Captive Audience 9781843924258, 1843924250, 9781903240649, 9781903240656

Table of contents :
Content: Cover
Captive Audience: Media, Masculinity and Power in Prisons
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction: prisons, media and everyday life
Chapter 1 Prison, pain and identity: a review of the literature
The loss of liberty
The problem of time: 'doing' time, 'killing' time and 'marking' time
The importance of material possessions
Autonomy, choice and personal responsibility
The deprivation of heterosexual relationships and notions of masculinity
Fear of contamination and assault
Fear of personal deterioration and breakdown. Contextualising the importance of media in everyday lifeChapter 2 Identity, self and constructions of masculinity
The cultural milieu of the prison
Self and identity
The social construction of masculinity
Hegemonic masculinity in prisons
Concluding thoughts
Chapter 3 Research context and methodology
Pilot phase
The main phase of research
Research strategy and methodology
My identities
Chapter 4 The microsocial contexts of media use
Identity and place
Identity and time
Place-time-space
Relationship between different media. Meanings and motivations sought in specific media contentChapter 5 The meso-sphere of culture, interaction and hyper-masculinity
Reception and socialisation
Culture and subculture
Managing social networks
Chapter 6 The macrosocial institutional sphere
Reform and rehabilitation
Normalisation
Control
References
Index.

Citation preview

Captive Audience Media, masculinity

and

power in prisons

YVONNE JEWKES

C aptive A u d ie n c e

This book is dedicated to the memory of my grandmother, Evelyn Jewkes, and my friend, Ros Minsky, two wom an who inspired me more than they knew.

C a p tiv e A u d ie n c e M e d i a , M a s c u l i n i t y a n d P o w e r in P r i s o n s

Y v o n n e Jewkes

* Routledge

Taylor & Francis Group

L O N D O N A N D N EW YORK

First published by Willan Publishing 2002 This edition published by Routledge 2011 2 Park Square, Milton Park, A bing do n, O xon 0 X 1 4 4RN 711 Third A venue, New Y ork, N Y 10017

R outledge is an im print o f the T aylor 6* Francis G roup © Yvonne Jew kes 2002 The right of Yvonne Je w k e s to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the C opyright, D esigns and Patents Act of 1988. All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be re produced, stored in a retrieval system , or transm itted in any form or by any m eans, electronic, m echanical, photocopying, recording or otherw ise w itho ut the prior written permission of the P ublishers or a licence permitting copying in the UK issued by the C o pyright Licensin g A gency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W 1P 9HE.

ISBN-13: 978-1-903240-64-9 Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-903240-65-6 Hardback

British Library Catalo guing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Typeset by A nneset, W eston-super-M are, Som erset

Contents

A ckn ow ledgem en ts In tro d u ctio n : p ris o n s , m e d ia and eve ry d ay life 1

vii ix

P riso n , pain and id e n tity : a review o f the literatu re The loss of liberty The problem of time: 'd oin g ' time, 'killing' time and 'm a rk in g ' time The im portance of m aterial possessions A u tonom y, choice and personal responsibility The deprivation of heterosexu al relatio nships and notio ns of masculinity Fear of contam in ation and assault Fear of personal deterioratio n and b reakd ow n C ontextualisin g the im portance of m edia in everyd ay life

18 20 21 22

Identity, s e lf and co n s tr u c tio n s o f m a s c u lin ity The cultural milieu of the prison Self and identity The social construction of masculinity

31 32 40 47

H e g em o n ic masculinity in prisons C o nclu d ing th oughts

55 57

3

R e se a rch con tex t and m e th o d o lo g y Pilot phase The main phase of research Research strategy and m eth o d o lo g y M y identities

62 66 67 72 78

4

T h e m ic ro s o c ia l contexts o f m e d ia use Identity and place

90

2

1 2 10 14 16

89

Capti ve audi ence

5

6

Identity and time P la c e -ti m e -s p a c e R elationship b etw ee n different m edia

97 107 114

M ea ning s and m o tiv ations sou ght in specific m edia content

116

T h e m e s o -s p h e r e o f cu ltu re, in te ra ctio n and h y p e r-m a s c u lin ity R eception and socialisation Culture and subculture M an ag in g social netw o rk s

131 132 138 149

T h e m a cro s o cia l i n s titu tio n a l s p h e re Reform and rehabilitation

161 162

N orm a lisa tio n Control

170 173

C o n c lu s io n : the p arad oxical p o w e r of m e d ia in p ris o n s

185

R eferen ces

191

Index

206

vi

Acknowledgem ents

I would like to th ank a n u m b e r of people for the supp ort, guid ance and w isd om they have offered m e during the writing of this book. First and fo rem ost, thanks to Alison Liebling for her help, advice and friendship, all of which were invaluable in finally getting this project off the ground. M a n y thanks are also due to Tony B ottom s and Brian L on gh u rst who e xam ined the doctoral thesis on w h ich this b ook is based, and w ho then m ad e constructive suggestions w hich helped me to conceive of it as a book. 1 am happy to ac k n o w le d g e the financial supp ort of the Board of G rad u ate Studies at the University of C am b rid g e w h ose award of a dom estic research stu dentship m a d e the research possible, and also to Lucy C a v en d ish College for the aw ard of a small, b ut w elcom e, research grant. T h an k s also go to Loraine G elsthorpe for her support, especially in the first year of my studies, and to other staff and research students at the Institute of C rim in olog y w h o , in various w ay s, m ad e the research process easier and m ore enjoyable. Debts of gratitu de are ow ed to form er colleagues and stu dents at the Sca rm a n Centre at the University of Leicester, and at De M ontfort University. Both institutions provided stim ulating and supportive e nvironm ents in w h ich to start this project. Special m ention m u st go to Tim O 'Su lliv an and Rinella Cere w ho help ed m e to form the ideas on w hich this research is based and w h ose c o m m e n ts and suggestions during the early stages proved invaluable. Thanks go to Anita Daniels and Kirsten M cC ly m o n t, both of w hom w ere generous enou g h to give m e copies of their ow n w o rk on m ed ia in prisons w h en little existed elsewhere. I am also gratefu l to the Prison Service Area M a n a g e r and the various gov ernors w ho opened their doors to m e, to Peter Garrett w h o invited m e to attend Prison D ialogue and, of course, to all the prisoners w ho told me their stories. Rarely have I encountered a place w h ere laughter and pathos are found in alm ost equal

vli

Ca p t i v e a u d i e n c e

measure. I am deeply grateful to these men for disclosing their thoughts and feelings to a stranger, and for doing so with patience, clarity and passion. Their accounts made a lasting impact. Many thanks to Brian Willan for his calm efficiency and enthusiasm, and for having the faith to publish this book. Finally, my gratitude and love go to my partner David Wright who now knows more about prisons than he probably ever thought desirable, and whose intelligent com ments, keen insight and developing culinary skills have all played an immeasurable role in getting this project finished. Yvonne few kes January 2002

