Respect and the Attica Correctional Facility - Research Paper Example

? Respect and the Attica Correctional Facility Table of Contents Introduction 3 The Attica Correctional Facility 3 Respect and Punishment 5 Prison Violence 7 Hierarchies and Status in Attica Correctional Facility 8 Conclusion 10 References 11 Respect and the Attica Correctional Facility Introduction The need for respect is a basic human need that helps to establish a sense of self and to create a sense of belonging in a social group. The problem that comes when an offender is sent to prison is that the normal respect that is afforded in society is now no longer relevant. The new culture has been created within the prison system to define the status and position of members of the society. Attica Correctional Facility can be used as an example of how a social group creates hierarchies of respect and status when placed together and outside of other social pressures. The prison system is isolated from the world and creates codes and laws that are enforced on the terms of their situation. Respect is the foundation of these codes that act as constraints on a violent and dangerous community. The following paper will examine the use of respect as a code for status and position within the community of the Attica Correctional Facility. The Attica Correctional Facility Attica Correctional Facility is in Attica, New York and is administrated by James Conway. The prison is one of the infamous in the United States as it is maximum level prisoner and has held some of the most dangerous prisoners in the nation. Prisoners who go to Attica are considered to be a danger to others and have shown behaviors that have led to their incarceration in this high level prison. The prison opened in the 1930s and was known for using brutality as a method of discipline. There are over 2000 inmates in the prison when it is full and it caters to male offenders (Danver, 2011). In 1971, a riot broke out over the conditions in the prison where demands for better living conditions and political rights led to over 1000 inmates taking control of the prison. Rumors of prisoners being held in isolation cells and being tortured inspired these prisoners to take over the prison, but this was an unusual riot because the demands were not about being let out, but about human rights violations being addressed and better living conditions established. After three days of negotiating the state police opened fire after tear gas was dropped on the rioting inmates. The death toll came to 29 inmates and 10 hostages which the state tried to claim came from ‘zip guns’ which are homemade guns that inmates sometimes make and that some had their throats cut. In the end, it was proven that all died of real gunshot wounds and that the inmates had not had any zip guns. The state police had killed them all. The corruption in the prison included not only brutal punishments by the guards on the prisoners, but racial discrimination and punishment that was based upon the color of skin a man wore (Danver, 2011). There were many consequences from the actions taken in this riot. After the riots one of the inmates, Frank Smith was made to lie naked on a table with a football balanced on his chest. He was told that should he let the ball fall he would be castrated. The guards also established other tortures including making naked men run a gauntlet of nightsticks or crawl through glass. Frank Smith and others who had been treated with these punishments filed suit against the prison in 1974. He received four million dollars in a civil suit against the facility with 23 other prisoners receiving a settlement of eight million dollars. Although the consequences of the riot caused prison reform to take place, the prison remains a hard line prison with tough restrictions on inmates who are considered to be some of the most dangerous (Danver, 2011). The question is if they are dangerous because of the conditions imposed and the new construction of social living that they are forced to conform under. The Attica Correctional Facility of today is only moderately better than it was in 1971. Although in 1971 inmates were only allowed one shower per week and one roll of toilet paper per month, that aspect of their care has changed and they are given human amenities. However, prisoners are marched in rows of two down hallways with their hands pointing to the floor, their eyes averted from everything, and guards sporting night sticks in their hands (Elijah, 2012). They are under an atmosphere of constant threat from the guards and from each other. Fear and violence are the only tools for respect that they have available to them. The way in which the inmates create their social order is through dominance and power. This is won through hard choices and violence that asserts the needs of someone who builds fear around them over all others. This leadership is absolute and often the cost of defying it means that a life is lost or at the very least, an injury takes place. The core value that provides for foundation of this system is respect. Respect is won through knowing how and when to put violence into play. This means that the more powerful people in the system operate through instilling fear into others. Respect has both fear and admiration attached. It is built in a culture that is no longer mainstream and exists outside of what most people can understand. Respect and Punishment Respect in the prison system exists on a number of levels. The first level is outside of the system where there is a relationship between the public and their responsibility to the treatment of prisoners. Prisoners are sent to prison to hold them away from society for a time period which