Reforming prisons or reforming people?
Prisons are one of the aspects of our justice system which are most taken for granted. Rooted in popular culture, they are perceived as non-ideological, a common sense way of dealing with those who have crossed a frontier of morality the rest of us ‘law abiding citizens’ would not ever even contemplate. Prisons are based upon a resolution that it is best to punish and to remove, rather than to dialogue about individual acts against our collective morality.
I am a believer in transparency, a genuine and fluid system of social organisation, and the power of each and every individual to reform themselves. I am also a believer that each story, each individual fate, reflects a social reality and therefore we can distil wisdom from every human experience. It is for this reason above all that I am opposed to prisons. For while they are an institution which has widespread social backing, to me they commit the greatest crime- disengaging offenders from families, communities, and above all dialogue. In the end, regardless of the presence or absence of moral culpability in the ‘offender,’ these are the factors that change individual lives for the better.
While no way of dealing with social harm will ever be completely foolproof, there are numerous other reasons for prison abolition. Firstly, prisons entrench rather than reduce social disadvantage. The vast majority of crimes are property based or violent offences which are committed for a variety of factors such as class, the absence of basic literacy and numeracy skills and inadequate gender socialisation. Placing offenders into prison puts them in a criminogenic context, or one that is merely likely to encourage the continuation of these behaviours. This is due to the absence or certainly paucity of rehabilitation programs for prisoners as well as the inherent brutality of prisons due to acts of violence by other prisoners and guards.
Prisons are also generally culturally inappropriate ways of addressing social harm. Each offending act is committed in a specific context which means that the way in which it was produced and performed is best understood specific to this context. This is particularly important for cultural minorities such as indigenous Australians whose legal and social norms are markedly different from ‘mainstream’ Australia. Subjecting individuals to a ‘one size fits all’ method of punishment is only likely to cause cultural estrangement, further marginalisation between cultural minorities and law enforcement and in turn heightened recidivism. It is clear that restorative justice, which understands the act in the context of the offender’s life development, their social place, and their community, can better repair the harm caused by socially destructive acts. This allows the relevant parties to the act to be brought together to address the behaviour and reach a collective resolution.
Lastly, prisons are inherently reactive and diminish the capacity of an individual to understand and address their behaviour. For each domestic violence and sexual assault offence there are one hundred missing conversations about gender norms and how to best challenge how men typically perceive women; for each property offence it is evident that there are countless policies which fail to invest in the education and social support of youth in socially disadvantaged areas. It is towards these areas that we should turn our collective attention.
To step back and question the status quo, prisons are highly ideological, punitive and morally indefensible. As individuals and communities are isolated from one another, rehabilitation and social catharsis become impossible. And this is tragic, because there is an untold story, a dignity and a hope for change in each of our cells just waiting to be expressed.
Michel Foucault “Prison continues, on those who are entrusted to it, a work begun elsewhere, which the whole of society pursues on each individual through innumerable mechanisms of discipline.”
By Cameron McPhedran
A new collective has started up in Sydney that aims to contribute to building a grassroots prison abolition movement in Australia. For more information, you can contact camzoid_9@hotmail.com