viii

I n t r o d u c t i o n : p ris ons , m e d i a a nd e v e r y d a y life

W h e n I was in the Scrubs, I spent 6 m o nths in segregation w ithout a radio. Then the chaplain b rou g ht one in. I re m e m b er hearing a new sca ste r talking so fast it w o u ld n 't go in. It blew m y brain. N ow I've got a TV in m y cell for the first time and it d o e s n 't seem like a prison . . . I w atch more TV than I ever did outside. It's as if there's a person in the cell with you, it's com pany. It also gives the illusion of control. I like N eighbou rs and H om e and A w ay best b ecau se it's alw ays sunny and ev e ry on e 's nice looking (Tony). This b ook will explore the im portance of m edia form s and content within a unique context: the prison. O f im m ense im portance in their organisation of social reality and an essential part of the 'm a p ' by w hich w e navigate every d ay life, the m edia are frequently taken for granted, and few of us pau se to questio n w h y m edia m atter to us in the w ays they do. It is perhaps only w h en som e problem or controversy arises that is connected to m ed ia, or w h en an event of national or global interest occurs, that we ask questions a b ou t the w ay s in w h ich w e habitually conceive of m edia in everyd ay life (A lasuutari 1999b: 86). Furtherm ore, it is generally w h en our regular m edia habits are disrupted by forces beyon d our control that we understand how im portant m edia are to the familiar routines of our lives. The decisio n to research the significance of m edia in prisons was mad e precisely in order to interrogate its im portance in such respects. It is hoped that by, as it w ere, placing a m ag nifying glass over this discrete, localised and usually hidden (to m o st of us, at least) e nvironm ent, the study of m edia c on su m p tion a m ong prison inmates m ight not only illuminate aspects of the social world of the prison, b ut also indicate why it is that m edia are so im portant to all of us in providing channels of co m m u n ica tio n , inform ation and entertainm ent, and in fo rm ing id en­ tities, positioning ou rselves in relation to others within social hierarchies,

Capti ve audi ence

and creating a sense of ourselves in time and space. In

its

consideration

of

m edia

c o n su m p tio n

patterns

among

the

incarcerated, this b ook aims to synthesise, and find intellectual com patibility b etw ee n , the 'classic' sociological prison studies w hich offer descriptive accou nts of the every d ay experien ce of im prison m e n t, and the m edia studies literature on the experien ce of being a co n s u m e r of m edia and p o pular culture. The d o m in a n t theme that em erges from the first b od y of w ork, and one that will provide a conceptual fram ew ork for analysis throu g ho u t this b ook, is that im p ris o n m e n t is an inherently painfu l and d eh u m an isin g experien ce during w h ich the inm ate will experien ce a series of deprivations that fu nd am entally w e a k e n his sense of identity. The theoretical studies of m edia a ud iences will be used to provide evidence that for such individuals, the m ass m edia provide a key source of e m p o w e r m e n t, offering a range of material from w hich individuals can create new identities or m aintain pre-existing identities, explore their inner selves, form sub g rou ps based on collective fanship, and find a u ton om y and self-respect in otherw ise hum iliating and disidentifying circum stances. The findings of the research are considered in the light of recent innovations in con tem p orary social theory, and analysed via a separate but integrated d iscussion of m acro, m eso and micro levels of p o w e r and identity. The relative paucity of a cad em ic studies of prison a udiences is hard to explain. The use of m edia by people in identity construction, and in claim ing p o w er in otherw ise d is e m p o w e rin g circum stances, w as an e m erging theme in studies of m edia aud ien ces in the late 1980s and early 1990s and although m o st research concentrated on fam ily view ing, a few studies began to address the d y n am ics of m edia con su m p tion a m o n g socalled 'neglected au d ien ces' (Lindlof 1987; Willis and Wollen 1990). Yet by the m id -1990s, m a n y writers had ab and o ned aud ience research as though it were a finished project, the result of w h ich is that little is still k now n a b ou t the relationship b etw een aud ien ces and m edia in contexts other than the family hou seh old . Unsurprisin gly, then, the role of media in prisons has re m ained largely undefined. C rim in olog y has sim ilarly overlooked the im portance of m edia to an incarcerated public; an ov ersight that m ay be a reflection of the low status accorded m edia ou tp u t (and indeed m edia studies) in general life. The co m m o n perception that m edia use is m ind less and trivial - an /»activity - sits a w k w ard ly alongside the prison service's self-proclaim ed aim to engage prisoners in p u rposefu l activity and to 'lead a good and useful life' (Prison Rule 1). C o ncerns about the 'quality' of m edia ou tpu t are usually tinged with a class-based preju dice, so that anxieties ab ou t media technologies and texts - usually reductively termed 'effects' - have most

I n t r o d u c t i o n : p r i s o n s , m e d i a a n d e v e r y d a y life

frequently been voiced by the (relatively) po w erfu l and directed at the m o st vuln erable: the you ng, the m entally ill, the p o o r and the criminallyinclined (see, for e xam p le, H agell and N e w b u rn 1994). It is so m e w h a t surprising, then, that those cla ss-conscious critics w ho claim that most m edia is directed at the 'low est co m m o n d e n o m in a to r ' of society have not turned their attention to w h at is arguably the m ost obviou s candidate for the label 'u nd erclass': the prison population. This b ook will argue that to view the characteristics of television and other m edia as being of T ow ' cu ltural quality misses the im portant point that m edia resources fulfil a w id e range of m otivations, gratifications and desires, m an y of w hich are felt acutely am ong the confined. N ot only arc the w ell-d o cum ented feelings of po w e rle ssn ess associated with im p riso n m e n t frequently mitigated by exposure to m edia, b ut the necessary ad ju stm ents to one's identity that incarceration d em an d s can, to various degrees, be facilitated, furthered or, conversely, hindered, by access to particular form s of m edia. It is the nexus of relatio nships betw een m ed ia, identity, social-psychological survival and relations of p o w er this study seeks to address. In setting the stage for a d iscussion of why m ed ia is of interest in the prison context, C h apter 1 reviews the literature on the 'effects' of im p riso n m e n t and suggests that for the m ajority of inm ates, im ­ p riso n m e n t is m ortifying, d eh u m an isin g and painful. C o n fin e m en t disconnects individuals from e verything that is familiar, and effectively e x-co m m u n icates them from the world outside. G u id in g the theoretical approaches to the exploration of life in prison are Sykes, G offm an , and Co hen and Taylor. From their work - and that of their follow ers em erges a pattern of co m m o n deprivations that typically afflict inmates, and require carefully constructed responses, both individual and social, in order to surviv e with the sense of self intact. The over-riding theme of the introductory chapter is that prisoners will experien ce the pains of im p ris o n m e n t in different w a y s and to differing degrees, d ep end ing on prior experien ces, b a ck g rou n d and so on, b u t that key to socialpsycholog ical survival is their ability to adapt to life inside through a variety of coping strategies. Incorporating the literature on media co n su m p tio n , the chapter highlights the gratifications sou ght in m edia content that help aud ience m e m b ers m aintain the sense of ontological secu rity 1 necessary for the successful m a n a g e m e n t of self. It is suggested that m edia use takes on similar, yet heightened significance in the context of the total institution becau se, although in so m e senses a microcosm of the w id er society, im p riso n m e n t is non e-the-less a unique social and cultural context. The regulation of access by the prison authorities, and the individual need s of the self in an en v iro n m en t b ou nd ed by fo rmal xi

