This chapter examines the death of prisoners from illness in prison. It brings together first-person accounts and other research on the experiences of aging, being ill, and dying in prison, with and without formal hospice care, and the experiences of those working in hospice, caring for other prisoners at end of life. It considers these accounts, emphasizing Butler's analysis of livability and asking the question: what makes life, death, and grief in prison livable? It argues that adequately considering (...) the complexity of prison hospice programs means attending not just to how, where, and with whom prisoners are dying but also to who is most likely to be imprisoned, how their relationships are likely to be constrained, and how their lives and deaths are most likely to be perceived. Formal and informal hospice programs are important not only for the way prisoners provide basic care to each other within them but for the way they also allow for recognizing and mourning those who die in prison, as significant, remembered, and grievable. (shrink)

Prisons are a feminist issue. This chapter offers an account of central issues and themes in feminist philosophical work on prisons, examples of important contributions, and future directions for feminist work in the field. It does so, however, in a way that consciously deploys a feminist methodology that resists the replication of hierarchical norms and structural violence in the very doing of theory and history. In this spirit, it emphasizes the record of struggle across the prison’s history, the resistance efforts (...) that live behind individual academic theories, the conceptual frameworks generated by groups bearing the brunt of carcerality, and it investigates alternative strategies of harm reduction developed across those communities. The chapter closes with an explicit exploration of prison abolitionism, which works not only to radically rethink punishment but also to shift the locus of voice and leadership. In so doing, the chapter aims to review, as much as to create anew, a feminist theoretical analysis of prisons. (shrink)

In The Idea of Prison Abolition, Tommie Shelby evaluates arguments for and against the elimination of incarceration as a mode of punishment. In this article, we discuss and expand upon Shelby's arguments, using two very different systems—those of Norway and the United States—as examples to illustrate some general principles.

The value of and the need for rich data for criminal justice research is increasingly apparent, especially following recent restrictions on primary data collection due to COVID-19. Whilst the benefits of using administrative data for research are well established, less understood are the perspectives of data contributors and their expectations for the ethical governance and use of these data. This study describes the findings from a preliminary study comprising four focus groups with a total of seventeen adult males serving sentences (...) in a Category A prison in England. Participants were asked to offer opinions about the possibility of making survey data collected from them as part of the prison inspection process more widely accessible, beyond the organizational priorities for which it was initially collected. Generally, participants were content for survey data to be shared with recipients who intended to use the data to bring about change within prisons; this aligns with the purpose for data collection. Participants were opposed to data being made accessible to recipients who might produce spurious findings. We discuss implications for the future accessibility of a vast wealth of prisoner survey data in England and Wales and highlight the importance of consultation with incarcerated persons on this subject. (shrink)

Prison as a Torturous Institution Philosophers working on torture have largely failed to address the widespread use of torture in the U.S. prison system. Drawing on a victim-focused definition of torture, I argue that the U.S. prison system is a torturous institution in which direct torture occurs (the use of solitary confinement) and in which torture is allowed to occur through the toleration of sexual assault of inmates and the conditions of mass incarceration. The use and toleration of torture expresses (...) and reinforces the moral exclusion of those subjected to it, particularly African Americans. Importantly, this moral exclusion and the experience of torture may be created and reinforced through institutional practices independently of the intentions of individuals acting within those institutions. By prioritizing torture victims’ experiences and severing the link between torture and intention, my account forces a recognition that, far from being inconsistent with U.S. values, torture is deeply embedded within U.S. institutions. (shrink)

We make the case that the Prisoner’s Dilemma, notwithstanding its fame and the quantity of intellectual resources devoted to it, has largely failed to explain any phenomena of social scientific or biological interest. In the heart of the paper we examine in detail a famous purported example of Prisoner’s Dilemma empirical success, namely Axelrod’s analysis of WWI trench warfare, and argue that this success is greatly overstated. Further, we explain why this negative verdict is likely true generally and not just (...) in our case study. We also address some possible defenses of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. (shrink)

Experiments in which subjects play simultaneously several finite two-person prisoner's dilemma supergames with and without an outside option reveal that: an attractive outside option enhances cooperation in the prisoner's dilemma game, if the payoff for mutual defection is negative, subjects' tendency to avoid losses leads them to cooperate; while this tendency makes them stick to mutual defection if its payoff is positive, subjects use probabilistic start and endeffect behavior.

