Prison

From the rather decent book The Social Distance Between Us by Darren McGarvey, the quoted words below relate to those from my previous article that highlighted the Longford Lecture 2023 and help continue the themes raised even though they are from a different part of the political and social spectrum.

Both viewpoints are a good sign of common sense and realism that seems to evade many a (careerist and managerialist) politician (and even company people) these days and they clearly show some truths: that many of the problems raised and alluded to in the lecture are actually built in to many UK systems, institutions, professions and attitudes (as legacies and approaches of yore) of a class-ridden society that may like to deny or shake-off the label(s) but is stymied and unhelpful to actually seeing and remaking the many criminal justice, economic and social tiers that unfairly rig it and weigh it down in seemingly endless, expensive and inefficient administration and justifications (and any opportunities they may bring) against those less able to play unseen ‘games of class’.

In liberal democracies, where the human rights of prisoners must also be considered, deterrence becomes wickedly complex. A careful balance must be struck between making a powerful example of the consequences of certain criminal behaviour while also allowing for the possibility of a criminal’s reform and subsequent return to society. It is here that the third central concept of prison arises – rehabilitation.

Rehabilitation in criminal justice is, essentially, the institutional expression of a belief that people can change. That they can put their past behind them, following punishment. In Britain, there is great confusion about rehabilitation, evidenced frequently in news coverage portraying the ‘easy’ life people allegedly have behind bars. Reports detail what cons had for Christmas dinner, or the fact some of them have televisions in their cells or pool tables in their halls. What this body of public opinion remains painfully distant from is the fact that people cannot be rehabilitated if they are treated like animals. Prison conditions must be balanced to ensure both that punishment is served and that the desire and capacity to grow and change are cultivated and nurtured. We often forget that for most criminals, the loss of liberty is punishment enough.

Custodial sentences, of course, have a place in modern society, and there are plenty of cases where a custodial sentence or the promise of one have produced positive individual and social outcomes. Victims of crime must also be paramount where punishments are considered. When you become immersed in the harsh and oppressive reality of prison life, from the perspective of the offender, such as I do when I run rap workshops, you risk growing distant from the human consequences of their actions. The bereaved families, the permanently disfigured, the traumatised women and children – it’s easy to forget about them when your job is to form a relationship with their abusers and perpetrators.

But where reformable criminals are concerned, particularly young offenders from impoverished backgrounds who are victims of childhood abuse and neglect, key criminal justice concepts such as deterrence and rehabilitation, as practised in the UK, are often deployed counterproductively and require thorough re-examination. They are rooted in assumptions which betray the narrow social experiences of law makers and speak more to the perverse incentives of political leaders (keen to be seen getting tough on the crime their economic policies actually create) to frame criminality as a simple matter of personal responsibility requiring performatively ‘tough’ justice.

The social and cultural distance between those who slip into criminality and those who dispense justice is so vast that many well-meaning attempts to rehabilitate perpetrators or deter crime get lost in translation. The people with the power often possess no frame of reference for what life truly entails near the bottom, how economic conditions create cultures where crime is not simply a necessity but also morally acceptable, and few mechanisms exist to make them understand.

What’s a slap on the wrist when you were beaten violently to a pulp as a child? What’s losing your liberty when you live in absolute poverty and have been blackballed by every institution designed to help you? How does deterrence become operative in a mind disfigured by years of drug addiction? And how do you learn to leave a world of inebriation, violence and aggression behind when the prison rehabilitating you is just as hostile as the community you committed the crime in – and drugs are just as readily available?

Many law-abiding citizens of higher social castes assume criminality is the result of an absence of values and that people commit crime because they are bad. They believe locking them up for long periods in their teenage years with other criminals will make them less bad. Of course, such a misguided assumption is only possible if you have never viewed the world from the vantage point of an offender. Never walked alongside those who frequently find themselves within reach of the long arm of the law. This low proximity to the world of deprivation most of the prison population is drawn from is compounded by public demands for tougher sentences, which are politically easier to accommodate than calls for real action on the social and economic policies (low educational attainment, low levels of employment, cuts to youth services and community policing) which are understood to cause spikes in crime rates. In times of economic turbulence, the debate about crime and punishment becomes untethered from reality as politicians turn the discussion from root causes – government-driven poverty and inequality – and onto the easier terrain of personal responsibility.

When these harsher policies inevitably fail (because most criminal cultures arise from economic deprivation) it is then assumed it’s because they still aren't tough enough, so they are dialled up once more. When they fail again, there is great resignation that troublesome youths are simply irredeemable, for how could they not respond positively? A clamour then follows for even harsher forms of retribution, with media-generated public demands for ‘tougher justice’, when what is required is smarter justice.

Darren McGarvey The Social Distance Between Us