PRISON

20 min readJul 18, 2019

INTRODUCTION TO PRISON

A prison also known as a correctional facility, jail is a facility in which inmates are forcibly confined and denied a variety of freedoms under the authority of the state. Prisons are most commonly used within a criminal justice system: people charged with crimes may be imprisoned until their trial; those pleading or being found guilty of crimes at trial may be sentenced to a specified period of imprisonment. In simplest terms, a prison can also be described as a building in which people are legally held as a punishment for a crime they have committed. In times of war, prisoners of war or detainees may be detained in military prisons or prisoner of war camps, and large groups of civilians might be imprisoned in internment camps. In American English, prison and jail are usually treated as having separate definitions. The term prison or penitentiary tends to describe institutions that incarcerate people for longer periods, such as many years, and are operated by the state or federal governments. The term jail tends to describe institutions for confining people for shorter periods of time and are usually operated by local governments. Slang terms for imprisonment include: “behind bars”, “in stir” and “up the river”.

HISTORY

ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL

The use of prisons can be traced back to the rise of the state as a form of social organization. In the early legal codes, the best-known code was the Code of Hammurabi, written in Babylon around 1750 BC. The penalties for violations of the laws in Hammurabi’s Code were almost exclusively centred on the concept of lex talionis (“the law of retaliation”), whereby people were punished as a form of vengeance, often by the victims themselves. Imprisonment as a penalty was used initially for those who could not afford to pay their fines. Eventually, since impoverished Athenians could not pay their fines, leading to indefinite periods of imprisonment, time limits were set instead. The prison in Ancient Athens was known as the desmoterion (“place of chains”). The Romans were among the first to use prisons as a form of punishment, rather than simply for detention. A variety of existing structures were used to house prisoners, such as metal cages, basements of public buildings, and quarries. One of the most notable Roman prisons was the Mamertine Prison, established around 640 B.C. by Ancus Marcius.

During the Middle Ages in Europe, castles, fortresses, and the basements of public buildings were often used as makeshift prisons. The possession of the right and the capability to imprison citizens, however, granted an air of legitimacy to officials at all levels of government, from kings to regional courts to city councils; and the ability to have someone imprisoned or killed served as a signifier of who in society possessed power or authority over others. Another common punishment was sentencing people to galley slavery, which involved chaining prisoners together in the bottoms of ships and forcing them to row on naval or merchant vessels.

MODERN ERA

From the late 17th century and during the 18th century, popular resistance to public execution and torture became more widespread both in Europe and in the United States. Particularly under the Bloody Code, with few sentencing alternatives, the imposition of the death penalty for petty crimes, such as theft, was proving increasingly unpopular with the public; many jurors were refusing to convict defendants of petty crimes when they knew the defendants would be sentenced to death. Rulers began looking for means to punish and control their subjects in a way that did not cause people to associate them with spectacles of tyrannical and sadistic violence. They developed systems of mass incarceration, often with hard labour, as a solution. The prison reform movement that arose at this time was heavily influenced by two somewhat contradictory philosophies. The first was based in Enlightenment ideas of utilitarianism and rationalism and suggested that prisons should simply be used as a more effective substitute for public corporal punishments such as whipping, hanging, etc. This theory, referred to as deterrence, claims that the primary purpose of prisons is to be so harsh and terrifying that they deter people from committing crimes out of fear of going to prison. The second theory, which saw prisons as a form of rehabilitation or moral reform, was based on religious ideas that equated crime with sin and saw prisons as a place to instruct prisoners in Christian morality, obedience and proper behaviour. These later reformers believed that prisons could be constructed as humane institutions of moral instruction and that prisoners’ behaviour could be “corrected” so that when they were released, they would be model members of society. The concept of the modern prison was invented in the early 19th-century. Punishment usually consisted of physical forms of punishment, including capital punishment, mutilation, flagellation (whipping), branding, and non-physical punishments, such as public shaming rituals (like the stocks). From the Middle Ages up to the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe, imprisonment was rarely used as a punishment in its own right, and prisons were mainly to hold those awaiting trial and convicts awaiting punishment.