The Republic of the Ukraine has a huge prison population and a large prison health care system. Like all other public services in that country it is lacking in sufficient funds to operate adequately and with due respect to the human rights of the prisoners and its health care employees. This report and observations are based on my knowledge of the Ukrainian health care system and a visit to a Ukrainian prison hospital. It includes some ethical reflections stemming from (...) this experience. Although problem-solving exercises can often help to point to areas of potential intervention that could ameliorate a troublesome situation, in this case prison health care conditions cannot be substituted for economic growth, political stability or increased awareness of societal moral obligations. (shrink)

In the classic abolitionist text, Prison on Trial, Thomas Mathieson argues that imprisonment cannot be justified by appeal to any standard punitive aim: rehabilitation, deterrence, incapacitation, or retribution. The aim of this paper is to give prison an ‘appeal hearing’: to examine whether it can be justified by a set of punitive aims not considered by Mathieson. In particular, it asks whether imprisonment can be justified by the ‘communicative’ theory of punishment proposed by Antony Duff. Duff sees imprisonment as having (...) an important role in a properly ‘communicative’ system of criminal justice: to serve as the ultimate sanction for offenders who fail to comply with other forms of punishment; to shock offenders into repentance for their crimes; and to communicate to offenders in a symbolically appropriate way the seriousness of their offence. This paper argues that each of Duff’s rationales fails: using prison as an ultimate sanction violates the communicative principle of treating offenders as responsible moral agents; the evidence suggests that prison will impede rather than facilitate repentant understanding; and while prison might be able to express censure, it is not rationally connected to enabling a meaningful moral dialogue. As such, it concludes that this particular appeal hearing for imprisonment fails. (shrink)

Is capitalism inherently predatory? Must there be winners and losers? Is public interest outdated and free-riding rational? Is consumer choice the same as self-determination? Must bargainers abandon the no-harm principle? Prisoners of Reason recalls that classical liberal capitalism exalted the no-harm principle. Although imperfect and exclusionary, modern liberalism recognized individual human dignity alongside individuals' responsibility to respect others. Neoliberalism, by contrast, views life as ceaseless struggle. Agents vie for scarce resources in antagonistic competition in which every individual seeks dominance. (...) This political theory is codified in non-cooperative game theory; the neoliberal citizen and consumer is the strategic rational actor. Rational choice justifies ends irrespective of means. Money becomes the medium of all value. Solidarity and good will are invalidated. Relationships are conducted on a quid pro quo basis. However, agents can freely opt out of this cynical race to the bottom by embracing a more expansive range of coherent action. (shrink)

The abuse of prisoners by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib had far-reaching consequences, leading many people around the world to question the legitimacy of U.S. goals and activities in Iraq. Drawing on extensive unclassified reports from multiple investigations that followed Abu Ghraib, this article considers both psychological and social-situational factors that contributed to ethical failures there. This analysis suggests that leaders need to be more attuned to the developmental stage of subordinates and take appropriate steps to reinforce ethical behaviors. (...) From a psychological standpoint, young adults especially are strongly inclined to behave in accord with social conventions and pressures around them. Particularly in ambiguous circumstances, it is important that standards of behavior be clear and explicit throughout all phases of an operation and that leaders at all levels represent and reinforce those standards. (shrink)

The paper explores the effects of social disablement caused by imprisonment, analyzing how this institution can exacerbate existing disability conditions or create new ones. Through a review of sociological literature, it highlights how the prison context can significantly contribute to an additional level of disablement. Considering the incapacitating effects of imprisonment, it emerges that the prison system acts as a “producer” of social disablement, intensifying marginalization processes and increasing societal disparities. This process is fueled by prison overcrowding, loss of employment (...) and housing, suspension of social assistance, and the breakdown of family ties, creating a vicious cycle that generates and reinforces social disablement. The article underscores the need for greater attention and research in the field of disability within the prison environment, considering the dynamic interaction between individual conditions and contextual factors that influence it. Furthermore, it calls for a critical reflection on the social function and practices of prison institutions, proposing a more inclusive approach that reconsiders penal structures and policies to mitigate the disabling effects of detention. (shrink)

Columbia University Press's multivolume _Prison Notebooks_ is the only complete critical edition of Antonio Gramsci's seminal writings in English. Based on the authoritative Italian edition of Gramsci's work, _Quaderni del Carcere_, this comprehensive translation presents the intellectual as he ought to be read and understood, with critical notes that clarify Gramsci's history, culture, and sources; an index of names; and a contextualization of the thinker's ideas against his earlier writings and letters. This set includes notebooks 1 through 8 with all (...) attendant notes and materials and is an indispensible resource for scholars in the humanities and social sciences. (shrink)

. “Normal” Prisons in an “abnormal” society? A comparative perspective on South African prison law and practice. Criminal Justice Ethics: Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 37-51. doi: 10.1080/0731129X.1987.9991816.