constitutes the punishment. On the other hand, prisoners are not sent to prison so that their treatment while incarcerate is more than the punishment intended. Alexander Paterson who was a famous prison commissioner in England once said “Men come to prison as a punishment, not for punishment…It is the sentence of imprisonment, and not the treatment accorded in prison, that constitutes the punishment” (Gottschalk, 2011, p. 239). In other words, the human respect afforded to a prisoner in prison should not be dependent upon a context in which they are treated differently as a part of their punishment. They are serving their punishment by the fact that they are in prison. Unfortunately this has not been the way in which prison systems have developed on a social or cultural level. The treatment inside a prison is often punishing. This living punishment that is a part of the daily treatment of prisoners becomes the catalyst for the development of a whole new way in which society emerges. In a plea for prison reform Gottschalke (2011) states that “The broader vision has to be premised on presenting the carceral state in terms of race, civil rights, and yes, family values” (p. 239). This means that in order for the prison to be reformed, the social space within the prison must also be reformed so that the culture that has emerged is no longer the platform on which treatment exists. Respect in a prison must come back to a place in which the ideology that exists is once again based on societal values and not the values that have emerged as presiding ideas within the prison system. Prison is based upon a series of ideas about what criminal behavior means to the public. The public loses its respect for people who are caught committing a crime and disdain becomes the social pressure that has created an atmosphere of shunning on those who are sentenced into prison. Two different types of remedies have emerged in order to replace the sense of respect that is lost from the community and replace it from within a new culture. Richard Sennett (2011) who writes a book that is part autobiography and part sociological perspective grew up in Chicago’s Cabrini Green where the environment was developed into a gang based, criminally oriented belief system in which the only way to succeed was through joining some form of crime organization. He brings to the forefront that when society treats a group of people as if they are not seen and whose presence does not matter to the larger society, they will experience a scarcity of respect. The result will be that the community will create their own dynamics for respect, new rules through which this scarcity is resolved. This is what happens in the prison system where the basic human respect that is expected on the outside is no longer available. Prison Violence One of the problems that emerge is that prison violence becomes a means of establishing position and power within the prison system. According to Gaines and Miller (2012) the deprivation model is relevant to why inmate aggression is increased within prison where it may be negligible outside of prison environments. The deprivation model for prisoner aggression stems from the idea that the reaction to not having the human benefits of normal life is violence. This supports the idea that by sending someone to prison they are being made into a better criminal. The new culture is not one of mainstream society’s making thus it is in the control of the prison population who has experienced the deprivation of what it is to be in the mainstream population. Lee H. Bowker of Humboldt State University identified a list of objectives that are the cause of violence in prison. The first is it deters others from victimizing an individual who creates a reputation for violence. The second is that it will enhance the self-image within the environment of the prison where intelligence and other more ‘civilized’ attributes are not cause for respect. The violence of rape gives both sexual relief and establishes dominance. Finally, it can be a means to require resources where other means are not available (Gaines & Miller, 2012). This means that the economy of the outside world is no longer relevant inside and the theory of violence is based on the idea that a new society has emerged in which this is the means for gaining respect, status, and survival. Hierarchies and Status in Attica Correctional Facility The culture that has developed in Attica Correctional Facility is defined by its association of respect to status. The entire system participates in the creation of this culture. Administrators are without much influence on the development of the hierarchy in Attica. The corrections officers have a status system among their own ranks that is maintained and the prisoners enforce their status ranking on a different basis. Prisoners must participate in the violence and competition for status that exists within their community in order to be a part of the community of prisoners. The culture within Attica Correctional Facility is based upon gaining respect in order to have resources accessible and to be safe from harm from others. Roberto Rivera defined the status hierarchy after having spent some time within the Attica Correctional Facility. The following is a list of categories in which most prisoners would find their position within the community. Dominant prisoners are those who are willing to use violence to get what they want. Prisoners with resources are those that can operate within the prison economy and gain access to those items and actions that other prisoners ask them to do. Marginalized prisoners are those who have weaker groups such as those with religion, who are active students