TRANSPORTATION, PRISON SHIPS AND PENAL COLONIES

England used penal transportation of convicted criminals (and others generally young and poor) for a term of indentured servitude within the general population of British America between the 1610s and 1776. The Transportation Act 1717 made this option available for lesser crimes or offered it by discretion as a longer-term alternative to the death penalty, which could theoretically be imposed for the growing number of offences. The substantial expansion of transportation was the first major innovation in eighteenth-century British penal practice. Transportation to America was abruptly suspended by the Criminal Law Act 1776 with the start of the American Rebellion. While sentencing to transportation continued, the act instituted a punishment policy of hard labour instead. The suspension of transport also prompted the use of prisons for punishment and the initial start of a prison building program. Britain would resume transportation to specifically planned penal colonies in Australia between 1788 and 1868. Gaols at the time were run as business ventures, and contained both felons and debtors; the latter were often housed with their wives and younger children. The gaolers made their money by charging the inmates for food, drink, and other services, and the system was generally corruptible. One reform of the seventeenth century was the establishment of the London Bridewell as a house of correction for women and children. It was the first facility to make any medical services available to prisoners. With the widely used alternative of penal transportation halted in the 1770s, the immediate need for additional penal accommodations emerged. Given the undeveloped institutional facilities, old sailing vessels, termed hulks, were the most readily available and expandable choice to be used as places of temporary confinement. While conditions on these ships were generally appalling, their use and the labour thus provided set a precedent which persuaded many people that mass incarceration and labour were viable methods of crime prevention and punishment. The turn of the 19th century would see the first movement toward Prison reform, and by the 1810s, the first state prisons and correctional facilities were built, thereby inaugurating the modern prison facilities available today.

DESIGN

SECURITY

Prisons are normally surrounded by fencing, walls, earthworks, geographical features, or other barriers to prevent escape. Multiple barriers, concertina wire, electrified fencing, secured and defensible main gates, armed guard towers, security lighting, motion sensors, dogs and roving patrols may all also be present depending on the level of security. Remotely controlled doors, CCTV monitoring, alarms, cages, restraints, nonlethal and lethal weapons, riot-control gear and physical segregation of units and prisoners may all also be present within a prison to monitor and control the movement and activity of prisoners within the facility. Modern prison designs have increasingly sought to restrict and control the movement of prisoners throughout the facility and also to allow smaller prison staff to monitor prisoners directly; often using a decentralized “podular” layout. Smaller, separate and self-contained housing units known as “pods” or “modules” are designed to hold 16 to 50 prisoners and are arranged around exercise yards or support facilities in a decentralized “campus” pattern. A small number of prison officers, sometimes a single officer, supervise each pod. The pods contain tiers of cells arranged around a central control station or desk from which a single officer can monitor all the cells and the entire pod, control cell doors and communicate with the rest of the prison. Pods may be designed for high-security “indirect supervision”, in which officers in segregated and sealed control booths monitor smaller numbers of prisoners confined to their cells. An alternative is “direct supervision”, in which officers work within the pod and directly interact with and supervise prisoners, who may spend the day outside their cells in a central “dayroom” on the floor of the pod. Movement in or out of the pod to and from exercise yards, work assignments or medical appointments can be restricted to individual pods at designated times and is generally centrally controlled. Goods and services, such as meals, laundry, commissary, educational materials, religious services and medical care can increasingly be brought to individual pods or cells as well. Some modern prisons may exclude certain inmates from the general population, usually for safety reasons, such as those within solitary confinement, celebrities, political figures and former law enforcement officers, those convicted of sexual crimes and/or crimes against children, or those on the medical wing or protective custody.

INMATE SECURITY CLASSIFICATIONS

Generally, when an inmate arrives at a prison, they go through a security classification screening and risk assessment that determines where they will be placed within the prison system. Classifications are assigned by assessing the prisoner’s personal history and criminal record and through subjective determinations made by intake personnel (which include mental health workers, counsellors, prison unit managers, and others). This process will have a major impact on the prisoner’s experience, determining their security level, educational and work programs, mental health status (e.g. will they be placed in a mental health unit), and many other factors. This sorting of prisoners is one of the fundamental techniques through which the prison administration maintains control over the inmate population. Along with this, it creates an orderly and secure prison environment. The levels of security within a prison system are categorized differently around the world but tend to follow a distinct pattern. At one end of the spectrum are the most secure facilities (“maximum security”), which typically hold prisoners that are considered dangerous, disruptive or likely to try to escape. Furthermore, in recent times, supermax prisons have been created where the custody level goes beyond maximum security for people such as terrorists or political prisoners deemed a threat to national security, and inmates from other prisons who have a history of violent or other disruptive behaviours in prison or are suspected of gang affiliation. These inmates have individual cells and are kept in lockdown, often for more than 23 hours per day. Meals are served through “chuck-holes” in the cell door, and each inmate is allotted one hour of outdoor exercise per day, alone. They are normally permitted no contact with other inmates and are under constant surveillance via closed-circuit television cameras. On the other end are “minimum security” prisons which are most often used to house those for whom more stringent security is deemed unnecessary. For example, while white-collar crime rarely results in incarceration — when it does, offenders are almost always sent to minimum-security prisons due to them having committed nonviolent crimes. Lower-security prisons are often designed with less restrictive features, confining prisoners at night in smaller locked dormitories or even cottage or cabin-like housing while permitting them free movement around the grounds to work or activities during the day. Some countries (such as Britain) also have “open” prisons where prisoners are allowed home-leave or part-time employment outside of the prison. Suomenlinna Island facility in Finland is an example of one such “open” correctional facility. The prison has been open since 1971 and, as of September 2013, the facility’s 95 male prisoners leave the prison grounds on a daily basis to work in the corresponding township or commute to the mainland for either work or study. Prisoners can rent flat-screen televisions, sound systems, and mini-refrigerators with the prison-labour wages that they can earn — wages range between 4.10 and €7.30 per hour. With electronic monitoring, prisoners are also allowed to visit their families in Helsinki and eat together with the prison staff.