The standard, non‐repeated prisoner's dilemma poses no true dilemma about rationality, we argue. What the prisoners ought rationally to do, unless they are selfless, depends on the relationship of trust that they have or lack with one another. This helps to diffuse the apparent conflict between individual and collective rationality. If the prisoners have reason to trust one another, pursuing a joint strategy would be rational for them. In the absence of trust, pursuing an individual strategy would be (...) rational. The solution that is supposed to be puzzling – because each prisoner confessing is worse for both than the alternative on which both remain silent – is simply the rational solution for persons who have no reason to trust one another. Philosophers have been misled by the apparent availability of the better alternative. Collective rationality is not relevant for persons who do not stand in a trusting relationship. When they do, there is no unresolved conflict between their individual and collective points of view.1. (shrink)

It is illegitimate to read any ontology about "race" off of biological theory or data. Indeed, the technical meaning of "genetic variation" is fluid, and there is no single theoretical agreed-upon criterion for defining and distinguishing populations (or groups or clusters) given a particular set of genetic variation data. Thus, by analyzing three formal senses of "genetic variation"—diversity, differentiation, and heterozygosity—we argue that the use of biological theory for making epistemic claims about "race" can only seem plausible when it relies (...) on the user’s own assumptions about race; the move from biological measures to claims about “race” inevitably amounts to a pernicious reification. We also excavate assumptions in the history of the technical discourse over the concept of "race" (e.g., Livingstone's and Dobzhansky's 1962 exchange, Edwards' 2003 response to Lewontin 1972, as well as contemporary discussions of cladistic "race", and "races" as clusters). We show that claims about the existence (or non-existence) of "race" are underdetermined by biological facts, methods, and theories. Biological theory does not force the concept of "race" upon us; our social discourse, social ontology, and social expectations do. We become prisoners of our abstractions at our own hands, and at our own expense. (shrink)

Manuela Ivone P. da Cunha est professeur à l'Universidade do Minho, CRIA-UM et chercheur associé à l'IDEMEC. Nous la remercions de nous avoir autorisé à reproduire ce texte déjà paru dans S. Humbert, N. Derasse & J.-P. Royer, La prison, du temps passé au temps dépassé, Paris, L'Harmattan, 2012, p. 143-153. Nous avons souvent tendance, notamment dans les rencontres scientifiques qui font du temps leur protagoniste, à parler de différents types de temps – le temps de la - Anthropologie – (...) Nouvel article. (shrink)

The Prisoner's Dilemma is a popular device used by researchers to analyze such institutions as business and the modern corporation. This popularity is not deserved under a certain condition that is widespread in college education. If we, as management educators, take seriously our parts in preparing our students to participate in the institutions of a democratic society, then the Prisoner's Dilemma—as clever a rhetorical device as it is—is an unacceptable means to that end. By posing certain questions about the (...) class='Hi'>prisoners in the Prisoner's Dilemma, I show that management educators have created a Prisoners Dilemma, whereby they intellectually imprison themselves and their students by continuing to appeal to the Prisoner's Dilemma. These questions are not encouraged by the advocates of the Prisoner's Dilemma. (shrink)

Schools of economic ethics inspired by Buchanan propose viewing ethical conflicts as prisoners’ dilemmas to facilitate solutions based on Pareto-improving institutional changes. Given that healthcare is determined by complex institutional arrangements, it has been claimed that this approach is also suitable for business ethics in healthcare. To scrutinize this claim, this research systematically searched for studies reporting PD structures in healthcare. PubMed, EconLit, and EconBiz were searched to find articles in German and English. Study type, characteristics of the game, (...) and the proposed means to overcome the dilemma were extracted and analyzed for aspects supporting or challenging the claim. Across 53 studies, 68 descriptions of various dilemmas in healthcare and public health were identified. Many authors successfully developed proposals for institutional change to overcome these dilemmas. However, many of these analyses exhibited limitations such as oversimplifications or inconsistencies. Also, the quality of evidence on both the characteristics of dilemmas and the effectiveness of proposed solutions was very poor. The subsamples of studies that explicitly cited the ethical approach were disjunct from those that applied empirical methods to analyze the dilemmas. The large number of identified PDs indicates that economic ethics is relevant to healthcare. However, there is a need for further evidence to substantiate both the descriptive and prescriptive claims of this ethical theory. It should thus be seen as a complement that needs justification, rather than a substitute superior to other ethical frameworks. (shrink)

In a military-sponsored research project begun during the Second World War, inmates of the Stateville Penitentiary in Illinois were infected with malaria and treated with experimental drugs that sometimes had vicious side effects. They were made into reservoirs for the disease and they provided a food supply for the mosquito cultures. They acted as secretaries and technicians, recording data on one another, administering malarious mosquito bites and experimental drugs to one another, and helping decide who was admitted to the project (...) and who became eligible for early parole as a result of his participation. Thus, the prisoners were not simply research subjects; they were deeply constitutive of the research project. Because a prisoner’s time on the project was counted as part of his sentence, and because serving on the project could shorten one’s sentence, the project must be seen as simultaneously serving the functions of research and punishment. Michel Foucault wrote about such ‘mixed mechanisms’ in his Discipline and punish. His shining example of such a ‘transparent’ and subtle style of punishment was the panopticon, Jeremy Bentham’s architectural invention of prison cellblocks arrayed around a central guard tower. Stateville prison was designed on Bentham’s model; Foucault featured it in his own discussion. This paper, then, explores the power relations in this highly idiosyncratic experimental system, in which the various roles of model organism, reagent, and technician are all occupied by sentient beings who move among them fluidly. This, I argue, created an environment in the Stateville hospital wing more panoptic than that in the cellblocks. Research and punishment were completely interpenetrating, and mutually reinforcing. (shrink)

