ATS1423 Chap.4 Prisons and the Experience of Punishment
Prisons and the Experience of Punishment
Prisons and the Experience of Punishment looks at prison from the inside. The Week 4 overview frames the topic with the principle that people go to prison as punishment and not for punishment, then notes the extra punishments prisons hand out: solitary confinement and lost visits, work and programs. The required reading by von Hirsch sets out the desert theory of proportionate sentencing.
The textbook chapter supplies the numbers, from the national imprisonment rate and the over-representation of Indigenous people to the costs of imprisonment, and the concepts that explain prison life: prisonisation, the deprivation and importation explanations, the total institution and the pains of imprisonment.
The tutorial asks groups to research how imprisonment affects particular populations, including women, First Nations people, young people, people with disability and older prisoners, and then to redesign a prison to reduce harm.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Imprisonment versus custody and how rates are measured
- 02
Imprisonment rates across Australian jurisdictions
- 03
Indigenous over-representation in prison
- 04
Desert theory and proportionate punishment
- 05
Prisonisation and the inmate code
- 06
Deprivation and importation explanations of prison culture
- 07
The pains of imprisonment and the total institution
- 08
Costs, families and alternatives to imprisonment
Worked example · free
Explain a prison culture problem with both models
- 1Define prisonisation as adopting the norms of an inmate subculture built on conflict between guards and prisoners.
- 1Deprivation explanation: the culture is an adaptation to the pains of imprisonment, such as lost autonomy, security and relationships.
- 1Importation explanation: prisoners bring antisocial values with them from outside, so the culture reflects who is imprisoned.
- 1Policy: deprivation points to changing prison conditions and regimes; importation points to who is sent to prison and to support before entry.
Key terms
- Imprisonment rate
- The number of prisoners per 100,000 adults or people, which controls for population size so that jurisdictions can be compared.
- Desert theory
- Von Hirsch's account of sentencing in which the severity of punishment should be proportionate to the seriousness of the offence rather than its predicted effects.
- Importation explanation
- The view that prison culture reflects the values and characteristics prisoners bring with them from outside the institution.
- Total institution
- A setting such as a prison in which almost every liberty and right of the people held there is removed and daily life is controlled.
- Pains of imprisonment
- The deprivations that come with prison life: of liberty, goods and services, relationships, autonomy, security and power.
- Prisonisation
- The process of adopting the norms of an inmate subculture built on conflict between guards and inmates, beginning with the symbolic depersonalisation of entry.
Prisons and the Experience of Punishment FAQ
What does prison as punishment, not for punishment, mean?
It means the loss of liberty is the whole of the sentence. Prisons should not add further punishment through harsh conditions, so solitary confinement, lost visits or lost programs that go beyond the sentence are failures of the system.
How over-represented are Indigenous people in Australian prisons?
The textbook reports that in 2017 the age-standardised Indigenous imprisonment rate was 13 times the non-Indigenous rate, up from a ratio of ten to one in 2000, and Indigenous people made up 27 per cent of prisoners.
Do prisons reduce reoffending?
The textbook describes prison as a revolving door: in 2017, 57 per cent of people in custody had been imprisoned before, rising to 76 per cent of Indigenous prisoners, and it asks whether the prison itself is criminogenic.
How much more does prison cost than community corrections?
The prisons chapter gives about $283 per prisoner per day in 2016 to 2017 against $23 for community corrections, and the community corrections chapter gives $210 against $21 for 2015 to 2016. Always quote the year.
Is desert theory a case for harsher sentences?
No. Von Hirsch argues that proportionality points toward moderate overall penalty levels and that mandatory sentences are inconsistent with it, so the theory constrains severity rather than inflating it.
What is the difference between deprivation and importation explanations?
The deprivation explanation treats prison culture as an adaptation to the pains of imprisonment inside the institution. The importation explanation says prisoners bring antisocial values in from outside. The textbook also allows a combination of both.
Assessment move
Memorise the six pains of imprisonment and the two explanations of prison culture, then practise one paragraph that uses both to explain a specific problem. Keep the key figures with their years on a single card, because the two textbook chapters give different cost figures for different years.
For essay prompt 3, start a comparison table now with Australian imprisonment, recidivism and cost figures that you can set beside another country.
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