Do Prisons Make People Angry, Alienated And Dangerous

Do Prisons Make People Angry, Alienated And Dangerous? Reflections On Findings (And Frustrations) Presented by: Prof. Liebling Date: 13 May 2021 Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship: 'Moral Rules, Social Science And Forms Of Order In Prison' - We live in a moral universe - Different moral climates shape outcomes such as: survival, aliveness, order and disorder, and violence - The 'virtues' human beings need: respect-like virtues, fairness-like virtues, and a family of virtues related to order and security. - A 'legitimacy-plus’s argument - Immoral climates: degrading treatment, disregard, lack of safety, and feelings of injustice, make it very hard for us to live. - From 'Political charge' to 'Creating anger' - Anger as 'a call for further information' - Part of a broader effort to make sense of changing dynamics and forms of order in high security prisons (see Liebling 2021 'The changing 'regime of the custodians': Visions of order and authority in high security prisons in England and Wales, 19882019 in Crewe, B., Goldsmith, A., and Halsey, M. (Eds) Power and Pain in the Modern Prison: Revisiting the Society of Captives Oxford University Press). Questions About Anger - What can we make of the finding that prisons are very angry places? - What is the phenomenology of anger in prison? - How should we evaluate and respond to this emotional raw material? - Is 'political charge' an appropriate measure for in-prison anger? - Is it a meaningful indicator of specific risks, in the way that distress can be a meaningful signal of suicide risk? - Srinivasan: anger can be a source of clarification; a 'sometimes fitting response to an unjust world' (2018: 126). Even when it is counterproductive it can be 'apt'. Violence is more 'categorically wrong'. At the very least, we should ask, 'why is this person angry? A causal explanation is not the same as a 'justificatory one'. 'And They Wonder Why You've Got Angry, Bitter People In Here...' - I came here to do a course. It took 3 years to assess me. I was 'not eligible'. I 'lacked motivation' and I was 'too low a risk for the high risk course'. I have been here 7 years. I'm being held hostage. (Prisoner, Group discussion). - I got a letter after the first referral, 'insufficient evidence of personality disorder'. Then two weeks later, a psychologist ambushed me. He said, 'we are re-referring you to the DSPD Unit. I was level 10 in anger, but self-control par excellence. I left the room and phoned my solicitor' (Prisoner, Full Sutton). - Twelve out of 15 boxes were unticked. It was maliciously done. He'd doubled my risk (Prisoner, Full Sutton). - Security run this jail'. 'The slightest trouble, they're on it'. - 'The Government are knob-heads'; 'They are all part of a club'. There are prisoners on here who are far worse than me - it's all backwards'; 'This is the only country that treats joint enterprise in this way'; 'this is the worst legal system in the world'. 'In Spain, they'd laugh at the way this is run - you 'can't do this', you 'can't do that'. 'Only in England'. 'Barbaric country'. Political Charge: Anger, Alienation, Indignation And Reactivity. Item And Mean Dimension Scores FS 164 Political charge: Dimension 2.61 mean score My time in prison has made 2.77 me angry The prison authorities are 2.77 guiltier than I am for wrongdoing I feel more like fighting back 2.81 than giving in, in this prison FL 165 2.94*** 3.10* 2.94 3.13* I dislike this prison's treatment of people like me I feel shame for what I have done to get here The level of suspicion in this prison is too high I have become more tolerant of other faith groups in this prison The problems we are facing in this prison need action now 2.47 2.73* 2.54 3.63*** 2.21 2.51 3.33 3.35 1.99 2.05 Political Charge? - Norwegians are strange. Everyone feels exclusion. For now, I hate Norwegian people because they are racist. It is better here. It is paradise (in a prison in the Netherlands). I am very angry against Norway. I will make fire! (Prisoner from Lithuania, Norgerhaven study, August 2017). Full Sutton 'You Feel Like A Statistic' - Heavy - New penology (target, risk-driven) - Security as end/'pursuit' (Zedner 2009) - Rigid (rule of rules) - I-It ('experienced objects') - Limited engagement (mixed)? - Cynical (angry/'payback'?) - Low trust - Chaplaincy in conflict - Like Albany: 'Control, safety and supervision' - Unlike Albany: Developed networks and power struggles Frankland 'You Feel Like A Person' - Light (Crewe, Liebling and Hulley 2014) - Old penology (care, welfare) - Security as means - Flexible, individualized (inefficient) - I-Thou ('experiencing subjects') - High engagement (longer narratives) - Tragic - Some trust ('staff safety not an issue here') - Integrated chaplaincy - Like Long Lartin: (in Sparks et al 1996): - 'Choice, responsibility and