Theater of Punishment

Now that the flayed bodies of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay have faded from view, we're now turning our attention to the invisible masses of incarcerated bodies in American prisons--2.2 million of them now. The Boston Globe's Christopher Shea writes about how the broken American penal system is gaining an increasingly larger share of public policy debates, spurred by the bad conscience that comes from the sheer scale of the problem: currently there are seven times the number of inmates in prison than in the early 1970's, when American cities were thought to be in an irreversible slide into decrepitude and criminality.

Shea begins his article with a Foucaldian analogy: "What if America launched a new New Deal and no one noticed? And what if, instead of lifting the unemployed out of poverty, this multibillion-dollar project steadily drove poor communities further and further out of the American mainstream?" He points out that the prison system is contiguous with society as a whole, although he limits his discussion to the problem of recidivism. Society's disciplinary function, in effect, has become inefficient. The arbitrariness of power has become too transparent, separating out poor minorities from society for as long as possible while reintegrating the more economically successful back into society. The crack gap is the most infamous example of this imbalance: a white guy snorting cocaine habit is far less likely to be locked up for long periods of time than a black guy with a crack pipe. Also, America is dumping 700,000 prisoners a year back into society with few resources devoted to making sure they're functioning, productive members of society.

Shea argues that prison reform will become a major topic in the public sphere very soon as a series of new books are released documenting the inadequacy of our penal system. However, with a new spate of vengeance films in current release and unresolved debates about how the US should protect itself from terrorist attacks--not to mention a crime rate creeping back up--indicate that Americans still aren't in a mood to grant much clemency.  After all, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay are still in operation.

The incipient prison reform movement may have less to do with genuine concern for the unfortunate than a consequence of a long economic expansion finally running out of gas. Citing Foucault's Discipline and Punish is irresistible in this context, and Foucault points out that prison reform is most likely to occur in affluent times, when criminality tends to turn toward crimes against property, causing in turn a broad harshening of penalties. Rather than just simply throwing every crack head burglar in jail for the rest of his life, as we're essentially doing now, reformers wanted not to soften the law but to lessen (or sometimes merely to hide) the arbitrariness of justice. Foucault himself was a member of the Groupe d'information sur les Prisons (GIP), a prison reform group, but that didn't prevent him from being suspicious of prison reform movements in general, which he regarded as agents in the redistribution of power.

The whole idea of prison reform appeared when Europe replaced its theaters of punishment (burning witches at the stake, for instance) with the penal system, with its combination of optimistic rhetoric and panoptic technologies of surveillance. But in the last few years it seems like we've reverted back to a theater of punishment. What were Abu Ghraib and the Fox series 24 about other than the flaying of bodies in the name of American power? Maybe we're ready for something a little more decorous, something more consistent with our ideas of liberty. Or maybe power has become so diffuse, so disconnected from democratic practices, that when the time comes for us to decide what to do about our dysfunctional and unfair prison system we'll find ourselves as helpless and powerless as the people in jail.

Comments

[Judy Prouty]

Prisons are warehouses for people the rest of us fear and recidivism rates have always been discouraging. The most sensible suggestion I have heard on the subject is that instead of allowing prisoners to work out, build muscles and tone, inmates should be placed in front of the TV - Fox-TV for instance. They should be fed McDonalds, KFC and donuts. The theory is that over time sloth and carbs could reduce the criminal menace.

[Richard Prouty]

Hi Mom:

Once prisoners have been fed a steady diet of Big Macs and Sean Hannity, then what happens? What change is supposed to happen inside the prisoner himself? Recognize one's guilt? Try to atone for it? Suffer some privation of the soul?

It's one thing to take away someone's liberty, and quite another to effect an internal transformation. The former is the province of the police and the courts. The latter is a murky realm once left to religion. Now we ask the penal system to bring out the changes we once asked the church to effect.

When you think about it, confining the body to bring about a change in the soul is a strange, and incredibly optimistic, idea.

[Judy Prouty]

The whole point is to create inactive couch potatoes instead of buff men who are toned for action. Inaction or action are the choices offered. There is no scenario where good behavior is likely. So I would rather have a lethargic bad guy.

[Not A. Prouty]

Just a technical note: the GIP was a prison information group, and explicitly NOT a prison reform group.

[A. Ogilvie]

I'd argue that the inactivity and unhealthy eating would lead to a depressive state and potential acts of desperation. Moderate physical fitness combined with mental help as part of a holistic approach to their successful reintegration to society would seem more effective. It's about creating disincentives to go back to jail.