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Humane prisons PDF

236 Pages·2018·21.963 MB·English
by  JonesDavid
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Humane Prisons Edited by David Jones Foreword by Craig Haney Boca Raton London New York CRC Press is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business First published 2006 by Radcliffe Publishing Published 2018 by CRC Press Taylor & Francis Group 6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300 Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742 © 2006 by David Jones CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business No claim to original U.S. Government works ISBN-13: 978-1-85775-720-0 (pbk) This book contains information obtained from authentic and highly regarded sources. Reasonable efforts have been made to publish reliable data and information, but the author and publisher cannot assume responsibility for the validity of all materials or the consequences of their use. The authors and publishers have attempted to trace the copyright holders of all material reproduced in this publication and apologize to copyright holders if permission to publish in this form has not been obtained. If any copyright material has not been acknowledged please write and let us know so we may rectify in any future reprint. Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Law, no part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at http://www.taylorandfrancis.com and the CRC Press Web site at http://www.crcpress.com David Jones has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1998 to be identified as Editor of this Work. Neither the publisher nor the editor accepts liability for any injury or damage arising from this publication. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Typeset by Anne Joshua & Associates, Oxford For Maria, Kazimir and Dominic who generously tolerated my obsession and preoccupation and for my parents, Bob and Peg, who would have been more than a little surprised at what I have persuaded others to achieve. Contents Foreword vii About the editor xi About the contributors xii Acknowledgements xvii Introduction David Jones xviii 1 Is there a future for humane imprisonment? Hans Toch 1 2 First impressions Kathy Page 11 3 Life inside Erwin James 19 4 Psychopathological considerations of prison systems David Jones 29 5 How to create madness in prison Terry A Kupers 47 6 Resolving prisoner conflicts before they escalate into violence Kimmett Edgar 59 7 Can there be 'best practices' in supermax? Lorna A Rhodes 73 8 The UK Prison Service Close Supervision Centres Mark Morris 87 9 Creating the elements of a humane prison system Ernest L Cowles 101 10 Women's imprisonment: how getting better is getting worse Sunny Marriner and Dawn Moore 115 11 Governing a humane prison Peter Bennett 129 12 Clinical supervision for staff in a Therapeutic Community prison Liz McLure 141 13 Psychotherapy in prisons: a supervisor's view Tilman Kluttig 151 vi Contents 14 Peer-review and accreditation Sarah Tucker and Adrian Won all 159 15 Independent inspection of prisons Anne Owers 177 16 Humane prisons: are they worth it? Fiona Warren 191 Index 205 Foreword I spend a fair amount of time inside maximum security prisons. Usually I have gone to evaluate the psychological effects of particular conditions of confine­ ment - increasingly, in one of the 'supermax' prisons or special units that have been erected in many different parts of the United States. This process always includes interviewing a sample of prisoners who may have been adversely affected by the way they were kept or treated inside. I have been doing this for a long time - the better part of the last three decades. Whatever else can be said about this kind of activity, it has brought me into contact with a wide range of penal institutions. Talking at length with prisoners who are housed through­ out the vast state and federal prison systems in the United States has also provided me with a rare opportunity to witness some of the human costs and consequences of current penal policies - to hear about the shattered lives, to see the wounded psyches and to marvel at the unexpected signs of resilience. Little that I have seen or heard has left me optimistic or hopeful about our ability to create truly 'humane prisons'. That is, not until I came upon the present, remarkable volume. The goal of creating prisons like the ones that are described and envisioned in the chapters that follow is a daunting one. Frankly, it has become much more daunting as a result of correctional policies and perspectives that emerged over the last several decades. The United States, it could be argued, played a key role in leading the rest of the world down this pessimistic path toward a dark place in the history of corrections. It was the first modem industrial nation in recent years to strike out in an openly and exclusively punitive direction - to introduce increasingly draconian sentencing policies that greatly expanded the numbers of people who were imprisoned and the lengths of time that they stayed behind bars. It also was the first to implement a host of correspondingly harsh prison practices that abandoned any hope of accomplishing anything beyond the inevitable punishment of prison - to reject rehabilitation not only as a goal that we had failed to fully achieve but also as one not remotely worth the aspiration. Some prison policymakers (and even some academic experts) tried to dignify this politically expedient approach to crime control by claiming that 'punish­ ment for punishment's sake' was some kind of new correctional 'philosophy', as if the goal of locking up the most people possible for the longest time possible could be portrayed as an 'advance' in anyone's thinking. Nonetheless, despite the lack of any compelling evidence that spreading the pains of imprisonment could accomplish its alleged purpose - a reduction of crime that was remotely commensurate with the resources we invested in these hurtful policies - spread them we did. It would be impossible for anyone who has not seen these changes firsthand to fully grasp or appreciate the extraordinary increase in the sheer scale of imprisonment that has occurred over the last several decades. Similarly, it would be difficult to capture in words - for people who have not felt or viii Foreword absorbed the depth and breadth of the transformation - how attitudes have hardened among staff members in many of these institutions, the way corrections has become a business that too often trades in human suffering, and the new matter-of-factness that characterizes the callous mistreatment occurring inside a number of penal institutions. Those of us who have lived through this period sometimes forget how significantly the atmosphere in prison and the norms