This volume makes good on a promise that the author made in his Ancient Menippean Satire , namely, to use that tradition to offer an interpretation of Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy. Building on a trend in recent scholarship to reclaim the Consolation as a Christian work, on his own well-received translation of the Consolation , and on the literary criticism associated with Northrop Frye and Mikhail Bakhtin, Relihan argues that attentiveness to the ironies typical of Menippean satire can help to (...) resolve the problem that is presented by the lack of any explicit testimony to Boethius's Christian faith within the Consolation. Had Boethius somehow found his religion insufficient for coping with his prison experience and reverted to philosophy for comfort in the face of imminent death? Going beyond the stance that the Consolation has merely some latent religious convictions, Relihan argues that Boethius is using the resources of Menippean satire to show the limits of pagan philosophy and the need to turn to prayer instead. (shrink)

As these opening quotes acknowledge, the Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD) represents a core puzzle within the formal mathematics of game theory.3 Its rise in conspicuity is evident figure 2.1 above demonstrating a relatively steady rise in incidences of the phrase’s usage between 1960 to 1995, with a stable presence persisting into the twenty first century. This famous two-person “game,” with a stock narrative cast in terms of two prisoners who each independently must choose whether to remain silent or speak, each (...) advancing self-interest at the expense of the other and thereby achieving a mutually suboptimal outcome, mires any social interaction it is applied to into perplexity. The logic of this game proves the inverse of Adam Smith’s invisible hand: individuals acting on self interest will achieve a mutually suboptimal outcome. However, as this chapter illuminates, the assumptions underlying game theory drive this conclusion. (shrink)

Rising numbers of ageing prisoners and goals on implementing equivalent health care in prison raise issues surrounding end-of-life care for prisoners. The paucity of research on this topic in Europe means that the needs of older prisoners contemplating death in prison have not been established. To investigate elderly prisoners’ attitudes towards death and dying, 35 qualitative interviews with inmates aged 51 to 71 years were conducted in 12 Swiss prisons. About half of the prisoners reported (...) having thought about dying in prison, with some mentioning it in relation with suicidal thoughts and others to disease and old age. Themes identified during data analysis included general thoughts about death and dying, accounts of other prisoners’ deaths, availability of end-of-life services, contact with social relations, and wishes to die outside of prison. Study findings are discussed using Allmark’s concept of “death without indignities,” bringing forth two ethical issues: fostering autonomy and removing barriers. Attributing the identified themes to these two ethical actions clarifies the current needs of ageing prisoners in Switzerland and could be a first step towards the implementation of end-of-life services in correctional systems. (shrink)

This chapter will discuss ethical issues connected with neuroscientific research on prisoners, focusing specifically on whether participating in such research should always be disregarded when making decisions about early release from prison. It was once routine in some jurisdictions for a prisoner’s participation in medical research to count as “good behaviour”, which could be given weight in decisions about early release. However, medical ethicists now widely regard this practice as ethically problematic, because prisoners might feel pressurised to participate (...) in medical research programmes by the desire to escape a coercive and harsh prison environment, and thus their agreement to take part in the programme might not satisfy the freedom requirement for valid consent. Yet, there may be a tension between traditional medical ethics and theories of punishment (a tension which also arises in other contexts at the interface between medicine and punishment). From the perspective of retributive or communication/reform-based theories of punishment, it might seem unfair for parole boards to disregard willingness to participate in medical research, if the prisoner were motivated by altruistic considerations. This altruism might indicate that the prisoner “deserves” a shorter sentence or may be a sign that the prisoner has reformed. This chapter will consider whether/how this tension between traditional medical ethics and penal theories can be resolved. For example, if the medical research involves relatively safe interventions such as fish oil pills or transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), then the above-mentioned worries about prisoners’ ability to provide free consent may be less pressing than if the risks of side-effects were greater. Furthermore, the validity of consent also seems to depend partly on whether the prison conditions are humane or excessively harsh. In addition, problems also arise in this context from within penal theories. Ironically, transparency about what factors will be taken into account in decisions about early release, which would presumably be encouraged by communication/reform theories, could raise the possibility that the prisoner was motivated to participate in the research programme by a desire for early release rather than altruism, thus making it harder to determine whether participation is a genuine sign of reform. (shrink)

