Prisons: Mental or Physical?

Helvetica Haydn Taylor (NC Hu)

At present, England is facing its third lockdown. The majority of last year was spent locked away from society and for many people was incredibly gruelling. But what was really keeping us in? Was it the government-imposed laws? Or the mental turmoil caused by the fear of the invisible killer? As of 2020, there were over 11 million people incarcerated in actual prisons around the world1; these people live every day of their lives in a form of continuous lockdown. By looking at different models of incarceration I want to explore which is the most successful method: mental or physical containment? For the purpose of this essay, I am defining the term ‘most successful’ as the method which produces the lowest reoffending rate, as well as being the least damaging to the prisoners once they have completed their sentence.

The word surveillance, meaning ‘close observation’, is derived from the French words: sur (from above) and veillance (watching). This concept is very much true to the way in which numerous incarceration systems operate around the world – inundated with overhead security cameras and multiple guards stationed behind glass barriers – probably what comes to mind upon hearing the word ‘prison’. In places such as North America and the UK this has become the classic prison model, including around-the-clock supervision and scrutiny, with any breach of the institution’s code of conduct subject to severe punishment. However, although this may be the model that we are most familiar with as a society, it is only one of many in place around the world today. For many years, the controversy surrounding mental versus physical imprisonment has been rooted in these systems, with many countries in recent years weighing up the most successful ways to manage their crime rates.

Model of the panopticon

Manipulating people’s minds in the name of control happens in more ways than one may think. The Presidio Modelo prison in Cuba was one of the few panopticon prisons which ever physically existed in the world. Based on Jeremy Bentham’s concept of mass surveillance, the panopticon prison model involves a single guard stationed in one central tower with thousands of prisoners’ cells wrapped around it in a circular shape known as a rotunda. This set-up allows for many people to be watched by one singular guard, reducing costs and the need for extra staff. Rooted at the heart of this concept, and the reason why it should be successful in theory, is the fact that despite the prisoners knowing it is impossible for the guard to be watching them all at once, it is also impossible to know whether or not they are being watched owing to the design of the building and its extremely small windows. Thus, the hypothetical result is that the inmates will be motivated to behave as though they are constantly being observed. This incites a sort of self-discipline system where the prisoners control their own behaviour. On the surface, this plan seems extremely promising as it allows for large scale discipline without the need for physical pain or copious amounts of funding. However, only very few prisons which use this concept are actually still running in the world today since the naturally inquisitive nature of humans has proved its downfall. As soon as one prisoner takes a risk in doing something against the prison’s rules and happens to not be under surveillance at that moment, the whole system is undermined, and as the inmates realise their strength in numbers compared with the one single guard, the sense of control is suddenly lost. This is the reason why, like most of the other correctional centres built according to this model, the Presidio Modelo prison was abandoned in 2016. Therefore, in terms of success, this system is relatively effective in retaining control over the inmates. However, not only will living in a constant state of paranoia inevitably harm the inmates’ mental health, but it is also built on a sort of trust system (of the prisoners’ behaviour and in the strength of the unknown) within which there are no concrete measures to stop a rebellion. In modern day society trust is no longer the default as information is both universally available but also easily faked. As a result, we can no longer base a system of control on trust; the panopticon method cannot survive in a society where certainty is so crucial.

A more traditional prison would be one such as the Melrose prison in Mauritius where control is taken to the extreme2: punishments are publicly displayed as a lesson to other inmates to stay within the rules of the prison. Physical imprisonment is a very different path to go down compared with mental captivity, as it is hard to know where to draw the line. The reason for this is rooted in the fact that these criminals’ offences will have most definitely caused harm to other innocent people, leading many to question why we should be treating them well, if they treated their victims so badly. However, Melrose prison takes this to the extreme, believing that prisoners are there to be punished for their wrongdoing - not saved or changed. This brutal approach includes the use of ‘punishment chambers’, where inmates are confined from anywhere between a day to a few weeks. There is one small window and a bed; however, during the day the guards will remove the mattress and flood the floor with water to prevent the prisoner from even being able to sit down. Unsurprisingly, these savage methods seem to be proving extremely unsuccessful, with the constant state of fear leaving the inmates silent and terrified which is clearly harmful to their mental health. Furthermore, the reoffending rate is absurdly high with 85% of prisoners returning for another sentence after leaving the prison.

