The prison's double bottom

Abstract

People well acquainted with prisons often wonder what is it that prevents the existence of peaceful prisons, or in other words, is it possible to provide a peaceful serving of one's time to those inmates who wish so. Another related issue is whether such a model of the prison may be designed that will enable the staff, primarily the experts-educators, to work normally. In an ideal-typical prison system everyone should do their job. The jailers should engage in daily supervision of the inmates and take care of their security, while the educators, far less numerous, should concentrate on the resocialization of the inmates. Together with craftsmen-instructors in the workshops, jailers and educators should exert a unified educational influence synchronized by the prison management. In practice, however, such unified educational influence does not exist. Moreover, between the jailers and the educators there is a dualism which often grows into antagonism. The informal inmate system is taking advantage of all this, seeing in this rivalry a chance to impose itself upon the management as the guarantor of peace. As a consequence, peaceful prison is impossible to establish in practice, since it suits neither the inmates nor the management. Both sides favor compromise or status quo, because they profit from it.