It is generally believed that, for a one-off Prisoner’s Dilemma game, it is logical to defect. However, both players cooperating is apparently a better choice than both defecting, hence the dilemma. In this paper, by resorting to Ramsey’s Test, Kripke’s possible world semantics, and Stalnaker/Lewis-style account of conditionals, I show that the first horn of the Prisoner’s Dilemma is an unsound argument. It originates from failing to differentiate between a possible world and a possible set of possible worlds and failing (...) to observe that the set of accessible possible worlds associated with a possible world in general varies from conditional to conditional. This phenomenon can also be illustrated in terms of the recently developed hi-world semantics. Moreover, a meta-argument is constructed to establish the non-existence of a logical argument for defection. (shrink)

Prisoners signify: a political discourse analysis of mental illness in a prison control unitIncreasingly, US prisoners diagnosed with mental illness are housed in control units, the most restrictive form of confinement in the US prison system. This situation has led to intense debate over the legal, ethical and clinical status of mental illness. This is a semiotic struggle with profound effects, yet most related work treats mental illness as a neutral, individual variable. Few analyses locate mental illness within (...) a larger sociopolitical context. Fewer still focus on discursive practice. None critically analyze the accounts of control unit prisoners, who talk about extreme marginality and risk for victimization. This paper has two aims: (i) to develop a systematic method of analysis that accounts for signification as discourse‐in‐action; and (ii) to show how prisoners’ signification of mental illness articulates agency through and against marginalizing discourse. Political discourse analysis demonstrates how control unit prisoners with psychiatric diagnoses signify mental illness, and articulate safer identifications in the process. (shrink)

Prisons & Punishment focuses on cross-national perspectives about penal theories and empirical studies. It brings together African, European and North American social philosophers, sociologists, political scientists, legal practitioners, prisoners and abolitionist activists. The contributors reflect on carceral society, most notably in the United States, and on the re-conceptualisation of punishment.

The first English translation of the Prison Narratives written by the seventeenth-century French mystic and Quietist, Jeanne Guyon . Guyon describes her confinement between 1695 and 1703 in various prisons, including the dreaded Bastille, and the introduction provides a comprehensive context for Guyon's writing.

The recent trend toward privately owned and operated prisons calls attention to a variety of issues involving human rights. The growing number of corporatized correctional institutions is especially notable in the United States, but it is also a global phenomenon in many countries. The reasons cited for privatizing prisons are usually economic; the opportunity to outsource prison services enables local political leaders to save tax revenue, and local communities are promised a chance to create new jobs and bring in a (...) new industry. This article will address the history of prisons and the recent trend toward privatizing prisons and the perception of prisons as a for-profit enterprise. This new economic order brings with it a set of human rights concerns, including the relationship of for-profit prisons to increased numbers of incarcerated persons and increased sentences, racism and classism. The contractual relationship between political leaders and prison corporations will be addressed, noting that conditions of liability frequently mean that prison administrations lack motivation to safeguard the human rights of prisoners. The human rights issues often extend outside of the private prison itself, having a negative effect on the local community. (shrink)

The deceptive strangeness of prescience in Dune is typical of Herbert's ideas. The ancient Babylonians were able to systematically predict astronomical events, but contemporary astrophysicists can forecast distant events beyond the Babylonians’ wildest dreams. Herbert describes the prescience of characters like Paul as a hyperawareness of possibilities and probabilities given certain choices, rather than being able to examine a fixed future. Common sense suggests that prescience should help us live together better. The Prisoner's Dilemma can be interpreted in different ways, (...) but the basic logic is always the same. The Prisoner's Dilemma is an imaginary interaction between “prisoners,” but it actually might make more sense with prescient characters from the Duniverse. Stuart Hampshire argued that self‐knowledge tends to have the opposite effect – that it makes us freer. Prescience is a vastly expanded understanding of possible and probable consequences given information and choices, not the observation of a fixed future. (shrink)

Prisoner's dilemmas can lead rational people to interact in ways that lead to persistent inefficiencies. These dilemmas create a problem for institutional designers to solve: devise institutions that realign individual incentives to achieve collectively rational outcomes. I will argue that we do not always want to eliminate misalignments between individual incentives and efficient outcomes. Sometimes we want to preserve prisoner's dilemmas, even when we know that they systematically will lead to inefficiencies. No doubt, prisoner's dilemmas can create problems, but they (...) also create opportunities to practice the cooperative norms that make market institutions possible in the first place. An ethical market culture, I argue, benefits from the presence of prisoner's dilemmas. I first consider standard approaches for solving prisoner's dilemmas. I then argue for the value of prisoner's dilemmas. Finally, I show the significance of this argument for advocating codes of business ethics. (shrink)

