Consumption Restrictions in a Maximum Security Prison: Perspectives of Incarcerated Men

By Ronald Paul Hill, Ph.D., Villanova School of Business

Both President Obama and former President Clinton have recently stated that mass incarceration is a failure. Social advocates such as Michele Alexander and Bryan Stevenson have agreed, and it looks like real reform may be on the way. However, concerns of the former are mostly focused on removal of prisoners whose sentences are out of line with current thinking about the “war on drugs,” which led to long sentences for nonviolent drug offenders as well as similar injustices. Yet little of this present interest discusses experiences of men, women, and children within the prison system. My recent research in the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing yields insights that support the importance of understanding those who are currently incarcerated.

This study was conducted by incarcerated men who were taking college-level courses as part of a degree granting program. So that they might learn marketable skills, the men developed abilities to interview their peers following progress of their own understanding of how goods and services were provided within the institution. The goal was to establish a roadmap of service delivery and delivery failure, focusing on themes that were consistent across interviewees. The men who were part of this project continued to develop this global perspective until they felt it was complete, and I had the opportunity to formalize these findings and publish them jointly. They presented these themes to various prison-industrial stakeholders.

The first theme is described as “depersonalization and commodification,” which operates to remove their individuality and replace it with a dehumanized “cog” in the prison-industrial complex. It begins at intake, where all former possessions and relationships are removed and a uniform identity as “inmate” is substituted. Other, similar “total” control institutions like the military involve similar tactics, but in such cases it is substituted with a more acceptable soldier alternative. Criminality hangs on the men like the proverbial “scarlet letter” and requires that the worst acts in their lives becomes their principal identifier for the rest of their lives. Therefore, as dehumanized entities, they must toil at meaningless jobs at salaries of a few cents per hour.

The second theme examines psychological and emotional responses to dehumanizing processes. One natural reaction is to adopt or disparage this new self-image, either taking on the “criminal” label or fighting against this deviant identity. The former seeks ways to resurrect street personas that were envied by their peers, while the latter looks for new monikers that disparage their pasts and rise above negative societal labels. The best method involves advancing their personhood by emotionally distancing themselves from the past and working to engage in positive behaviors despite the highly restrictive environment and lack of opportunities for personal growth.

The third theme considers short-term and long-term consumption consequences. Their living environment is simultaneously monotonous and threatening, causing the men to either seek isolation as much as possible or band together with similar others to socialize and protect one another. A way to escape in the short-term includes use of drugs, alcohol, and consumption of high-fat/high-sugar foods that provide some relief but have negative consequences for their health. However, in the long-run many of these men decided to regain a sense of agency by educating themselves using formal and informal methods, along with turning to the illicit or underground marketplace to get desired products on their own terms.

Taken together, these themes suggest several novel ways to look at incarceration. For example, what we mean by the term “criminal” needs to be revised. Are you an offender for life if you are incarcerated or does serving your sentence allow you to move on with a new life? How would the average citizen react if every individual was required to tell family, friends, and colleagues about the worst act ever committed? Fail to make a credit card payment, and you are shackled in the middle of town each evening for the rest of your life. If this punishment is unfair, why do we feel it is just for incarcerated persons? Should time served allow for removal of their records unless recidivism occurs? “Re-humanizing” these citizens on their return makes good sense.

Additionally, how people enter the prison system speaks loudly about who we are as a society. As noted, many incarcerated people have former identities stripped from them, as well as all possessions, lifestyles, and previous associations, without consideration for their replacement. What do we expect to happen when individuals are forced to eat, sleep, defecate, work, and interact on rigid schedules that fail to recognize individual needs? Some experts argue that removal of dysfunctional personas is an important part of the rehabilitation process. This may be true, but its substitution with the label “lifetime criminal” is not an appropriate solution. Instead, can we come up with alternative licit identities built around positive development that allows for individuation in the best interest of society?

Finally, consistent with the last point, how should incarcerated persons lead their lives once in prisons? I have never met a prison administrator who believes that jail time has a positive impact on people. While many citizens on the outside often believe that the problem is criminals breed more criminals and teach one another to be better at their trade, a likely reason is that sentencing does not require, or in most cases offer, opportunities to advance skills for the larger economy. Imagine a maximum security prison that disallows access to modern technology and yields few options for educational or technical advancement. When released after a thirty-year sentence, a man or woman has never used the Internet or an I-Pad or I-Phone, or learned how to navigate computer packages such as Microsoft Office. What types of gainful employment are possible?

This situation becomes even murkier if we look at how judges and politicians are elected using slogans such as “tough on crime” that incite voter fear without allowing for an understanding of the people involved. Victim rights also add a different piece to this puzzle, and no one can or should deny their pain. Yet many of the men who participated in my research were children living in untenable circumstances when they engaged in illicit behaviors, and they feel strongly that the only way to redeem themselves is to honor those who have been wronged by doing something right in their former communities.

The author, Ronald Paul Hill, provided this article exclusively for Prison Legal News.

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