within the prison, who are involved in programs, and those who have no social ties. The weaker and more stigmatized prisoners are those who are snitches, sex offenders, homosexual, child abusers, ‘bitches’ (someone who is considered feminine in the system because they cannot protect themselves) or a ‘punk’ which is someone’s forced sex slave (Kupers, London, & Sabo, 2001). Within the institution there are terms that are used that on the outside would seem interchangeable, but denote different types of prisoners. A prisoner is someone who is held in the prison against his will, is respected and a leader among prisoners, but does not bend to the system by snitching. He will usually be viewed as a problem for officials because he sees no need to show authority respect. A convict has been convicted of a crime, but he thinks he has been a victim of the existing system. He will try to get away with as much as possible within the system, while believing that he does not belong in it. An inmate is someone who acts as an informant, either snitching about outside activities or about those that happen in the prison. This term is used as a way of deceiving the public about the abuses and injustices that happen inside facilities. In other words, it is used to refer to a snitch because of the reality of its deception as a term to describe the condition of being in prison for those outside of the prison. The correctional officer is someone who is fair and decent to the prisoners, but the term prison guard is used for someone who uses his position to oppress or diminish the humanity of those inside Attica (Kupers, London, & Sabo, 2001). The use of terms that have specific meanings to the members of the society within Attica creates a community that has defined roles and responsibilities. Within the prison there is a reflection of the common ideologies that are the foundation of the ‘male code’, but they are intensified so that what may be meaningless on the outside becomes a much stronger gesture on the inside. In Attica, just like any other prison, there is a very simple code of conduct: remain silent about what you see, remain vigilant about what you are perceived capable of doing to protect yourself, and always be prepared to fight. The foundation of the code is that the prisoners exhibit solidarity against the guards. This quiet, but potent respect that comes from not being willing to be a part of the system is how the code of respect is developed (Kupers, London, & Sabo, 2001). Despite the fact that it can be broken down very easily, the code within the prison system is subtle and complex. Men on the outside are in competition for jobs, women, and status that comes from working within the system and showing success. When they fall from grace and show that they cannot succeed within the boundaries of society they are sent to prison. Society tends to look at prisoners as the failures of a culture, the ones whom have earned their position in a place where dark dangers lurk. The fear of rape is a potent fear for men in prison and outside of prison. This is a symbolic and violent means of placing a man on the bottom, in the position of a woman who is dominated by another male. Their experiences in the prison when they are raped are that they are low on all social scales and have been forgotten. They are no longer relevant as a male in society (Kupers, London, & Sabo, 2001). Conclusion The term respect is one that is very important in the construction of social order in the Attica Correctional facility. The facility is known for housing some of the worst criminals in the United States, leaving the structure for abuse open from both inmates and guards where people have largely forgotten about those who enter into those walls. Respect, therefore, is won through violent and physical confrontation. This allows those in the culture within the walls to determine who has status and who will be the weaker section of the population. While male dominated codes and structures are at the core of the hierarchy, there are some unique concepts in a prison that already has a great deal of structure. Male dominance is at the center of this construction of social order and at the core of male dominance is the need for having respect, showing respect, and earning respect. Some prisoners earn respect just to keep them safe while others earn it to gain power among their peers. The one solidarity that is common among all the prisoners is against the guards. From the evidence of the 1971 riot and the restrictions that are enforced on the behavior of men in the prison system that this nuances and subtleties of life in Attica are often built upon the fragile amounts of freedom they are given. Without the development of structures of respect, they would be lost to the oppression that the guards and the system impose. References Danver, S. L. (2011). Revolts, protests, demonstrations, and rebellions in American history: An encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. Elijah, S. (2012). Attica must be shut down. City Limits. Retrieved from http://www.citylimits.org/news/articles/4629/attica-must-be-shut-down#.UkyyvxAQPHQ Gaines, L. K., & Miller, R. L. (2012). Criminal justice in action: The core. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning. Gottschalk, M. (2011). The prison and the gallows. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Kupers, T. A., London, W. J., & Sabo, D. F. (2001). Prison masculinities. Philadelphia, PA: Temple Univ. Press. Rainwater, L. (2011). Deviance & liberty: Social problems and public policy. New Brunswick: AldineTransaction. Sennett, R. (2011). Respect in a world of inequality. New York, NY: W.W. Norton and Company. Read More