The purpose of this research will be to present the classroom management issues faced by prison teachers and introduce strategies applied by prison teachers managing them within the formal education system in correctional service. Cell classrooms, inmate students, and prison teachers’ characteristics and the importance of prison education are to be analyzed within Kosovo Correctional Service. To reach these goals three questions will be raised: 1. What are the classroom management issues in prison schools? 2. Are the prison teachers professionally (...) prepared to teach to inmate students? and 3. Do prison schools differ from schools in the common world? This study will be introduced through qualitative data and a literature review as instruments of the study dedicated to prison classroom management and characteristics, teachers and inmates’ responsibilities and benefits within the informal education system within Kosovo Correctional Service. The research findings revealed that similar classroom management issues are present in prison schooling compared to classrooms in the free world; prison teachers are not additionally prepared to teach in prison classrooms to inmate students. Prisoners, who plan to rehabilitate and reintegrate themselves through formal prison education, want their circumstances and prison characteristics to be taken into consideration by all factors involved in their schooling within prison walls. (shrink)

The focus of this article will be on inserting the words of older women in prison into debates on time, agency and gendered identities in total institutions. Specifically, the article will address the complexity and contradictions of the time of ‘a mediated real’, and how this impacts on embodied identities within prison timescapes. This will be explored through looking at how prison-time as a ‘somatic identity cipher’ functions performatively in the construction of older women’s identities. The article will also examine (...) how female elders in prison become agents and negotiate techniques of discipline. The role of prison-time will be shown to be simultaneously experienced as further punishment while also being resisted as we draw out the relationship between temporality, spaces of incarceration and identification. First, we will locate the field in terms of issues of theory and method. Then we will look at performativity, identity and time in negotiating, acquiescing to and resisting the identity ‘prisoner’. This will enable us to understand the role and meaning of time in relation to how females in prison are compelled to reiterate and negotiate the identity ‘prisoner’ within the discipline of ‘the time of incarceration’. We hope to demonstrate through the voices of the women that there is no single abstract imprisoned body. These are real bodies, fleshy, sensate bodies that experience real pain; at the same time, these bodies are not simply given but also interpreted, mediated and in part constituted in social and cultural meanings. This enables us to show that the body can be both a generator and receptor of meanings. (shrink)

It has long been held that humans need government to impose social order on a chaotic, dangerous world. How, then, did early humans survive on the Serengeti Plain, surrounded by faster, stronger, and bigger predators in a harsh and forbidding environment? Pirates, Prisoners, and Lepers examines an array of natural experiments and accidents of human history to explore the fundamental nature of how human beings act when beyond the scope of the law. Pirates of the 1700s, the leper colony (...) on Molokai Island, prisoners of the Nazis, hippie communes of the 1970s, shipwreck and plane crash survivors, and many more diverse groups--all existed in the absence of formal rules, punishments, and hierarchies. Paul and Sarah Robinson draw on these real-life stories to suggest that humans are predisposed to be cooperative within limits. What these "communities" did and how they managed have dramatic implications for shaping our modern institutions. Should today's criminal justice system build on people's shared intuitions about justice? Or are we better off acknowledging this aspect of human nature but using law to temper it? Knowing the true nature of our human character and our innate ideas about justice offers a roadmap to a better society. (shrink)

Much has been written about prisoner research and the controversies surrounding prisoners as human subjects. The Institute of Medicine recently released a report addressing some of these issues. This report, which generated further controversy, needs to be fully discussed in the literature and certain aspects are examined in this work. Further, in the body of literature there has been little acknowledgement of the concept of the right of prisoners to be involved in research. This needs to be pursued (...) from an ethical perspective and eventually a legal one. This paper explores that concept and documents some facilities in which a prisoner's right to research has occurred. (shrink)

