User:Bedfordboy9

Anthropology of Prison A prison is a place where people are sentenced to after being convicted of a bad enough crime, or a number of crimes. Inside the walls of a prison the prisoners are physically confined and denied many personal rights and freedoms that they rest of the citizens of their society are privy to. In such an establishment the focus is on rehabilitation, preparing the prisoners to reenter society in a successful and non-dangerous way, and on keeping order. In these mini-societies people from all races, religions, and social class are forced into interaction in a way they may otherwise never have been. Prisons offer an anthropologically rich situation where we can observe and learn about situations that offer a blend of culture and practice in a way that many societies never see. This blend can result in a new homogenous culture, or in other cases, extreme violence.

PROBLEMS WITH CONDUCTING PRISON ETHNOGRAPHY

As many have seen with the Body Rituals Among the Nacirema writing, done in the 1950’s,the language, tone, and context of an ethnography can greatly wing the opinions of the readers. If this issue is true of Americans reading about themselves, then certainly it will hold true for the average citizens reading about a person in jail. Even the acceptable terms for an incarcerated person, convict or criminal, have an incredibly negative connotation. Not only writing, but viewing the issues involved in creating an ethnography of prison are very difficult to do in an unbiased manor. Many ethnographies are accomplished by total immersion into the culture and society of the people about which you are writing. The Kalahari Bushmen ethnography, for example, required several trips and longs stays with the members of the culture to truly come to understand their practices. Building trust took time and effort, along with the willingness on the part of the anthropologists to stay with the Bushmen, and live more or less as they did. When it comes to prisons, many of these tactics are not possible. Total immersion into the lives of the prisoners would be very dangerous, and a prisoners sense of paranoia and lack of trust may help keep them alive in such a dangerous environment. As a result many common practices of anthropology are not applicable to this issue, and creativity and an open mind are required to accomplish the task at hand: develop an accurate and unbiased ethnography of prison life and culture.

RACE

The caste system, which most people in American society find deplorable, is in full swing inside our prison system. Racial and ethnic division among the prisoners is intense, and constantly violent. One of the most important ethnographies of all time, The Curious Eclipse of Prison Ethnography in the Age of Mass Incarceration, which focuses on the LA Country jail, one of the largest in the world, goes into great depth on the issue. “Finally, one cannot but be struck by the skin color of the inmates, over 80 percent of whom are recorded as black or Latino. 2000 census data found that blacks accounted for 44 percent of the inmate population, and in twenty states the number of blacks in prison was at least five times greater than their share of the states population. The few whites in sight are older and appear more experienced: regular customers who know how to ‘pull time’ if one judges by their demeanor. The Asians…are grouped together in a separate tier because the gangs…have ‘given the green light’ on them and any ‘Oriental’ is liable to be assaulted at any moment.” The daily life of a prisoner is one defined my conflict and violence generally against members of another race and culture. This cultural battle ground breeds hate and anger. Most of this race related violence is propagated by the prison gangs, which have more of a hold on a prisoners life than gangs do outside of prison. From the Mexican gangs, including the Southsiders and Mexican Mafia, the Black Guerilla Family, and the Aryan Brotherhood, gangs dominate the lives of inmates. Constant cross gang violence, and violence against non-affiliated members takes place, little of which is investigated or prosecuted, often because inmates are scared out of testifying against other inmates, especially those with gang ties. Only in special occasions, when an inmate suspected of an in-prison crime already has two strikes and a third could put him away for life, do the law enforcement put in total effort to prosecute.

CULTURE OF VIOLENCE

The violence that encompasses the lives of the prisoners is absolute. The classic Stanford Prison Experiment shows that people will conform to these roles and develop both authoritative violence and oppressed responsive violence. One can imagine that this truth is exponentially more important when the people who are in these prisons are already, for the most part, people who trend towards violence and wrongdoing. The prison system itself fosters this violence and anger, as gang members who have sworn the downfall of an entire race of other people live in the cell directly next to the people which they hate, separated only by the guards who, not surprisingly, worry more about their own safety than those in the prison. The result is a culture of violence that initiates its “new fish” in brutal ways that only extends this trend of violence to the next group of people to inhabit the jails. A passive lifestyle outside of the violence is not an option, as it is all around you, and a decision to not fight would just end with one being brutally beaten.

