The Archaeology of Institutional Life

3. On the Enigma of Incarceration: Philosophical Approaches to Confinement in the Modern Era

3 On the Enigma of Incarceration Philosophical Approaches to Confinement in the Modern Era Eleanor Conlin Casella While the origins of the modern institution trace back to European monastic settlements of the late medieval period (Casella 2007; Evans 1982; Gilchrist 1994; Markus 1995), a “Golden Era” unfolded over the first half of the nineteenth century. As a distinct“carceral enthusiasm”(Hirsch 1992) gripped the popular and governmental climate of Western nations, con- finement emerged as the primary mode of accommodation for the poor, the disabled, and the criminal. Soon, increasing professionalization of these services produced new philosophical and medical fields devoted to the study (if not perfection) of institutional confinement. By the twenty-first century a range of social and clinical sciences shared concern over aspects of institutional life. Penal confinement can be studied through criminology (patterns of crime in Western society, or what makes citizens offend), penology (interior operations of prisons, and their wider role in society), and penality (sociology of penal policies, or how prisons “work” on inmates and staff). Pedagogy examines the roles and functions of educational institutions. Sociology and social work consider the impact of institutional confinement as a means of poverty management. Finally, psychiatry, psychology, and clinical psychotherapy focus on the treatment of mental illnesses through institutional modes of care. These social sciences ultimately consider how institutions produce the social roles of con- finement: inmate, guard, administrator, volunteer, doctor, teacher, student, and patient. 18 / Eleanor Conlin Casella How do these diverse inhabitants experience the institution? What forges the solidarity, hostility, or indifference that shapes alliances between those who incarcerate and those who are incarcerated? How does the architecture and layout of institutions actively contribute to these social relations ? Do artifact assemblages reveal unsanctioned or alternative uses of these disciplinary structures? This chapter illuminates the particular material expressions of power created by places of confinement. Further, and perhaps more significantly, it also explores the limits of power by interrogating the means by which inhabitants negotiate, modify, and survive the process of institutionalization. To enter these enduring debates, I first consider classic theoretical explanations of the modern institution. Punishment, Reform, and Deterrence Philosophical debates over “correctional reform” have long queried the wider function of institutional confinement. Why does the state detain vulnerable and criminal populations of its citizens? According to the precepts of criminology, the intention is to effect a triangulated combination of punishment, reform, and deterrence upon the inmate. Scholars and practitioners have passionately argued over the relative merits of these three basic aims, often offering a subset as the “true” function of institutional confinement. Punishment Philosophers have considered the relationship between punishment and the basic constitution of society. In his humanistic vision of enlightened governance, Immanuel Kant (1887) argued that a crime (or transgression of public law) rendered the subject incapable of being a citizen. He explicitly rejected concepts of “reform,” comparing them to perilous medical experimentation (195–196). Georg Hegel (1967) argued that the state had a duty to vindicate the agency (or free will) of the deviant. He regarded punishment as “containing the criminal’s right and hence by being punished he is honoured as a rational being” (100). In other words, state punishment was an expression of accountability—a gesture of recognition and respect deserved by the citizen inmate. Characterized as retributivist (or vindictive ) models, these philosophical approaches emphasized a moral improvement of society as a result of punishment. Anthropologists offered an alternative vision of punishment as an essen- Enigma of Incarceration / 19 tially social phenomenon. To Emile Durkheim (1964), punishment served to uphold underlying social structures, preventing the erosion and collapse of human societies. Thus, punishment ensures social solidarity—to cultivate and maintain collectively held sentiments. By offering a “sign that the authorities are in control, that crime is an aberration and that the conventions which govern social life retain their force and vitality” (Garland 1990:59), punishment operates as a form of governance rather than mere subgroup management. It constitutes“deviance,”and in the process constitutes society itself. Reform For others the underlying purpose of confinement can be linked to its reformative potentials. From the mid-eighteenth century, reformists began to modify the design and operation of institutions across Great Britain. Penal reformers, such as William Blackburn, Jonas Hanway, John Howard, Elizabeth Fry, and John Jebb, publicly championed the moral and economic value of institutions established for the rehabilitation...