self-respect' - Unlike Long Lartin: - Co-operation/inter-faith mixing/curiosity Four Consequences Flowed ... - Prisoners' identities were narrower but edgier - Social hierarchies were steeper and firmer - More serious violence occurred - Other prisoners did not pass on information or warnings to staff Narrowing Identities And The Politics Of Difference - I was involved in a riot in the 1970s. I lost 14 teeth. I was kicked all the way downstairs. I was politicised by that (Prisoner, Full Sutton). - I've been trying to get a transfer for 7 years. I don't talk to them [psychology/OMU] because I don't trust them. I don't even read their reports. Last time I spoke to them I got terrible feedback: 'violent psychopath'. There's no justification for that. They are saying crazy things in my parole reports. I don't bother any more. The force I've got against me is more than I can handle. I'm angry. I'm not violent. (Prisoner, Frankland) - 'They think you are aggressive'; We're not used to your kind up here'; 'All our expressions, our music, come from slavery'; 'I've got a white friend on the wing - he has different targets, different standards'; 'We're suppressed. Doors are closed. It's hard to like white people.'; 'These people are bitter against our religion'. - I see some white prisoners treated badly. If they are ghetto - if they relate to our way. If they have 'the Black attitude'. There's nothing wrong with that if you understand it (Prisoner, Full Sutton). Walzer, M (1994) Thick And Thin: Moral Argument At Home And Abroad - When my parochialism is threatened, then I am wholly radically parochial: a Serb, a Pole, a Jew (a black, a woman, a homosexual), and nothing else ... Under conditions of security, I will acquire a more complex identity than the idea of tribalism suggests. I will identify myself with more than one tribe, adding to the social construction of identity my own personal construction. Indeed, the experience of difference, when it is peaceful, increases the power of the individual subject, who maneuvers among a range of alternatives without ever being locked into a single one' (Walzer 1994: 82). The Social Dynamics Of Anger - A prisoner who made me nervous walked by, staring angrily. He said 'don't talk to her' to the others. My heart rate went up. Then he came back and started to outpour. Like officers who don't want to be interviewed do sometimes. 'I need help!', he shouted. 'I've thought about suicide'. 'I understand why prisoners kill'. 'It's mental torture!'. The atmosphere changes very quickly. The prison is tense and edgy, as well as good humored, professional and busy. This moving from tension to peace is more extreme: the distance between the two is greater. (Fieldwork notes, Whitemoor) Violence. Serious Assaults On Prisoners 2009 Full Sutton 14 (Pop 605) Frankland <5 (Pop 795) 2010 11 2011 10 2012 7 2013 7 2014 6 <5 9 <5 <5 <5 The Withdrawal Of Aid - Seven staff were taken hostage [in 1991]. 1 officer left straight after. I am the only survivor. It would have been 14. 75 prisoners took the wing. It was resolved the same day. One high profile prisoner was restrained in visits. This was a reaction to that. London gangsters. We were kept safe by prisoners. (Senior Officer) Liebling, A. (2020) 'Finding George Eliot in Prison: Reflections on its Moral Life', George Eliot Review 51: 80-88. - What George Eliot calls the 'vibrations of fellow feeling' are inseparable from uses of power in prison. She says 'It is like a diffusion or expansion of one's own life, to be assured that its vibrations are repeated in another (GEL: I, 313; Davis, p. 55). When an officer says, 'put the knife down mate; just put it down', he (it was a he, in this case) is drawing on knowledge acquired over time; seeds sown in social exchanges on and off the wing, the translation across differences into meaningful communication, acknowledgement or connection. When this works, the miracle of order a normative order can be created on a wing (Liebling, Price and Shefer 2010). When it fails, as it so often does, a spiral of antagonism, instability and despair follows. The contrast between 'meetings' and 'un-meetings' (Buber's I-It, I-Thou distinction) makes up much of the 'syntax of power' in prison. (Liebling 2020: 82-3). Questions I am thinking about ... - When is anger 'apt', not apt? What counts as relevant information? Is anger distinctively difficult to evaluate (Cherry 2018)? Is historical information relevant? - Is anger always 'thick'? Does anger have or need an identity when we explore/measure/analyses it? - Are there distinctive kinds of anger? - Is anger in prison a 'political' emotion? - Is political charge a meaningful term? - What is the relationship between anger and political or extremist violence? - What are the social dynamics of anger? - Does long-term oppression of a group of people amount to long-term moral damage to that group? (Callard).