COMMON FACILITIES

Modern prisons often hold hundreds or thousands of inmates and must have facilities onsite to meet most of their needs, including dietary, health, fitness, education, religious practices, entertainment, and many others. Conditions in prisons vary widely around the world, and the types of facilities within prisons depend on many intersecting factors including funding, legal requirements, and cultural beliefs/practices. Nevertheless, in addition to the cell blocks that contain the prisoners, also there are certain auxiliary facilities that are common in prisons throughout the world.

KITCHEN AND DINING

Prisons generally have to provide food for a large number of individuals, and thus are generally equipped with a large institutional kitchen. There are many security considerations, however, that are unique to the prison dining environment. For instance, cutlery equipment must be very carefully monitored and accounted for at all times, and the layout of prison kitchens must be designed in a way that allows staff to observe the activity of the kitchen staff (who are usually prisoners). The quality of kitchen equipment varies from prison to prison, depending on when the prison was constructed, and the level of funding available to procure new equipment. Prisoners are often served food in a large cafeteria with rows of tables and benches that are securely attached to the floor. However, inmates that are locked in control units, or prisons that are on “lockdown” (where prisoners are made to remain in their cells all day) have trays of food brought to their cells and served through “chuck-holes” in the cell door.

HEALTHCARE

Prisons in wealthy, industrialized nations provide medical care for most of their inmates. Additionally, prison medical staff play a major role in monitoring, organizing, and controlling the prison population through the use of psychiatric evaluations and interventions (psychiatric drugs, isolation in mental health units, etc.). Prison populations are largely from poor minority communities that experience greater rates of chronic illness, substance abuse, and mental illness than the general population. This leads to high demand for medical services, and in countries such as the US that don’t provide tax-payer funded healthcare, prison is often the first place that people are able to receive medical treatment (which they couldn’t afford outside). Prison medical facilities include primary care, mental health services, dental care, substance abuse treatment, and other forms of specialized care, depending on the needs of the inmate population. Health care services in many prisons have long been criticized as inadequate, underfunded, and understaffed, and many prisoners have experienced abuse and mistreatment at the hands of prison medical staff who are entrusted with their care.

LIBRARY AND EDUCATIONAL FACILITIES

Some prisons provide educational programs for inmates that can include basic literacy, secondary education, or even college education. Prisoners seek education for a variety of reasons, including the development of skills for after release, personal enrichment and curiosity, finding something to fill their time, or trying to please prison staff (which can often secure early release for good behaviour). However, the educational needs of prisoners often come into conflict with the security concerns of prison staff and with a public that wants to be “tough on crime” (and thus supports denying prisoners access to education). Whatever their reasons for participating in educational programs, prison populations tend to have very low literacy rates and lack of basic mathematical skills, and many have not completed secondary education. This lack of basic education severely limits their employment opportunities outside of prison, leading to high rates of recidivism, and research has shown that prison education can play a significant role in helping prisoners reorient their lives and become successful after reentry.

RECREATION & FITNESS

Many prisons provide limited recreational and fitness facilities for prisoners. The provision of these services is controversial, with certain elements of society claiming that prisons are being “soft” on inmates, and others claiming that it is cruel and dehumanizing to confine people for years without any recreational opportunities. The tension between these two opinions, coupled with a lack of funding, leads to a large variety of different recreational procedures at different prisons. Prison administrators, however, generally find the provision of recreational opportunities to be useful at maintaining order in the prisons, because it keeps prisoners occupied and provides leverage to gain compliance (by depriving prisoners of recreation as punishment). Examples of common facilities/programs that are available in some prisons are gyms and weightlifting rooms, arts and crafts, games (such as cards, chess, or bingo), television sets, and sports teams.