GANGS AS A FAMILY STRUCTURE

Inmates in prison are completely removed from the outside world, save for occasional visits (if the inmate is lucky) and phone calls or letters. As a result, one is completely disconnected from whatever family unit one had in the outside world. Inside, gangs offer a substitute for family and a sense of belonging. Entrance into a gang gains you brothers, authority figures like parents, and most importantly, a group of people who accept you, and will stand up to protect you. For some inmates, gangs may have been a similar substitute prior to incarceration, due to a lack of family or a dysfunctional one, which means the shift to prison family style is not all that much of a change.

GENDER

In male prison, the issue of gender is highly complex and confusing. In a world devoid of the opposite sex, especially in a testosterone infused environment such as prison, inmates have a difficult time dealing with issues of gender. Whether due to the complete lack of women, or to the nature of the criminals in these institutions, many of which are sexual offenders or pedophiles, the homosexual community in most prisons is very large. Rape is all too common a crime inside prisons, and like many rape cases in general society, it is often more about power and control than it is sex. Rape is a means by which to continue to mark your territory and maintain your status in a highly hierarchical culture. In many prisons, the penetrating male is not considered to be a homosexual, but the victim is labeled as such, and many prison rapists do not view themselves as bisexual or homosexual, rather as someone asserting their power over another person, which in prison, is the ultimate goal. The number of men raped in prison actually exceeds the number of women raped in general society, and the victims of these attacks are ten times more likely to contract a deadly disease than rape victims outside of prison. Rape victims in prison are often intimidated into providing some sort of misguided consent, to the point where these victims become figurative property of the rapist. When the average person thinks about prison, they often think on the prisoners as men, not the men as prisoners, due to popular culture representation of prison, in which large scary men play basketball and lift weights all day. As a result there is little sympathy or consideration for the prisoners, as these thoughts are dismissed by the simple thought “oh, they are men, they can handle it”.

RELIGION

Religion plays a large role in prison, and a high rate of inmates convert to Abrahamic religions, often Islam. This drive for religion that inmates feel stems from the feeling of dissonance they get when incarcerated, a feeling of bitterness towards the world, and even oneself. Many prison inmates must confront the fact that the life choices they have made have led them away from the path they wanted into what may be considered a bad life, and religion offers a path out of this downward spiral. In many religions, notably Chrisrianity and Islam, unhappy life consequences are a result of failing to live a pious life. Conversion to religion offers hope for a brighter future. Often, unlike the constant cross gang violence, followers of different religions are often sensitive to the difficulties and beliefs of followers of a different faith. Religion offers several things that inmates search for, such as a path to a new life, a way of dealing with guilt, dealing with the loss of freedom.

HIERARCHY

Power, control, and ultimately the superior status is paramount in prison. With gangs as the main source of community amongst inmates, and the controlling forces of the daily lives of inmates, status of the gang members within their community is incredibly important. In regards to non-gang affiliated members of the prison, your status is very low on the totem pole. Physical prowess and the ability to defend yourself (or attack others) will raise your status, leaving the weak and defenseless on the bottom tier. Affiliation with gangs or other large prison groups moves your status, as people would be more afraid of retaliation on the part of the other members of your group/gang if they do not comply. From there your status in your gang is crucial, as lower members must still take orders and follow commands. At the top of this hierarchy are the correctional officers, who have the monopoly of force in the prison, ending ultimately with the warden who has the final say on most prison issues. Your status in the prison hierarchy will have drastic effects on your day to day life. From whether or not your get raped to being able to obtain contraband, or even to just keep yourself protected from assault, being higher on the prison totem pole is highly beneficial.

PRISON EXPANSION

The expansion of the U.S. penal system has been historically unprecedented. In 1980, there were 1.8 Americans were under penal authority, a number that now exceeds six million. This massive increase has been coupled with a huge influx of money and man power into the penal system. In 1980, only seven billion dollars was spent on prison operations, whereas in 2006, the corrections department spent nearly sixty-nine billion dollars, amounting to an average of 7% of each states total budget. This incredible expansion has caused the issue of overcrowding in prisons, which every year results in the early release of thousands of prisoners, only to be able to fill their prison cells with the newest group of convicted persons. In Texas $110 million dollar “mega-jail” is being constructed to ease the overcrowding problem. In regards to each individual prison these facts have little anthropological significance, but I regards to the big picture, it shows how many more people are entering this system every year, and the number continues to grow at an alarming rate.