of confinement have changed. By virtue of their sheer size and the many self-justifying rationales that surround and permeate them, prisons have a way of conveying a sense of inevitability. Not only, 'this is the way things are', but 'this is they way they always have been', and, even more uncompromisingly, 'this is the way they must be, the only way they could be....' Only people with long experience and good memories can give lie to these assertions, and only those with active imaginations can think past their implication. In the face of all of this, what can the chapters that follow do to inspire hopefulness? Most of all, they contain the voices of people who care. They convey the insights, observations, and concerns of scholars and professionals who have refused to succumb to the 'new penology', one that my colleagues Malcolm Feeley and Jonathan Simon have described as serving a despairing and demeaning 'waste management' function. Far from succumbing, they urge us in an opposite direction. These authors are sober and realistic analysts, to be sure, yet they are also compassionate and dedicated reformers who refuse to sacrifice imagination for practicality. They seek "humane prisons" at a time in corrections history when too many others aspire only to maintain 'secure' and 'controlled' spaces - the kind of security and control that too often come at the price of humanity, it saddens me to say. 'Think Security. Get Back to Basics' were the ironic words written on large signs strategically placed throughout a large maximum security prison I toured just a short time ago in the midwestem United States. Ironic because, looking around this cruel and hostile place, it was painfully obvious that security had been its only concern. Too often, this 'basic' goal - admittedly important - dwarfs all others in the minds of many correctional policymakers, and even academic thinkers with the luxury of imagining a better future. Not so the authors of the chapters that follow. Of course, they are realistic enough to concede that, even in humane prisons, guards and prisoners alike may still lack sufficient opportunities for meaningful activity and constructive purpose. They know that even well-treated prisoners can come out of prison seemingly fit and resilient, yet return to their 'unsettled' lifestyles - lifestyles forced on them as much by their unforgiving surroundings as any personal choices they might make about the directions they pursue. They admit that there is still a sense - pervasive in some places in spite of the humane intentions of those in charge - that the environment systematically under­ mines the sense of self or shared humanity among those confined inside. Indeed, the authors are realists who lament the continued existence of prisons where fear, idleness, and callous treatment are still capable of creating or exacerbating prison madness, and ones where violence is seen by prisoners as commonplace, conventional, and even something that is expected of them. And they concede that the transfer of coping skills developed in prison - even the best of them - will rarely assist prisoners in successfully reintegrating into Foreword ix free society. Indeed, they know that prisoners typically re-enter a world that is not only vastly different from the one they have become accustomed to in prison, but one that, by virtue of their incarceration, has grown even more foreign and hostile to them. Yet, despite this realism, this is a book full of honesty, of insight, of heart, and of imagination - all things that have been sorely lacking in much writing about prison policy and prison practices over the last several decades. Many of the authors are visionaries, grappling with the best ways to get from where we are to where we might - and should - be. Others are practitioners, laboring to make sense of whether and when their good intentions can be translated into actual policies and practices that reflect their humane values. Part of the inspiration that readers will glean from this book comes directly from the boldness and authenticity of the quest - to create 'humane prisons' at a time when so many others have given up on the goal! The seriousness with which each author engages this challenge is unmistakable. In addition to the sheer inspiration, many of the ideas that follow have direct, practical applications that can be pursued in other less enlightened prison systems. For example, American readers will find the prison inspection process used in British prison to be remarkable and worthy of emulation, not only because of the 'robust independence' with which it proceeds, but also the sophisticated perspective that it brings to bear. Indeed, British prisons are inspected regularly and without warning, and the results - on the culture and decency of the institution - are a matter of public record. In addition, prison inspectors do confidential, random surveys of all prisoners before each inspection, and have a comparative base - both between different prisons and for the same prisons over time - that allows for a measure of performance from the prisoners' point of view. The inspectors' goal, explicitly stated, is to determine whether prisoners are being housed safely, treated with respect, engaged in purposeful activity, and being prepared for their return to the community. There is certainly much more to this story, and I should not belabor it here, but the value of such a straightforward intelligent practice seems difficult to dispute. The therapeutic community perspective that is reflected in many of the chapters is one important approach to creating humane prisons. Of course, it is not the only one. Legitimate concerns have been expressed about the logic and practice of therapeutic prisons, and they are acknowledged here. Crime is not necessarily caused by the damaged psyches of its perpetrators, and psychother­ apeutic interventions in prison do not necessarily prepare prisoners for the transition to the free world or assist them in overcoming the socioeconomic and other barriers they will confront there. Moreover, even a good idea - or otherwise effective intervention - can be badly or poorly implemented in the difficult environment of prison. And, as one of the authors wisely reminds us, the inherent tendency for treatment (or any intervention) to become punitive when it is 'married to structures of control' must not be overlooked. Yet, there is still something to be said for an analysis of these total institutions that recognizes the ways in which the extreme and sometimes extremely cruel, punitive treatment to which prisoners are exposed interferes with and impedes personal growth of any kind, therapeutic or otherwise. And there is certainly something to be gained from listening to authors who

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