CONTROL UNITS

Most prisoners are part of the “general population” of the prison, members of which are generally able to socialize with each other in common areas of the prison. A control unit or segregation unit (also called a “block” or “isolation cell”) is a highly secure area of the prison, where inmates are placed in solitary confinement to isolate them from the general population. Other prisoners that are often segregated from the general population include those who are in protective custody, or who are on suicide watch and those whose behaviour presents a threat to other prisoners.

SPECIAL TYPES

YOUTH DETENTION FACILITIES

Prisons for juveniles are known by a variety of names, including “youth detention facilities”, “juvenile detention centres”, and “reformatories”. The purpose of youth detention facilities is to keep young offenders away from the public while working towards rehabilitation. The idea of separately treating youthful and adult offenders is a relatively modern idea. The earliest known use of the term “juvenile delinquency” was in London in 1816, from where it quickly spread to the United States. The first juvenile correctional institution in the United States opened in 1825 in New York City. By 1917, juvenile courts had been established in all but 3 states. It was estimated that in 2011 more than 95,000 juveniles were locked up in prisons and jails in the United States (the largest youth prisoner population in the world). Besides prisons, many other types of residential placement exist within juvenile justice systems, including youth homes, community-based programs, training schools and boot camps.

Women’s prisons

In the 19th century, a growing awareness that female prisoners had different needs to male prisoners led to the establishment of dedicated prisons for women. In modern times, it is the norm for female inmates to be housed in either a separate prison or a separate wing of a unisex prison. The aim is to protect them from physical and sexual abuse that would otherwise occur. In the Western world, the guards of women’s prisons are usually female, though not always. For example, in federal women’s correction facilities of the United States, 70% of guards are male. Rape and sexual offences remain commonplace in many women’s prisons and are usually underreported. Two studies in the late 2000s noted that because a high proportion of female inmates have experienced sexual abuse in the past, they are particularly vulnerable to further abuse.

Military prisons and prisoner-of-war camps

Prisons have formed parts of military systems since the French Revolution. France set up its system in 1796. They were modernized in 1852 and since their existence, are used variously to house prisoners of war, unlawful combatants, those whose freedom is deemed a national security risk by military or civilian authorities, and members of the military found guilty of a serious crime. Military prisons in the United States have also been converted to civilian prisons, to include Alcatraz Island. Alcatraz was formerly a military prison for soldiers during the American Civil War. In the American Revolution, British prisoners held by the U.S. were assigned to local farmers as labourers. The British kept American sailors in broken-down ship hulks with high death rates. In the Napoleonic wars, the broken down hulks were still in use for naval prisoners. One French surgeon recalled his captivity in Spain, where scurvy, diarrhoea, dysentery, and typhus abounded, and prisoners died by the thousands. In the American Civil War, at first prisoners of war were released, after they promised not to fight again unless formally exchanged. When the Confederacy refused to exchange black prisoners the system broke down, and each side built large-scale POW camps. Conditions in terms of housing, food, and medical care were bad in the Confederacy, and the Union retaliated by imposing harsh conditions.

Political prisons and administrative detention

Political prisoners are people who have been imprisoned because of their political beliefs, activities and affiliations. There is much debate about who qualifies as a “political prisoner”. The category of “political prisoner” is often contested, and many regimes that incarcerate political prisoners often claim that they are mere “criminals”. Others who are sometimes classified as “political prisoners” include prisoners who were politicized in prison, and are subsequently punished for their involvement with political causes. Many countries maintain or have in the past had a system of prisons specifically intended for political prisoners. In some countries, dissidents can be detained, tortured, executed, and/or “disappeared” without trial. This can happen either legally, or extralegally (sometimes by falsely accusing people and fabricating evidence against them).

PRISON POPULATION

Some jurisdictions refer to the prison population (total or per-prison) as the prison muster. In 2010, the International Centre for Prison Studies that at least 10.1 million people were imprisoned worldwide. As of 2012, the United States of America had the world’s largest prison population, with over 2.3 million people in American prisons or jails — up from 744,000 in 1985 — making 1 in every 100 American adults a prisoner. That same year it was also reported that the United States government spent an estimated US$37 billion to maintain prisons. Not all countries have experienced a rise in prison population; Sweden closed four prisons in 2013 due to a significant drop in the number of inmates. The head of Sweden’s prison and probation services characterised the decrease in the number of Swedish prisoners as “out-of-the-ordinary”, with prison numbers in Sweden falling by around 1% a year since 2004.