Ca p t i v e a u d i e n c e

(institutional) and informal (subcultural) codes of behaviour will, it is argued, intensify or otherwise alter the taken-for-granted meanings usually invested in media technologies and texts. Having outlined the various deprivations that prisoners are subjected to, and the potential uses that might be sought in media in order to offset or compensate for them, Chapter 2 aims to relate prisoners' individual experiences of im prisonment to the enveloping social and structural con­ ditions. Giddens' theory of structuration and Bourdieu's notion of habitus are introduced in order to gain insight into the relationship between identity and pow er in prisons. Specifically, it is argued that the means by which inmates adapt to the rigours of incarceration can only be under­ stood in relation to outside contacts, social networks, the overtly masculine inmate culture,2 the biography and history of the prison they are confined in, and the wider practices of the prison service, criminal justice system, incumbent government and prevailing social attitudes towards criminals. Structuration theory is viewed as an important counter to the deprivation literature, arguing that subordinates are never entirely powerless even in the most bounded of locales. But in a refinement of Giddens' work, this account highlights the importance of culture, arguing that the forms and codes of overtly masculine behaviour that characterise the inmate culture are dangerously self-perpetuating. In a spiral of self-destruction, criminal behaviour in society may be regarded (at least to a significant degree) as a learned response to the imperatives of masculine hegemony, while in prisons, masculinity and machismo may be seen as a learned response to the imperatives of the criminal inmate culture. In other words, it is in the realms of the masculine cultural milieu that structure is internalised by human agents who act back on, and shape, future processes, ensuring the reproduction of social disadvantage and, ultimately, of prisons. Chapter 3 provides a methodological context for the empirical analysis, describing how the research was carried out and giving an account of the prisons in which the fieldwork was conducted. The chapter also reflects on some of the ways in which the subtle, intimate and reflexive qualities of ethnography made me sensitive to the role of my own gendered identity as a female researcher in a predominantly male and overtly masculine field. Chapter 4 is the first of the three empirical chapters which collectively take us from the intimate 'micro' sphere of prisoners' lives, via the intermediate or 'm eso' social environment of the inmate culture, to the macro structures that determine prisoners' access to media. Developing the issues raised in Chapter l ' s review of the 'coping' literature, Chapter 4 argues that the primary resource required to survive a prison sentence relatively intact, and to be able to revert to one's pre­ prison identity on re-entering the community, is the facility to 'be oneself',

I n t r o d u c t i o n : p r i s o n s , m e d i a a n d e v e r y d a y life

a p ro c e s s w h ic h is e x p lo re d in relation to m e d ia re s o u rc e s as tech n o lo g ies of identity, a g e n c y and m e m o ry . C h a p t e r 5 m o v e s from the m i c ro s o c ia l sp h ere of p ris o n e rs ' m e d ia use to the in te rm e d ia te r e a lm s of p riso n c o m m u n it i e s a n d cu ltu res, a rg u in g that the p rison s o ciety is infinitely m o r e c o m p l e x than the classic prison stu d ie s imply. In a d d re s s in g the ten sion s b e tw e e n s tr u c tu ra l d e m a n d s an d the n e e d s of the self, this c h a p te r a r g u e s th at in public at least, p riso n e rs m u s t s u s p e n d their p re -p ris o n identities a n d c o n s t r u c t social identities that will c o n f o r m

to the e x p e c ta tio n s a n d d e m a n d s of the

p e rf o r m a t i v e and e x c e s s iv e ly m a s c u lin e p riso n c u ltu re . M ed ia form s and c o n te n t play a significant role in this re s p e c t, a n d the re se a rc h p ro c es s u n c o v e r s s o m e of the specific an d v a rie d uses to w h ic h m e d ia reso u rce s are p u t in c o n s tru c tin g identities and n e g o tia tin g p o w e r in the social and pu blic prison e n v iro n m e n t. Finally, in its e x a m in a tio n of the m a c ro s o c ia l p ro c e s s e s th at d e te rm in e p ris o n e rs ' a c c e ss to m e d ia a n d co n strain

their a u to n o m y , C h a p t e r 6

ex p lo re s in m o r e detail the c o m p l e x q u estion of w h e r e p o w e r lies in p ris o n s and the e x te n t to w h ich m ed ia can be said to be a p r i m a r y locu s of p o w e r an d c o n trol. The aim of this c h a p t e r is to d e te r m in e the ex te n t to w h ic h the issue of m e d ia availability in p ris o n s is s h a p e d by the re q u ire m e n ts of the institution or, alternatively, by the n e e d s of in m ates. The c h a p t e r th u s d r a w s t o g e th e r s o m e of the th eoretical issues arising from the m e t h o d o lo g ic a l a c c o u n t in C h a p t e r 3 and ex p lo red th r o u g h o u t this e m p iric a l s ection ; n ot least the p a r a d o x of m e d i a 's role as both a tra n s f o r m a tiv e re s o u rc e and so u rc e of e m p o w e r m e n t on the p a r t of in m a te s , and as a s tru c tu ra l d e v ic e to limit o r close d o w n their a g e n c y on the p a rt of prison staff and au th orities.

Notes 1 'Ontological security" refers to a person's elemental sense of safety in the world, including a basic trust of others. It is an essential ingredient of human existence and is necessary in order for a person to maintain a sense of psychological well-being. Ontological security is important in Anthony Giddens' theory (see Chapter 2) but originates from the work of Laing (1960), who argues that mental illness derives from the lack of such security. 2 A point that should be established from the outset is that this study focuses exclusively on men's prisons. Traditionally, prison societies have overwhelmingly been studied from the viewpoint of male inmates, reflecting the fact that across almost all countries, some 90 per cent of prisoners (96 per cent in England and Wales) are male (Newton 1994) but, unlike the majority of studies which fail to address or problcmatise the gender of their male subjects, this study will treat it as a key variable. An investigation of prison audiences with different demographic profiles (and here we might include inmates of various racial and ethnic origins, young offenders as well as adult prisoners, and women) is beyond the scope of this project, but may be a suitable area for future study.

Chapter I

Prison, pain and identity: a review o f the literature

Before embarking on a review of the potential harm s that imprisonment can afflict on the confined, and how individuals might use media resources in their responses and adaptations to such harm s, it is first necessary briefly to outline what is meant by 'self' and 'identity'. A central tenet of this book, and one that will be explored fully as the chapters unfold, is that personhood is composed of both a personal identity, informed by largely unconscious process - which from here on will be termed 'self' - and a social identity attuned to the value judgem ents of others - which shall be termed 'identity'. It is anticipated that, through a primary investigation of the construction of gender, but also taking into account issues of class and economic marginality, the notion of identity may be deconstructed in order to explore and account for discrepancies betw een the ascribed identity and the experienced identity of the 'prisoner'. In order to account for these personal and individual experiences, a model of identity will be established which takes into account biological determinants, social constructions of class and gender and psychoanalytic insights into unconscious elements of experience. It is hoped that by adopting such an eclectic approach this study will shed light on the extent to which individual personality is constructed within, and contingent upon, its biological 'essence', its social, economic and political context, and its unconscious and irrational drives. A concern with external structures, internal psychic development, and social, ideological and discursive aspects of gratification, is necessary in order to explore the full range of media-related coping and adaptation strategies adopted by prisoners in response to their enforced confinement. Following the example of prison researchers in the USA, the UK and Europe, this chapter will propose a pattern of deprivations that typically afflict inmates. The first and most fundamental is the loss of liberty, which I

Ca p t i v e a u d i e n c e

will be explored in relation to its three core components: the transition from the 'free' community to the prison; confinement of m ovem ent ivithin the institution; and rejection by the com munity at large. Following this discussion, the remainder of the chapter will consider a further six deprivations which, it will be argued, potentially inflict severe psychological harm on the inmate. Throughout this discussion, the prison deprivation literature will be interwoven with evidence that access to media resources can mitigate, alleviate, or subjugate the pains described.

T h e lo s s o f li b e r t y

Since the end of the eighteenth century, when the object of penal repression moved from the body to the mind, and prison replaced corporal punishm ent as the favoured form of state-sanctioned penalty, loss of liberty has generally been regarded as central to the act of punishm ent (Foucault 1977; Ignatieff 1983; Garland 1990). The nature of this loss can be regarded as threefold. First, and most obviously, the inmate is removed from his normal environment, incarcerated in an unfamiliar and largely hostile institution and allowed only limited access to the outside world. The reception of new inmates into prison has provided a special focus in the prison literature, particularly the formal and informal processing and induction procedures which take place. Goffman (1961b: 23) describes the processes through which the new inmate is 'shaped and coded into the kind of object that can be fed into the administrative machinery', a metaphor taken up by Caird, an ex­ prisoner who defines reception as the most aggressive part of the prison; a 'sophisticated sausage machine' into which newly convicted prisoners are fed at one end and fully fledged inmates, stripped of 'every connection a man has with the outside world' are led out at the other (Caird 1974: 9). A former prison governor, meanwhile, describes reception as 'one of the most traumatic experiences any individual can undergo' (Coyle 1994: 27). So, although newly incarcerated prisoners often attempt to prepare for what awaits them, the shock of entering such an austere and depersonalised environment, together with the sudden and enforced separation from family and friends, can result in severe trauma. Withstanding 'entry shock' is, then, the first of many psychological assaults which the new inmate has to face, and attempts at suicide and self-harm, and the onset of self-destructive psychiatric disorders are most prevalent in the initial phase of confinement (Gibbs 1982; Sapsford 1983; Zamble and Porporino 1988; Liebling 1992; Liebling and Krarup 1993). Although the passage through the 'barrier' from the outside 2

P r i s o n , pai n a n d i d e n t i t y : a r e v i e w o f t h e l i t e r a t u r e

co m m u n ity

into

the

world

within

involves

m an y

necessary

ad m inistrative procedures, its sy m bolic significance goes well bey on d the b ureaucratic requirem ents of the establishm ent. D escribed by G offm an (1961b: 25) as a 'civil d eath', entry into the total institution involves being subjected to a series of social and psy cholog ical attacks w hich u n d erm ine the sense of self: The recruit . . . com es into the e sta blishm ent with a conception of him self m ad e possible by certain stable social arra n g em e n ts in his h o m e world. U p on entrance, he is im m e d iate ly stripped of the supp ort provided by these arran g em ents . . . [and] he begins a scries of aba se m e n ts, d egradation s, hu m iliations and profanations of self. H is s e lf is system atically, if often u n in ten tion ally, m ortified (Goffm an, 1961a: 23, em phasis added). This d eh u m a n isin g process m ay m ak e it easier for staff to carry out their tasks effectively, and in the new generatio n of prisons, greater efforts have been m ad e to be sensitive to the need s of the new inm ate as well as to the bureaucratic d em an d s of the system . But it is nevertheless arguable that the d em an d s of efficiency are incom patible with the concerns of the individ ual w h o, w h e n he m ost n e ed s it, is given no op portu nity to discuss the reality of the world he is ente ring or his fears concerning any un resolv ed problem s on the outside. These opportunities m ight com e eventually, but at the point of greatest stress to the new inm ate, the needs of the system com e before the needs of the individual (Coyle 1994). The second aspect of loss of liberty is that the inm ate is further confined w ithin the institution and his m o v e m e n ts severely restricted. With som e inmates still spending the m ajority of their time in cells their sense of restriction m ig h t be exacerbated by their close proximity to other inmates, especially in prisons that are overcrow ded. A d aptation to these cond itions takes m a n y forms, and a general overview of the inmate culture is un d erm ined by the fact there is no sin gular pattern of adaptation w hich describes all types of inm ate responses. H ow ever, m any studies of inm ate societies have used G o ffm an 's typolo gy - or slightly m odified variations of it - in order to m ak e som e general observations about b eh a v io u ra l responses. G offm an (1961b) identifies fo ur basic adaptive stances. The first is 'co lo nisation' w hereby the prisoner m inim ises contact with the outside w orld, preferring to concentrate on m ak ing as full and com fortable a life for him self as possible within the institution. He tends not to m ak e long-term plans and the extent of his horizons is to ad vance within the hierarchy of the inm ate society. In extrem e cases, he m ak es such favourable com p ariso n s b etw een life in the 3

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institution and life on the outside that he plans ways of getting readmitted after release. G offm a n 's second category of inmates is those w h ose p rim ary m o d e of adaptation is 'situational w ith d ra w a l'; that is, the drastic cu rtailm ent of involve m e n t in association with both fellow inm ates and those outside the prison. Situational w ithd raw al may involve escaping from one's im m ediate en v iron m en t by d ay d ream ing or fantasising. C o hen and Taylor (1972) note this m o d e of adaptation am ong life-sentence prisoners, and recall Farb er (1944; cited in C o hen and Taylor 1972: 72), w h o found evidence of prisoners cutting off all contact with those outside in an atte m p t to m inim ise their suffering. 'Intransig ence', G o ffm a n 's third category, involves setting a low er limit to attacks on one's self, below w h ich the inm ate will resort to retaliation or non -com p liance. It m a y thus be regarded by the inm ate as a w ay of m aintainin g a degree of self-esteem and independ en ce. T he fourth of G offm an 's categories is 'co nversio n' w hereby the inm ate com es to reject his own values and a d opt those of the staff, b eco m in g a 'm o d e l inm ate'. The final aspect of loss of liberty to be considered here is the m ost end uring. G resham Sykes (1958: 65) characterises confinem ent as a 'deliberate moral rejection of the criminal by the free c o m m u n ity ', a th em e taken up by G offm an w ho states that this rejection a m o u n ts to profound stigm atisation. T h o m a s M athiesen (1965: 73) suggests that the majority of inm ates feel they belong to the 'very bottom flo o r' of society, and the d escription of prisons as the 'g arb a ge -can s of society' is frequently to be found in the literature. E ricson (in E ricson et al 1987) argues - after D urkheim - that any form of d eviant beh av io u r m arks the outer edges of a c o m m u n ity or society, and gives an inner strength to its core. So, by publicly co n d e m n in g through the courts those w h o have com m itted a d eviant act, and confining them in an institution resonant with sy m bolic m oral censure, a consensus is achieved in the rest of society. The rejection by the c o m m u n ity of those w ho are labelled 'd eviant' is further enforced by the architecture and geog raphical location of m any institutions. In England and Wales m any prisons were built in the early to m id -nineteenth century and resem ble fortresses with castle turrets, w atch tow ers and high wire-topped outer walls. They w ere also, until recently, usually p rom inently located in the centre of to w ns and cities, thus standin g as a sy m bolic rem in d er to the rest of the c o m m u n ity of the potential con se q u e n ces of deviance. But although the physical a p pearance of prisons can be austere, m any writers have criticised G offm an and his follow ers for placin g too m uch em p h a sis on the 'totality' of total institu tions (Irwin 1970, 1980; Jacobs 1977, 1983; M ey ro w itz 1985), argu ing that prison walls are inherently more perm eable to external forces than G offm an im p lie s.1 A rguably the 4

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m ost regular, sustained and influential of the external forces that have penetrated, and thereby altered, the prison en v iro n m en t in recent years, are the m edia of m ass com m u nica tions. G id d e n s (1991a) suggests that the m edia provide alternative 'life-w orld s' - a m e a n s of escape from every d ay life - and com e to form a kind of p a ra m o u n t reality, s u p p lem enting or replacing the 'significant others' w ho in 'n o rm a l' life m ed iate to the individual the cultural values and m ea n in gs of the world he or she inhabits. For many, m ass m ed ia can facilitate the retreat into an inner p sychological state of m ind , a world of fantasy and im aginatio n that provide a po w erfu l route to the inner self. For those w h o have had their liberty taken aw ay from them, fantasies and d a y d rea m s provide an in ner sanctum w here private e m otion s which otherw ise have to be kept hidd en in the over-riding m acho en v iro n m en t - grief, sadness, frustration, po or cop ing and so on - can be expressed and worked through in safety. They can also consist of thoughts that m u st be kept secret from the prison authorities; for e xam p le, a co m m o n form of d aydream is that of escap ing - literally - from the prison. M edia-assisted

fantasies

and

d ay d ream s are co m m o n

among

the

population at large. M ed ia provide a flow of im ag es and experiences w hich are used by individuals in their every d a y lives as a m eans of escape; a flight of fancy from day-to-d ay existence (Lefebvre 1991; A b ercrom bie and L ong hu rst 1998). Broadcast m edia are of particular im portance in this respect b ecause they allow the audience m e m b e r to be in two places or even in two times sim ultaneously. For m edia com m entator, P add y Scannell (1996: 91), this facility is 'truly m agical': 'it is not ju st that radio and television com press time and space. They create new possibilities of being: of being in two places at once, or tw o times at once.' In the confined context o f the prison, the illusion of escaping to another place takes on even greater intensity: The sense of radio [and television] as m agical, as lighting up lives bound by m o n o to n o u s and narrow routines is palpable. W hereas the public world beforehand w as over the hills and far away, now it is close at hand and graspable. Its eventfu lness enters into un eventful lives giving them new texture and substance (ibid.: 90). Related to d ay d ream in g and fantasy in its facility to ward off insecurity is memory. A ltho ugh long established in psychology, only recently have sociologists begu n to ack n ow le d ge the im portance of m e m ory as a faculty w h ich locates the individ ual in space and time, and gives a sense of both structural location and personal b iog raphy within particular historical and cultural norms: 5

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M em o ries - su d d en sharp ones and generalised a m o rp h o u s ones are integral to every m o m en t of our being . . . [and] constitu te part of con tem p orary te m poral existence. Co ntents differ but the p rinciple rem ains the sam e: we are tem po rally extended in time and space. We transcend not ju st our present b u t our historical, socio­ cultural and geog raphic location (Adam 1995: 14-15). The role of m edia in fu rnishing individ ual and collective m e m o rie s is still a relatively new area of aca d em ic interest, b ut it is increasingly being noted that individual life histories are structured, shaped and m ad e sense of within fram es of reference provided by the m ass m edia (O 'S ullivan 1991; Spigel and Jenkins, 1991; Scannell 1996). In particular, m edia serve to give individual b iog raphies a place in the collective, shared experience of public life, thus m aking individuals feel connected to a w id er com munity. As Scannell (1996: 91) notes, 'big' events such as coronations, royal w ed d ings, state funerals and assassinations b eco m e part of a collective m e m ory through mass m edia; 'm ark ed up not only on the public calend ar of "h is to r y " b u t also on the private calendars of p eople's lives'. It is not just m o m e n to u s events of national or global significance w hich give generatio ns a sense of shared cu ltural experience, how ever. The tem po ral fra m ew ork of broad cast m edia gives a co m m o n structure and substance (w hat Scannell calls a 'texture of relevances') to p e o p le 's lives, so that a c o m m o n , yet largely u n sp ok en, sense of cultural identity and national unity is formed by m e m orie s of particular TV and radio show s and their associated view ing and listening contexts. O f particular im portance in this context are the television and radio p ro g ra m m e s we consu m ed as children and adolescents. As signifiers of leisure time spent in casual relaxation with friends and family, m em orie s of w atching D octor Who on a Saturday tea-time or listening to Tw o-w ay F am ily F avou rites on the radio at w e e k en d s not only provide m an y of us with nostalgic m em orie s of times gone by b u t also foster a sen se of 'im agined c o m m u n ity ' w hich binds us with others of the sa m e culture and g eneration. T he extent to w hich collective mediated events give those w ho are confined within total institu tions a sense of co m m o n experience with the w id er com m unity, or serve only to m ak e them feel even more m arginalised, will be discussed in C h apter 4, b u t Silverstone (1999: 9 2 -9 3 ) suggests that m e m o ry and hom e arc crucially inter-related, and that when we can n o t go h om e, the pictorial stories w e carry around in our minds are shaped by m edia images: T hink of you r ow n child hood and ad olescence . . . I think of mine. A black and w hite television screen in the front room. The C oronation of Elizabeth II. Transistor radio under the pillow. 6

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The pro g ram m e s of childhood: jo u rn ey into Space. . . Q u aterm ass. . . the P o tte r's W heel, Radio L ux em bo urg. To share that world with o n e 's contem poraries, to reflect on the past it evokes, is to connect with the other, to dom esticate a shareable past. But it is also to inclu de m e m orie s of m edia into one's ow n biography, into m em orie s of hom e, good, bad and indifferent. These are the shaping experiences: of h o m e as a m ediated space, and of m edia as a d om esticated space. Secure in them w e can dream. W ithou t them w e are bereft. Spigel and Jenkins (1991) explore this theme in their essay on A m erican a ud ien ces' m em orie s of the 1960s television series B atm an, in the light of its resurrection as a H ollyw oo d m ovie in 1989. T h e y explain B atm an ’s end uring appeal in terms of its positioning as an integral part of A m erican culture's past: 'Batm an seem ed a point of entry into child ren's culture of the 1960s, and it also provided a clue to y u p pie culture of the late 1980s b ecause these m e m orie s seem ed to constitu te a co m m o n heritage of a par­ ticular adult g eneratio n' (ibid.: 119). Memory, then, is linked to fantasy and, for Spigel and Jenkins, the revival of B atm an can be seen as a d elib ­ erate evocation and celebration of child hood fantasy; 'an invitation to turn the present into the past' (ibid.: 1991: 130). They found that w h en re m e m ­ bering the Batm an series, people tended to construct vivid im ages of th e m ­ selves w atching the p ro g ra m m e as children; 're m e m b erin g B atm an brought b ack a situational context, a scene that painted a ro ugh sketch of places in the hou se, times of the day, and child hood relatio nships with family or friends' (ibid.: 134). M ediated recollections of television view ing can also act as a catalyst for m ore w id e-reaching explorations of the social context in w hich the view ing took place: R e m em b e rin g Batm an m e a n t re m e m b erin g them selves, and that d ialogue b etw ee n p ro g ra m m e and self contin ually fram ed the stories they told a bout the past. M e m o rie s fluidly m oved from personal to collective consciou sness as people w eaved histories around them selves, while at the sam e time imbricating them selves into the w id er social fabric. Ind eed , this m atch ing of personal and public pasts b ec am e a strategy for un d ersta nd ing the relationship of self to society, and within this m atch ing process television m e m o rie s served a key role ('w hen 1 go back and see som ething from that long ago, I tend to re m e m b er w ho I was w h en I first saw it, how I tho ug ht the world was'). These m e m orie s are not sim ply the residue of earlier times; instead they are a resource people use to think about the world and their position within it (ibid.: 137). 7

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In addition to radio and television broad casts, m u sic can also evoke po w erfu l m em ories. In an ethnog raphically rich study of m u sic in eve ry d a y life, Tia D eN ora (2000: 67) d em onstra tes how , for m an y people, 'the past com es alive to its sou n d track '. Central to peop le's rem iniscences of form er lovers, deceased parents, times past, the p o w e r of m usic to evok e the e m otional content of relatio nships can be painful. But reliving experien ce through m usic is also '(re)constituting past experience, it is m a k ing m anifest within m e m o ry w h at m ay have been latent or even absent' before (ibid.: 66). It is, moreover, 'part of the w ork of producing one's self as a coherent being over time. . . w hich in turn fuels the ongoing projection of identity from past into future' (ibid.). D e N o ra 's study of m usic con su m p tion thus shares with Spigel and Je n k in s ' analysis of fans of Batm an an interest in how m edia texts fu nction as 'a point of sym bolic, biographical reference, representing som e aspects o f the difference perceived b etw ee n identity or circum stances " t h e n " and " n o w " ' (O 'S ullivan 1991: 163). Popu lar m e m o ry is thus based on the dialectic betw ee n au tob iog ra p h y and the description of public events, past entw ined with present, so that individuals have a sense of them selv es in history and continually use the past as a w ay of u n d erstand ing the present and constructing their future identities. A s m ass m edia increasingly com e to form part of our historical consciou sness, so m em orie s evoked and shaped by particular m edia texts have to be seen as an im portant part of the routine, politics and spectacle of everyday life. To those w h o are confined within total institutions, the facility of mediated m e m orie s to ground notio ns of personal identity within the contexts of national c o m m u n ity and historical conting ency may be especially significant. The individual hu m an desire to feel part of a w id er co m m u n ity is also addressed by uses and gratifications research, a m etho d o lo g ica l approach to m edia a ud ien ces that turned on its head the question that had d om inated the largely p sychology-orientated ag endas of m ass co m m u n ication s researchers ('w h a t do the m edia do to p eople?') and asked instead from a sociological perspective, 'w h a t do people do w ith the m e d ia ?' The m o st fam ous 'u ses and gratifications' study w as arguably that cond u cted by M cQ u a il, B lu m ler and Brown in 1972. R esp on d en ts w ere given a q u e s­ tionnaire listing possible uses and gratifications and asked w'hether any of the exam p les given were the m o tiv es behind their television viewing. A ltho ug h exam p les of possible satisfactions were chosen after focus gro ups had b een cond u cted, the lim itations of this closed -question approach offering a definitive set of m otivations are obvious. But in its resistance to the idea of an all-pow erful and h o m o g e n eo u s m edia, and in its rejection of the e sta blishm ent view that television w as essentially a trivial leisure 8

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activity in w h ich view ers sou g ht shallow, u n d e m a n d in g escapism , M cQ u ail et a/'s study represented a w atershed in m ed ia research. D elib­ erately a void ing the language of functionalism which had d om inated since the late 1940s, and e m phasising gratifications sou ght rath er than gratifica­ tions obtain ed, the researchers outlined a ty pology of m e d ia -p e r s o n inter­ actions w h ich am ounted to four m ain 'n e e d s' s ou g h t in television viewing. The first is 'd iversio n', en com p assin g retreat from the im m ediate envi­ ronm ent, deviation from the constraints of routine, escape from the b urd ens of problem s and e m otiona l release. The second is a need for 'personal relationships' w h ereby - in a process know n as 'para-social inter­ action' (H orton and Wohl 1956) - com p a nio nship is provided by televi­ sion personalities w h o b eco m e m edia 'f riend s', cou nteracting feelings of loneliness and isolation. In addition, television m ay provide a social utility function, giving people a source of conversation with others in 'real' life. Thirdly, 'person al identity' w as identified as a key factor in pro g ra m m e choice; television can be seen as a reference point for one's ow n life, allow ing view ers to com p a re their experien ces with those of people - real or fictional - on screen. Television also contributes to the rein forcem ent of ideas and opinions, and m ay play an im p ortan t role in identity formation and m aintenance. Finally, 'su rveillance' was identified as a p rim ary m o ti­ vation w'hereby view ers use television as a m eans of k eeping inform ed ab ou t the w orld, and particularly the events m o st likely to affect them. A ltho ugh these responses were d raw n from a 'n o rm a l' sam ple of citizens, the uses and gratifications approach is of interest w h en consid ering the view ing habits of prison inmates. All the categories of m o tiv ations found am o u n t to a need to be 'co n n e cted ', and are therefore particularly apt in the context of m edia use in a controlled and restricted e nvironm ent, w here a greater level of sensory d eprivation and d isconnection with conv entional dom estic life m ig h t be expected. F urtherm ore, although d ep en d e n ce on m edia varies greatly across different social groups, it is generally recog­ nised that those with the greatest levels of attach m en t to all m edia are people w h o are confined to the h om e, on low incom es and suffering from som e kind of stress (M cQ u ail 1994). All these variables clearly have parallels a m o n g the prison com m u nity .2 H ow ever, the prim ary d ra w b ack of the uses and gratifications approach, other than its implicit prescriptiveness, is that its em p h asis on agency excludes any real consideration of social context or the actual source of the needs sou g h t in television con su m p tion . For e xam p le, it would be naive to assu m e that individual m edia consu m p tion does not change under prison conditions. Furtherm ore, the classic uses and gratifications m odel concentrates on personal uses, ignoring interpersonal and social (i.e. structural or relational) uses. Even befo re the 1972 study, 9

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M cQ u a il (1969: 71) had already recognised that its 'g u id ing assum ption of utility' led uses and gratifications research to draw conc lu sions which w ere not necessarily self-evident, b ut one of its m o st vociferous critics is Phillip Elliott (1974) w h o states that the findings of uses and gratifications research only add up to generalisations about aggregates of individuals and cannot be converted into social structure and process in any w ay w h ich is not theoretically reductive and em pirically m eaningless. This problem is further highlighted by Katz et al (1974), w ho note that not only are the gratifications associated with exposure to the m edia per se ignored, b u t the aud ience m e m b e r is generally regarded in individualistic term s, devoid of his or her place in the social structure, and seeking gratification only of individually experienced needs. T he com bined p rodu ct of p sychological dispositions, sociological factors and situational context that d eterm ines the specific uses of m edia by aud ience m em b ers has thus been com pletely overlooked. Given its inability ad equately to conc eptualise relations of power, I propose adopting a refined version of the uses and gratifications m odel. In an attem pt to em brace a more situated theory of subjectivity that can offer insights into the role of the m edia in expressin g identity, identification and difference, this study will therefore seek to explore the m ean in gs an d m otivation s that prison inmates seek from m ed ia resources (see C h apter 4).

T h e p ro b le m

o f t i m e : ‘d o i n g ’ t i m e , ‘k i l l i n g ’ t i m e a n d ‘m a r k i n g ’ t i m e

Related to the loss of liberty is the notio n of time. Usually characterised as being both quantitatively and qualitativ ely different inside prison, concern for time is 'alm ost a constant and painfu l state-of-m ind ' for som e prisoners (Galtung 1961: 113). M atthew s (1999: 39) m aintains that time served in prison is not so m u ch 's pent' as 'w a s ted ' w hile other writers have likened im p riso n m e n t to being in 'cold storag e' or 'frozen in time'. Ruggiero (1991: 74) sum s it up thus: 'P rison distorts time, it deprives it of its use-valu e while riddling it with an institutional, alienated and a m o rp h o u s rhythm. Stress, tensio n, nervo us and psychoso m atic diseases all deriv e from this institutional imposition of time.' D o in g time

The notion of doin g time is problem atised by the fact that the judicial system view s time taken from the prisoner as being both an objective entity and a ratio-scale starting at an absolu te zero point. In other w ords, as far as the criminal justice system is concerned , time m eans the same 10

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thing to all of us, and p u n ish m en t is m easured by a com m on ly understood scale w h ereby a ten-year sentence is regard ed as doubly punitive as com pared to a five-year sentence. But to view time in this w a y qualitatively ignores or negates the actu al 'd o in g ' of time, with all its pain and frustrations. The m eaning of time is relative and is d ep en d e n t on the individ ual's propensity to cope with his state of enforced cry ogenic suspension. W hile it is un d o u b ted ly true that long-term prisoners face a very particular set o f stresses (C ohen and Taylor 1972; Flanag an 1982; Sapsfo rd 1983) the im plication that the pains of im p ris o n m e n t can be m easured in relation to the a m o u n t of time spent in prison is far too sim plistic a pretext to w arrant serious attention and its quantifiable dem onstration has been described as a 'm etho d olo g ical n ig htm are' (M cK ay et al 1979: 4). M o st notable in this respect is von Hirsch (1992) w ho argues that lengths of sentences do not necessarily correlate in a relationship of proportionality, and that the effects of con fin e m e n t will be a fu nction of the ind ivid ua l's personal perception of time and his ability to 'u se' or 'fill' time. It is perhaps m ore useful in this context to em ploy King and M c D e rm o tt's revised definition of D o w n e s ' (1988) concep t of the 'depth of im p riso n m e n t' - that is, the degree to w h ich a prisoner is em be d d ed into the security and control sy stem s of im p rison m e n t - or King and M cD e rm o tt's (1995) ow n notio n of the 'w eig h t o f im p riso n m e n t' - the extent to w h ich the heavy and oppressive nature of confinem ent seem s literally to bear dow n on the inm ate like a m illstone around the neck - rather than thinking sim ply in term s of the length of prison sen tence. Stu dies of u n e m p lo y m e n t have d em onstrated that those w h o lack a clear time structure are often chronically depriv ed of m ean in g in their lives.3 Bostyn and W ight (1987) note that w h en men lose the tem poral pattern which is provided by regular w ork, the significance that different tim e-bands had for them (as w ork time, leisure time, w eek and w eek end , holiday or retirem ent) is lost, and their sense of pu rpose, of feeling in con trol is dim inished. This loss of te m poral rhythm, com bin ed with the lack of m oney with w hich to confirm one's status through sy m bolic con su m p tion can lead to an 'im p o v e ris h e d ' and 'p a ssive' group (Bostyn and W ight 1987: 153). P risoners share with the jobless feelings of d is e m p o w e rm e n t and pu rp oselessn ess at the lack of te m poral structure which e m p lo y m e n t provides and, although work is provided in m ost prisons, it is usually repetitive, m o n o to n o u s and fragmentary.

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K illin g t im e

An ironic term in a context w h ere time is often regard ed as being already 'd ea d ', killin g time is one of the biggest practical pro blem s facing the inm ate and explains why a high p rem iu m is placed on 'r e m o val' activities w hich fill lengthy periods of time. M o st prison sociologists have alluded to the dead enin g m o n o to n y of prison routine and the serio us lack of constructive and purposeful activities for inmates to engage in but, perhaps m o st famously, Irwin (1970) identifies three principal adaptive strategies w h ich have som e bearing on the passing of time. For those prisoners able to regard incarceration as a com paratively short-lived interruption in their usual w ay of life, the 'd oing tim e' m o d e m ight prove the m o st effective w ay of coping, w h ereby the prison is evaluated in terms of w h atev er n o n -d em a n d in g benefits and privileges can be had from it, and association with other inm ates tends to be casual and im p e rm an e n t. T he second adaptation strategy in Irw in's typolo gy is the 'jailing m o d e ', w h ereb y inmates remain relatively unaffected by the tem po ral structure of prison life, and deal with the inherent routine and boredom by im m e rsin g them selves in the inm ate culture, form ing cliques with like-m ind ed individuals and openly exploiting the indigenous e con om ic and sexual trades. Alternatively, inm ates m igh t ad op t the third m ode, 'g lea n ing ', w hich involves accepting the institu tion's incentiv es for rehabilitation and passing the time by seeking out p ro g ra m m e s and relatio nship s w hich can be expected to lead to so m e kind of educational, vocational, p sychological or spiritual im pro vem en t. O f course, Irw in's categories, like other typologies, p resupp ose that prisoners do cope. But the literature on b reak d o w n s, self-harm and suicide in prison rem inds us that prison research can only take account of the su rvivors of the prison experience, and that those inm ates w h o have tho ug ht a b ou t taking their own lives while in prison (1 7 - 1 8 per cent of the total inm ate population) report higher-than-average feelings of apathy, boredom and leth argy (L iebling 1992). W hen com pared to the prison population as a w h ole, significantly few er suicide a ttem pters are able constructively to occu py them selves or relieve their considerable sense of boredom and m ost are locked in their cells for considerable period s of time (ibid.). Both assaults upon the self, and m ore w idespread d isruptions involving a n u m b e r of inm ates, can be seen as a m eans of w ithstand ing the psychological stress b ro u g h t about by the dull grind of prison routine; as Co hen and Taylor (1972: 64) rath er poetically put it, 'every total institution can be seen as a kind of dead sea in which appear little islands of vivid, encaptu rin g activity'.

12

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M a r k i n g t im e

The ability to m ark time is also a problem in an e nvironm ent w h ere the loss of liberty is central to daily existence, and the available m e an s of distinguishing w e e k en d s from w eeks, s u m m ers from winters, or the end of one year and the beginning of the next, are a pale imitation of 'n o rm a l' life. G altung (1961) s o m e w h a t contentiously im plies that the inm ate w hose m in im u m sentence exceeds his probable lifetime has som ething of an ad vantag e over the m ajority of prisoners in that he can adapt h im self fully to institu tional life w ithout having to preserve an identity appropriate for life outside w h en release com es. M o st prisoners, however, are painfu lly aw are of the necessity of m aintaining an identity relevant to the world bey on d the institu tion, and the notio n that life-tariff inm ates are at an ad vantag e b ecau se they do not have to w orry about their n o n ­ prison selves is contradicted by C o h e n and Taylor (1972) w ho claim that few prisoners are able to com e to terms with the possibility that they will die in prison. Institutionalised for m any years and facing an a b und ance of time to fill, the lack of traditional b en ch m a rk s with which to divide or differentiate time can result in severe p sychological stress for long­ term prisoners: 'E ach m inute m ay be m a rv ellously - or horribly profound. . . There are swift hours and very long seconds. Past time is void. There is no chronology of events to m ark it; external duration no longer exists' (Serge 1970: 5 6 -5 7 ). But m ass m ed ia, by their very 'd ailiness' (Scannell 1996), give time a sense of order, routine and rhythm. T he d e v e lo p m e n t of the m ass media in W estern society reflects the industrial segm entatio n of time into specific b ands, and virtually all established m edia are implicated in the routines and restrictions of industrial 'clock -tim e' (Brittan 1977; A d am 1995). The cost of using a telephone is c heaper outside w o rk in g hours; n e w sp ap e rs are distinguished by w h a t time of the day or w eek they are on sale; radio and television p ro g ra m m e s b eco m e part of the routine of p e o p le 's daily work lives and leisure time, so that particular pro g ram m e s will invariably accom p a n y other, routine activities. Television and radio schedu les generate a degree of d ep end ence, security and attach m en t through the regularity of their schedu ling and through the familiarity of certain genres, narratives and personalities; daily n e w sp ap e rs also help to give every d ay life its seam less flow, and further reassure that h ow ever bad the new s, som e sense of norm alisation can be achieved in the routines and cu stom s associated with reading a regular n e w sp a p e r (turning to the sports page, brow sing the television schedules, doing the crossw ord , etc.); w eekend n e w sp ap e rs, with their obligatory 'lifestyle' s u p p le m e n ts, m ark the end of the w o rk ing w eek and signify a time for 13

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relaxation and private space. The continu in g , cyclical nature of most media is at the heart of their role in facilitating ontological security and, for Scannell (1996), it is im perative to explore the te m poral a rran gem ents of m ed ia if w e are to un derstand how they m atter for us in the w ays that they d o.4

T h e im p o rta n c e of m a te ria l p o sse ssion s

The depriv atio n of goo ds and services is m anifested in the fact that, although inm ates' basic m in im u m requirem ents are met, a standard of living constructed in terms of calories per meal, hou rs out of cell per day, cubic feet of space per inm ate and so on, does little to address the w ay that an inm ate actually fe els about his deprivation (Sykes 1958). E ven in the very early days of the overt consu m erism generated by advanced capitalist societies, Sy k es recognised that a m in im u m standard of living m ight be hop elessly inadeq uate to a prisoner used to the 'subtle sym bolic overtones w h ich w e invest in the world of po ssessions' (ibid.: 68). Furtherm ore, even for those prisoners w h o experienced a sim ilar or even greater level of poverty before ente ring prison (as found by, for e xam p le, M orris and M orris in their study of Pentonville Prison, 1963) it is the system atic d ep rivation of goo ds and services, and the fact they are so tightly controlled by staff which am o u n ts to an attack on the individual's self-perceptio n. O f great frustration is that m a n y seem ingly trivial goods and services are restricted and can be aw arded or w ith d raw n at the discretion - or w him - of staff. In fact, the fo rmal im p lem enta tion of a service-w ide incentiv es s chem e (see C h apter 3) has gone som e w ay tow ards reducing feelings of discontent, b u t there is still a perceived unfairness regarding the regulation of m a n y of the g oo ds and services permitted in prison, especially those considered too trivial to w arrant form al attention. Sykes can again be called upon in this context; he notes that when chronically depriv ed of o n e 's liberty, material goo ds and so forth, the m inor pleasures w h ich are granted can take on a heightened significance w h ich few of us in the free co m m u n ity can appreciate (Sykes 1958: 50). G offm an (1961a: 49) end orses this with a graphic d escription of how material possessions can b eco m e objects of 'desire, fantasy and conscious con cern ', causing the in m a te 's attention to be fixed on them so that 'he spends his day like a fanatic, in devoted thoughts about the possibility of acquirin g those gratifications or in contem plation of the approaching hour at w hich they are scheduled to be granted'. The suggestion that m aterial goods can m ak e a positive im pact upon a person's w ell-being conflicts with the view s of m any cu ltural 14

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c o m m e n ta to rs w h o take their cues from the tradition of cu ltural pessim ism founded by the Fra nkfu rt School. For e xam p le, in The P rivatised W orld (1977), Brittan argues that the picture of social reality w h ich m a n y of us hold on to is the frau d ulen t p rodu ct of the m edia industry and that the con sp icu ou s con su m p tion w hich m arks m o d e rn life is a new and vicious form of alienation w h ich has su p p lem ented and, to som e extent, replaced the alienation of the factory. W here once all hu m an relatio nships w ere conceived of as extensions of the labour m arket, now individuals are defined not by w h at they do (i.e. produce) b u t by w h at they ow n. Consequently, w e all exist not only as co n su m e rs b ut as aud ien ces to the spectacle of others' con su m p tion . The c o n s u m e r has replaced the 'active m a n ' as the po ssesso r of h appiness (Lefebvre 1971: 56) and in this new configuration, 'capitalism m an a g e s to m aintain its hold on the m asse s' (Brittan 1977: 32). N ot only is this formulation overtly structuralist in essence, but it neglects the very real im pact of conspicu ous c o n su m p tio n on m any p e o p le 's sense of self. Group affiliations are frequently organised around m ed ia im ages of style, personality, clothing and m usic, w h ich - in addition to being sources of individual gratifications - also act as pow erful articulato rs of culture (Tudor 1979). The ad option of particular d esigner clothing and footw ear by large sectio ns of the w o rk ing classes (including prison inmates) m ay be seen - in Brittan's terms - as a sym bol of exploitation of m indless conform ists at the hand s of pow erfu l m anu factu rers and m arketers, b u t that should not necessarily deflect from the positive self-im age that such sy m bolic gestures can generate in structural environm ents where self-esteem and aspiration are under constan t assault. Bostyn and W ight (1987: 140) understand this relationship well, arguing that 'co n s u m e r g oo ds provide m aterials with w hich to represent one's self-identity, create or confirm particular social relatio nships, and provide the ritual m ark ing of time'. Moreover, '[t]he g oo ds people choose to buy are a physical expression (often not conscious) of their characters, or at least w h at they w an t to project as su ch ' (ibid.). Recalling the w o rk of Barthes, Bostyn and W ight highlight w h a t they see as the intrinsically m ascu line attributes of m any com m od ities, and suggest that one's identity as an adult, a father, and a m an, are inextricably b ound up in com m od itie s such as m eat, m achines and alcohol. The depriv atio n of such item s - particularly w h en associated with the inability to purchase them with a 'm a n 's w a g e ' - em asculates the individual and attacks his sense of self-worth. In prisons the deprivation of a w id e range of material goods similarly heightens the need for, and value of, co n s u m in g and spectacle, both as a restorer of the em battled and em asculated self and, m ore fundamentally, Is

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to bring colou r into an otherw ise drab and uniform environm ent. