Prisons exist essentially as instruments and weapons of social control and repression, and in class-divided capitalist societies the total institution of prison is utilised almost exclusively to discipline and punish the poorest and most marginalised and render them absolutely obedient to the power and authority of the dominant social/economic class. The modern prison or penitentiary system that originated in the 19th century was created essentially to discipline and condition the rebellious poor into absolute conformity to the factory system; in the urban working class areas of Victorian Britain factories and prisons were the most visibly dominant institutions and the physical life choices confronting the poor.
The continuing purpose of prison as a weapon wielded almost exclusively against the most marginalised and socially disadvantaged is evidenced by the disproportionate number of black and ethnic minority prisoners who currently overpopulate prison systems in Britain and the USA.
The attempt by liberal prison reformists to superficially improve the image of prisons and create the ‘rehabilitation’ fallacy has failed completely and achieved nothing but the legitimisation of an institution as immoral and inhuman as slavery; ‘reform’ of a system and institution as intrinsically cruel and brutal as prison is impossible. Abolition of prison, as an alternative to ‘reform’, is only achievable by the abolition of the social and economic system that created and depends on prisons to sustain its exploitation and control of the powerless and poor. And of course, the state that exists to maintain and enforce the power of the dominant social and economic class will not voluntarily disarm itself of the prison system. Any struggle to abolish the prison system, therefore, must necessarily and inevitably include and accompany a wider political struggle against the capitalist state.
The development of globalised neo-capitalism has created the Prison Industrial Complex in countries like Britain and the USA, and the exploitation of cheap prison labour by private multi-national corporations, which is reminiscent of 19th century laissez-faire capitalism’s use of the prison system to condition prisoners into totally obedient wage slaves. The ‘rehabilitation’ of prisoners is again measured and determined by their willingness to submit totally to economic exploitation and the authority of those imposing that system. Again, this simply reinforces the role of prison as an institution integral to the disciplining of the poor in their relationship to those exercising economic and social power over them.
The argument and claim that prisons exist to ‘protect the public’ is fallacy-based and contradicted by the realty that corporate criminals and profit-driven destroyers of the environment, for example, are nowhere to be found amongst the prison population, which is composed mostly of the totally disempowered and socially marginalised imprisoned for ‘property offences’, such as petty theft and poverty-related ‘offences.’ Most of the prison population is not composed of ‘dangerous criminals’ but far more the social casualties of a system that is itself inherently criminal and anti-social.
Prisons are also increasingly used to disappear and conceal the social consequences of an increasingly unequal and divided society: the homeless, the mentally ill, those trapped in absolute poverty, etc. And as the Welfare State is increasingly replaced by the Law and Order State the prison population will continue to mushroom, feeding the Prison Industrial Complex.
Any struggle to transform society and radically change the balance and relationship of social and economic power must necessarily include a struggle to remove prisons from the armoury of a state that exists essentially to defend and enforce the status quo.
John Bowden A5026DM
HMP WARREN HILL, Grove Road, Hollesley, Nr Woodbridge, Suffolk, IP12 3BF
