of the nine chapters in this volume:

“Against Imprisonment” was originally published in The European Group Newsletter (February 2018);

“Walking Among the Graves of the Living” was previously published in Drake, D., Earle, R. and Sloan, J. (eds.) (2015) The Palgrave Handbook of Prison Ethnography London: Palgrave;

A version of “Escaping the Logic of ‘Crime’” can be found in Piché, J. (ed.) (2018) Pain in Vain Quebec: Red Quill Press;

“Justifications of Punishment and Questions of Penal Legitimacy” was first published in Hucklesby, A. and Wahidin, A. (eds) (2013) Criminal Justice Oxford: Oxford University Press;

An earlier version of “The Changing Face of the Prison” was published in Jewkes, Y. (2007) The Handbook of Prisons Devon: Willan;

A version of “Problematising ‘Common Sense’ Understandings of Prison Violence” is to be published in 2018 in Barton, A. and Davis, H. (eds.) Agnotology and the Criminological Imagination London: Routledge;

An edited version of “Contesting the Spirt of Death” is to be published in Stanley, E. (ed.) (2018) Imprisonment and Human Rights Basingstoke: Palgrave;

“Saying NO to the Mega Prison” was first published in February 2018 in Justice, Power and Resistance Volume 2, No 1, (London, EG Press);

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Table of contents

• Copyright and publications details
• Acknowledgements
• About the author
• Foreword
• Preface
• Bibliography
• Index