Is game theory good for us? This may seem an odd question. In the strict sense, game theory—the axiomatic account of interaction between rational agents—is as morally neutral as arithmetic. But the popularization of game theory as a way of thinking about social interaction is far from neutral. Consider the contrast between characterizing bargaining over distribution as a “zero-sum society” and focussing on “win-win” cooperative solutions. These reflections bring us to the book under review, Prisoner's Dilemma, a popular introduction to (...) game theory and its relation to ethics by the respected science writer William Poundstone. The book begins with a moral dilemma and ends by discussing the evolution of co-operation. Poundstone emphasizes—correctly, to my mind—the ethical potential of game theory. He concludes his first chapter with this striking claim: “Today's practitioners of game theory are attempting to forge a kind of ethical progress. Is there any way to promote the common good in a prisoner's dilemma? The attempt to answer this question is one of the great intellectual adventures of our time”. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Prisoner of History: Aspasia of Miletus and Her Biographical TraditionSarah B. PomeroyMadeleine M. Henry. Prisoner of History: Aspasia of Miletus and Her Biographical Tradition. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. 201 pp. Cloth, $29.95.Pericles declared that the best women are those who are known neither for praise nor blame (Thuc. 2.45.2). Despite the invisibility of respectable women in fifth-century Athens, skeletal biographies including the names of (...) their fathers, husbands, sons, and, occasionally, daughters can be constructed. A vignette in Plutarch or a private oration may flesh out the story. Although etiquette discouraged giving the name of a respectable woman while she was alive, she is named in her epitaph. The historian can narrate the entire life of such a woman in a single paragraph.The most famous woman in classical Athens, the only one who rates an entry in the Oxford Classical Dictionary2 (Oxford, 1970) and could be the subject of a full-length biography, is the hetaira Aspasia. Yet even a book devoted to Aspasia who is named in multiple sources including comedy, philosophy, history, and biography fills only 130 pages of text, most of which treat post-classical traditions about Aspasia rather than the life of the woman herself.Chapter 1, a mere nine pages about “Aspasia in Greek History,” is the only part of this book that discusses Aspasia’s actual biography. Henry accepts P. J. Bicknell’s suggestion that Aspasia was an upper-class Milesian whose older sister was married to the Alcibiades who became the grandfather of the notorious Alcibiades (AC 51 [1982] 240–50). An orphan, when she was an adolescent Aspasia came to Athens with her sister and brother-in-law. If this reconstruction is accurate, we must wonder why her brother-in-law did not secure a proper marriage for his young sister-in-law, rather than permit her to become Pericles’ concubine, but perhaps an alliance with the first man in Athens was attractive to the elder Alcibiades. Furthermore he had no legal obligation to dower his sister-in-law. Estate planning and heirship strategies probably influenced Pericles, on his part (cf. Plut. Pericles 16.3–4), for he already had legitimate sons born from his first wife and had no need of another full-fledged marriage. Despite the affection with which Pericles treated Aspasia (Plut. Pericles 24.5–6), he does not seem to have made any arrangements for her future after his death. Lysicles, in turn, who is reported to have married Aspasia, probably regarded a connection with her as a “dynastic marriage” linking himself in this way with the deceased [End Page 648] Pericles. Aspasia made the best of her situation, attempting to bridge the gap between notoriety and respectability: she seems to have confined her attentions to only one man at a time and bore sons whose parentage was never doubted.The very existence of Poristes (“Provider”), the son of Aspasia and Lysicles, is questioned by Henry (43) who suggests that word was used of Aspasia herself. I think it is at least as likely that Lysicles chose his son’s name as his own epithet to refer to his fatherly concern for the Athenians, much the way that the names of Themistocles’ children testify to their father’s political interests. Furthermore, although Henry does not refer to the larger sweep of women’s history, Aspasia lived during the Peloponnesian War, a watershed in the history of Athenian women, when on account of the absence of men at war and the desertion of slaves, the luxury of secluding respectable women had to yield to harsh necessity (see Sarah B. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves [New York, 1975] 66–67). Therefore the traditions that Aspasia lived in the same household with Pericles’ married sons and their wives and that she conversed with married women are believable.In chapter 2, “The Story Told by Comedy,” Henry rejects the testimony of the comic poets, found also in Plutarch (Pericles 24.5), that Aspasia ran a brothel. Yet since her concubinage is evidence of the lack of a dowry, it would have been advantageous for Aspasia to arrange... (shrink)

The paper describes the conservation and interpretation project directed by Tonkin Zulaikha Greer at the Port Arthur penal settlement in Tasmania. Focused on the 1849 Separate Prison, the physical and ideological centrepiece of the Port Arthur settlement, TZG’s brief was to provide a masterplan for the conservation, reconstruction and interpretation of the remaining built fabric.

Philip Pettit’s republican conception of freedom is presented as an alternative both to negative and positive conceptions of freedom. The basic idea is to conceptualize freedom as non-domination, not as non-interference or self-mastery. When compared to negative freedom, Pettit’s republican conception comprises two controversial claims: the claim that we are unfree if we are dominated without actual interference, and the claim that we are free if we face interference without domination. Because the slave is a widely accepted paradigm of the (...) unfree person, the case of a slave with a non-interfering master is often cited as providing a good argument for the first republican claim and against a negative conception of freedom. One aim of this article is to raise doubts about whether this is true. The other aim of the article is to show that the prisoner—also a paradigm of the unfree person—presents a good argument against the second republican claim and in favour of a negative conception of freedom. This is called the ‘prisoner-argument’. It will be argued that neither Pettit’s distinction between free persons and free choices nor his distinction between compromising and conditioning factors of freedom can help to rebut the charge of the prisoner-argument. (shrink)

