We need to look hard at prisons. We may not want to. We may prefer to look away. But we need to look at prisons because our prisons are mirrors in which we see dimly reflected ourselves – as a community; what we are prepared to do to others; what we are prepared to have done to others. Unless we are ready to contest and challenge it.
When we look at the picture that accompanies this post, what do we see? A prison corridor. In many ways an unremarkable prison corridor. But if we stand back for just one moment, it is in actual fact an extraordinarily remarkable corridor because behind every one of those doors we keep a human being. When the import of this simple but overwhelmingly powerful thought strikes us, it is worth repeating: behind every one of those doors we keep another human being. This is where they will live out the next portion of their lives. Perhaps years of it. Perhaps it all.
Our prison population in England and Wales is near a historic high at 85,000. How many of those people do we really need to keep there? I am very encouraged that the Head of our Supreme Court Lord (David) Neuberger has very recently questioned what is achieved by short sentences. Very often they accomplish little. They do not deter; they do not educate; they do not rehabilitate. But they do accomplish something: they damage – they damage future employment prospects and they damage families.
In my article for The Barrister Magazine “Prison USA: Caging a Country?” I cited the legendary American cultural critic Greil Marcus, who writes, ‘There are whole worlds around us that we have never glimpsed.’ I added that like migrant communities, areas of deprivation, and children’s homes, prisons remain largely unglimpsed realms. We have a duty to look hard at them – not just to know what they are, but what we are.
It bears repeating one more time: behind every one of those doors we keep a human being.
“Prison USA: Caging a Country?” –>> here
Justice Brief 
Thank you for this post. Photos like the one above are so common in the media these days that it’s easy for people to overlook what they mean. But more than overfamiliarity, I think, is a lack of what I call empathic imagination. I doubt that very many people seeing such photos have ever tried to imagine themselves or a loved one in one of those cells.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Catana. I agree with what you say about the lack of empathetic projection. The question which is then posed is why there is that disconnect, and that takes us into discourses around demonisation, hierarchisation and processes of marginalisation.
Best, Dexter
And from there, we would have to go into why human psychology is so messed up. [sigh]
Reblogged this on KWIN and commented:
Indeed here in Ireland there has been a huge increase in the number of women sent to prison for non-payment of fines. Read more via the journal: http://jrnl.ie/1185117
Is it really more cost effective for society to incarcerate women?