At this point I would like to focus your attention on something called the formality principle. In simple terms, this states: ‘If you treat people like animals, you will get animals, whereas if you treat them as true human beings, then that is what you will get.’ The situation in Mauritius pleads a strong case for the validity of this statement, as the whole concept of physically injuring and torturing a human can only incite anger, rage and hatred which will subsequently be channelled back into crime and therefore add to this vicious circle. Halden prison, Denmark3, is at the opposite end of the spectrum. Sometimes referred to as the ‘perfect prison’, inmates are allowed to cook, work, learn, socialise and chat to the guards; life is relatively normal with each inmate owning their own room and bathroom rather than having any cells or bars; however, they are still locked in at night. The idea behind this is that in order to change them, the prisoners must want to do it, and do it themselves. In addition, the prisoners say4 that even though they have all of this normality, there is no freedom, and you are still locked in, providing an underlying reminder of their wrongdoing. In Halden the reoffending rates are only 30% which shows that in eliminating the anger and hatred towards their captors, the criminals can finally take responsibility for their actions and have nobody else to blame but themselves. Although it may not seem like it, this is an extremely cunning method of mental imprisonment and forces the inmates to miss life outside as they live in this sort of limbo.

Finally, I would like to touch upon solitary confinement, as this is both mentally and physically punishing for the prisoners. Humans are not solitary animals, it is against our human nature to live without a group as this is how we have evolved in order to survive; in solitary confinement you are locked in a cell of, on average, 7.4 square metres, alone, for 23 hours of the day5. Of course, there are the physical aspects such as a deterioration of vision due to only being able to look at things a few metres in front of you and losing one’s voice as the vocal cords are so out of practice from not conversing for weeks. However, it is the mental effects which are so worrying: Dr. Craig Henley, an American social psychologist, said that people who are confined alone for a long period of time ‘lose who they are’6. Since our identities are socially created, they question whether they really have a self, and this leads to complete social withdrawal. Nelson Mandela reported on his experience in solitary, and described it as ‘the most forbidding aspect of prison life. There was no end and no beginning; there’s only one’s own mind, which can begin to play tricks.’7 These effects bring up many debates, as to whether such harsh forms of mental and physical punishment should be allowed and whether they are actually bordering on torture.

When it comes down to it, I think that the only way in which we can decide which method is more effective is by actually knowing what the desired purpose of the prison is in the first place. Is it to protect society, rehabilitate, inflict retribution, vindicate or bring about recompense for the victims? Taking this into account, it is clear to see that for true rehabilitation, mental imprisonment brings about the strongest long-term change, whereas for most of the other purposes, physical bars seem appropriate. However, is manipulating prisoners’ attitudes by tricks morally acceptable? Should it really be seen as less immoral than beatings and torture, when the effects of these two treatments are much the same? The act of incarceration is extremely hard to reconcile with moral behaviour, but will society ever find a better way?

Notes: 1 Anonymous, Global Prison trends 2020, (18/6/20) Online.

Available at: https://www.prison-insider.com/en/articles/global-prison-trends-2020 (accessed:18/1/21) 2 LaRoche, Olivia (Executive Producer). Mauritius: The Extreme Punishment Prison. (S4, E3, 29 July 2020)

“Inside the World’s Toughest Prisons”, Emporium Productions for Netflix. 3 LaRoche, Olivia (Executive Producer). Norway: The Perfect Prison?. (S3, E4, 14 December 2018)

“Inside the World’s Toughest Prisons”, Emporium Productions for Netflix. 4 ibid. 5 Rovner, Laura. “What happens to people in solitary confinement”. TedxMileHigh, (5 November 2019). https://www.ted.com/talks/laura_rovner_what_happens_to_people_in_solitary_confinement/up-next?language=en

Accessed 2 February 2021 6 ibid. 7 ibid.