The position I defend in this paper is that both prisoners and ex-prisoners, at least within present U.S. society, experience a form of oppression that can be distinguished from that inflicted upon other structurally disadvantaged groups. As a result of these U.S. conditions, I also argue that those who have not been or are not currently incarcerated may possess some unearned advantages, similar to but also different from other forms of privilege, such as those based upon race, class, (...) gender, sexuality, and ability. In the first section, I investigate three definitions of oppression to articulate my thesis of prisoner oppression, using the work of Marilyn Frye, Kenneth Clatterbaugh, and Ann E. Cudd. In the second section, I respond to three objections against my thesis. I conclude in the third section with some thoughts on how the preceding arguments should affect the dominant discourse regarding prison reform and abolition. (shrink)

Class, race, and tough-on-crime political platforms are three of the most discussed, and thus most visible, forces that contribute to mass incarceration. The analysis of each of these forces has been illuminating, yet these broad narratives tend to obscure the burden of prison for those locked up within them. The social narratives that have developed to help understand the prison industrial system often inadvertently obscure the complex experiences and losses endured by prisoners. The psychic and physical toll that accrues (...) from decades of social exile, the affronts to dignity that “corrections” regularly impose, and the injuries to one’s sense of themselves and their relationships that prison foments haven’t received the attention they deserve. This essay explores the question of the permissibility of causing harm through imprisonment and social abandonment, arguing that any adequate answer must make the particular experiences and actual concerns of incarcerated people socially visible. (shrink)

Prison On Trial is the classic critique of prisons and imprisonment: a book for everyone's library shelf and collection.

David Gauthier in his article, Maximization constrained: the rationality of cooperation, tries to defend of the joint strategy in situations which no outcome is both equilibrium and optimal. Prisoner’s Dilemma is the most familiar example of these situations. He first starts with some quotes by Hobbes in Leviathan; Hobbes, in chapter 15 discusses an objection by someone is called Foole, and then will reject his view. In response to Foole, Hobbes presents two strategies (i.e. joint and individual) and two kinds (...) of agents in such problems including Prisoner’s Dilemma – i.e. straightforward maximizer (SM) and constrained maximizer(CM). Then he considers two arguments respectively for SM and CM, and he will show that why in an ideal and transparent situation, the first argument fails and the second one would be the only valid argument. likewise, in the following part of his article, he considers more realistic situations with translucency and he concludes that under some conditions, joint strategy would be still the rational decision. (shrink)

The "Prisoner's Dilemma" game has been extensively discussed in both the public and academic press. Thousands of articles and many books have been written about this disturbing game and its apparent representation of many problems of society. The origin of the game is attributed to Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher. I quote from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Puzzles with this structure were devised and discussed by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher in 1950, as part of the Rand CorporationÂ’s investigations (...) into game theory (which Rand pursued because of possible applications to global nuclear strategy). The title "prisonerÂ’s dilemma" and the version with prison sentences as payoffs are due to Albert Tucker, who wanted to make Flood and DresherÂ’s ideas more accessible to an audience of Stanford psychologists. The Prisoner's Dilemma is a short parable about two prisoners who are individually offered a chance to rat on each other for which the "ratter" would receive a lighter sentence and the "rattee" would receive a harsher sentence. The problem results from the fact that both can play this game -- that is, defect -- and if both do, then both do worse than they would had they both kept silent. This peculiar parable serves as a model of cooperation between two or more individuals (or corporations or countries) in ordinary life in that in many cases each individual would be personally better off not cooperating (defecting) on the other. (shrink)

Active and targeted reforms at the local and state levels have had success reducing youth incarceration rates. While most agree the work is not done, reform of the youth incarceration system has had important successes. At the same time, activists and advocates have increasingly rejected the goal of reforming youth prisons in favor of abolishing them. I outline some objections to prominent abolitionist arguments. Specifically, I show why arguments that focus on the racist historical origins of the incarceration system, structural (...) injustices within that system, or the inefficiency or harms of the current system justify reform of youth imprisonment practices, not complete elimination of them. By advancing these critiques, I do not claim to show that the reformist perspective is superior to the abolitionist one. Instead, I aim to identify an argumentative burden that abolitionists must address if they are to give reformers good reason to become abolitionists. (shrink)

In a time when controlling the spread of the virus in the United States requires drastic measures to limit the number of people coming in and out of intensive care units (ICU), the presence of prison guards is not justified. Transfers from American prisons to hospitals have increased dramatically during the pandemic and with each prison patient comes a cohort of prison guards. The theoretical benefits of having prison guards–such as preventing escape, protecting staff, and stopping unwanted visitation–are minimal: critically (...) ill prisoners are chained to their bed and pose minimal threat to the staff or flight risk. Unwanted visitation is already heavily regulated by the hospital. The risks of having more people in the ICU are significant during the pandemic: more potential exposures for staff, other patients, and the guards themselves. In order to limit the spread of the virus, the number of prison guards in the ICU should be limited. (shrink)