Economics of the prison industry

In the United States alone, more than $74 billion per year is spent on prisons, with over 800,000 people employed in the prison industry. As the prison population grows, revenues increase for a variety of small and large businesses that construct facilities and provide equipment (security systems, furniture, clothing), and services (transportation, communications, healthcare, food) for prisons. These parties have a strong interest in the expansion of the prison system since their development and prosperity directly depends on the number of inmates. The prison industry also includes private businesses that benefit from the exploitation of prison labour. Prisons are very attractive to employers because prisoners can be made to perform a great array of jobs, under conditions that most free labourers wouldn’t accept (and would be illegal outside of prisons): sub-minimum wage payments, no insurance, no collective bargaining, lack of alternative options, etc. Prison labour can soon deprive the free labour of jobs in a number of sectors since the organized labour turns out to be uncompetitive compared to the prison counterpart.

Social effects

Internal

Prisons can be difficult places to live and work in, even in developed countries in the present day. By their very definition, prisons house individuals who may be prone to violence and rule-breaking. It is also typical that a high proportion of inmates have mental health concerns. A 2014 US report found that this included 64% of local jail inmates, 54% of state prisoners and 45% of federal prisoners. The environment may be worsened by overcrowding; poor sanitation and maintenance; violence by prisoners against other prisoners or staff; staff misconduct; prison gangs; self-harm; and the widespread smuggling of illegal drugs and other contraband. The social system within the prison commonly develops an “inmate code”, an informal set of internal values and rules that govern prison life and relationships, but that may be at odds with the interests of prison management or external society, compromising future rehabilitation. In some cases, the disorder can escalate into a full-scale prison riot.

External

Prisoners can face difficulty re-integrating back into society upon their release. They often have difficulty finding work, earn less money when they do find work and experience a wide range of medical and psychological issues. Many countries have a high recidivism rate. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 67.8% of released prisoners in the United States are rearrested within three years and 76.6% are rearrested within five years. If the prisoner has a family, they are likely to suffer socially and economically from their absence. If a society has a very high imprisonment rate, these effects become noticeable not just on family units, but also on entire poor communities. The expensive cost of maintaining a high imprisonment rate also costs money that must come at the expense of either the taxpayer or other government agencies.

Theories of punishment and criminality

A variety of justifications and explanations are put forth for why people are imprisoned by the state. The most common of these are:

Rehabilitation

Theories of rehabilitation argue that the purpose of imprisonment is to change prisoners’ lives in a way that will make them productive and law-abiding members of society once they are released. The idea was promoted by 19th-century reformers, who promoted prisons as a humane alternative to harsh punishments of the past. Many governments and prison systems have adopted rehabilitation as an official aim.

Deterrence

Theories of deterrence argue that by sentencing criminals to extremely harsh penalties, other people who might be considering criminal activities will be so terrified of the consequences that they will choose not to commit crimes out of fear.

Incapacitation

Theories of incapacitation argue that while prisoners are incarcerated, they will be unable to commit crimes, thus keeping communities safer.

Retribution

Theories of retribution argue that the purpose of imprisonment is to cause a sufficient level of misery to the prisoner, in proportion to the perceived seriousness of their crime. These theories do not necessarily focus on whether or not a particular punishment benefits the community, but instead, are based upon a belief that some kind of moral balance will be achieved by “paying back” the prisoner for the wrongs they have committed.

Evaluation

Academic studies have been inconclusive as to whether high imprisonment rates reduce crime rates in comparison to low imprisonment rates; only a minority suggest it creates a significant reduction, and others suggest it increases crime.

Prisoners are at risk of being drawn further into crime, as they may become acquainted with other criminals, trained in further criminal activity, exposed to further abuse (both from staff and other prisoners) and left with criminal records that make it difficult to find legal employment after release. All of these things can result in a higher likelihood of reoffending upon release.

This has resulted in a series of studies that are sceptical towards the idea that prison can rehabilitate offenders. A few countries have been able to operate prison systems with a low recidivism rate, including Norway and Sweden. On the other hand, in many countries including the United States, the vast majority of prisoners are rearrested within 3 years of their release. Prison reform organizations such as the Howard League for Penal Reform are not entirely opposed to attempting to rehabilitate offenders, but instead, argue that most prisoners would be more likely to be rehabilitated if they received a punishment other than prison.

The National Institute of Justice argues that offenders can be deterred by the fear of being caught but are unlikely to be deterred by the fear or experience of the punishment.

The argument that prisons can reduce crime through incapacitation is more widely accepted, even among academics who doubt that prisons can rehabilitate or deter offenders.

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