The Culture Of Punishment: Prison, Society, And Spectacle

241 Pages·2009·5.552 MB·English

by  Michelle Brown

The Culture of Punishment
Alternative Criminology Series
General Editor: Jeff Ferrell
Pissing on Demand:
Workplace Drug Testing and the Rise of the Detox Industry
Ken D. Tunnell
Empire of Scrounge:
Inside the Urban Underground of Dumpster Diving,
Trash Picking, and Street Scavenging
Jeff Ferrell
Prison, Inc.:
A Convict Exposes Life inside a Private Prison
by K.C. Carceral, edited by Thomas J. Bernard
The Terrorist Identity:
Explaining the Terrorist Threat
Michael P. Arena and Bruce A. Arrigo
Terrorism as Crime:
From Oklahoma City to Al-Qaeda and Beyond
Mark S. Hamm
Our Bodies, Our Crimes:
The Policing of Women’s Reproduction in America
Jeanne Flavin
Graffiti Lives:
Beyond the Tag in New York’s Urban Underground
Gregory J. Snyder
Crimes of Dissent:
Civil Disobedience, Criminal Justice, and the Politics of Conscience
Jarret S. Lovell
The Culture of Punishment: Prison, Society, and Spectacle
Michelle Brown
The Culture
of Punishment
Prison, Society, and Spectacle
Michelle Brown
(cid:4)
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
www.nyupress.org
© 2009 by New York University
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brown, Michelle, 1971–
The culture of punishment : prison, society, and spectacle /
Michelle Brown.
p. cm. — (Alternative criminology series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978–0–8147–9999–4 (cl : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0–8147–9999–x (cl : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978–0–8147–9100–4 (pb : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0–8147–9100–x (pb : alk. paper)
1. Punishment—Social aspects. 2. Imprisonment—Social aspects.
3. Prisons—Social aspects. I. Title.
HV8756.B76 2009
303.3’6—dc22 2009017388
New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper,
and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability.
We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials
to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books.
Manufactured in the United States of America
c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
p 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
1 Introduction: Notes on Becoming a Penal Spectator 1
2 Prison Theory: Engaging the Work of Punishment 21
3 Prison Iconography: Regarding the Pain of Others 50
4 Prison Tourism: 85
The Cultural Work and Play of Punishment
5 Prison Portents: 122
Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror
6 Prison Science: Of Faith and Futility 153
7 Prison Otherwise: 190
Cultural Meanings beyond Punishment
Notes 213
References 231
Index 245
About the Author 251
v

Acknowledgments
I benefited from a critical set of comments and suggestions
on this manuscript in its most distant and earliest stages, provided by a
wonderful set of intellectuals: criminologist Steven Chermak, sociologist
Katherine Beckett, literary scholar Eva Cherniavsky, historian Ellen Dw-
yer, and anthropologists Carol Greenhouse and Stephanie Kane. I hope
they find traces of their own work and commitments in what this manu-
script is today. Thanks to my current home, the Department of Sociology
and Anthropology at Ohio University, and especially to my colleagues, Jo-
seph De Angelis, Haley Duschinski, Nancy Tatarek, and Deborah Thorne,
who played supportive, nurturing roles in the volume’s progress, often
providing me with readings and ideas that substantively transformed this
work (many times without knowing it). Many thanks as well to esteemed
colleagues across the field who took an interest and supportive role in the
project at various phases and in its many incarnations, including Jeff Fer-
rell, David Greenberg, and Nicole Rafter.
A deep note of appreciation goes out to Sean M. Kelley, program di-
rector at Eastern State Penitentiary, who generously and enthusiastically
shared photos, research, history, and, not least, his time. Also at Eastern
State, Andrea (Ang) Reidell, assistant program director for Education, and
Sally Elk, executive director, graciously gave of their time and expertise.
Pat Kleinedler, tour secretary of the Moundsville Economic Development
Council, along with other staff members at West Virginia Penitentiary and
the Ohio State Reformatory, graciously and enthusiastically provided de-
tailed historical accounts and access to the prison and its daily and special
events operations. Thanks also to Dr. Ellen H. Belcher, Special Collections
librarian, at the Lloyd Sealy Library of the John Jay College of Criminal
Justice, who assisted me in accessing Robert Martinson’s personal papers.
Of course, many undergraduate and graduate students helped in bring-
ing this volume to bear, through classroom discussions, research assis-
tance, tough questions, and sheer enthusiasm. Special thanks are deserved
vii
viii Acknowledgments
by a long but not exhaustive list of former and current students: Ashley
Demyan, Danielle Fagen, Tara Livelsberger, Brandon Long, and Emily
Vance played key research roles. Rebecca Carson and Kristie Garrison,
who serendipitously introduced me to the overnight prison ghost hunt,
initiated a key turn in my research toward prison tourism. Finally, from
within and without prison, spanning classrooms, living rooms, and com-
munity centers, Melissa Benton has been a long-term motivating force in
the development of this manuscript, and her success is a story of the life
given over to the work of punishment—as a witness, not a spectator.
In the end, this volume’s existence depends upon a gesture of faith
by a select group of individuals. I am indebted to executive editor Ilene
Kalish and editorial assistant Aiden Amos, who provided me, a first-time
author, with a supportive and superb experience through NYU Press, as
did Jeff Ferrell, series editor for Alternative Criminology, and a small
group of excellent anonymous reviewers. Their comments truly made
this book better and taught me much as a writer. Others have taught
me more than words can tell. The writing of this volume took place as
my family, near and far, existed in a whirlwind of loss. Although it is
difficult for me to see, I know that experience and those lives are insepa-
rable from this text. It is my sister, Amanda Brown-Gould, who has most
often conveyed this to me, reminding me that I am always my mother’s
daughter. Finally, one person in particular has provided a warm dwelling
of support and sustenance for this project—my partner, Bruce Hoffman.
Any effort to express gratitude for such space runs up against what has
for a long time now been a deep, wordless thankfulness. This volume is
an effort which depended in so many ways upon his time, insights, and
expertise, but more importantly, on his compassionate way of looking at
and building the world. For those reasons, this book is dedicated—with
much love—to him and to my mother, Morgan Brown, together—as I
think they would prefer it—the two people who have patiently taught me
most about the promise of things that exceed what we know, of words
and worlds beyond prisons.
2
Prison Theory
Engaging the Work of Punishment
To punish is the most difficult thing there is. A society such as
ours needs to question every aspect of punishment as it is prac-
ticed everywhere.
—Michel Foucault, “To Punish Is the
Most Difficult Thing There Is,” 2000
Because of the uniqueness of punishment as a social institu-
tion, theory plays a special and critical role in our understanding of
it. This chapter assesses the place of the key concepts of this volume—
penal spectatorship, culture, and work—by way of an interdisciplinary
and theoretical dialogue on punishment, pain, and exclusion. Here I
use theory as a means through which to disrupt and expand our con-
ceptualizations of punishment and also as a model to rethink not only
the project of punishment and its alternatives but the very approaches
and assumptions as social scientists we employ in that pursuit. Perhaps
most importantly, I wish to demonstrate our own complicity in pun-
ishment’s practice with a new level of depth and extensiveness. Such
an effort begins with the penal spectator who by definition looks in
on punishment and yet is also its author. In this looking, this subject
acts as bystander and outsider as opposed to an engaged participant or
witness. She may stare curiously or reflectively, peer sideways from her
peripheral vision, or gape and gawk directly, but the object of her gaze
is inevitably other people’s pain. And it is this quality which compli-
cates any kind of penal spectatorship. There are radically different ways
of looking and participating in other people’s pain, ways in which we
all participate.
21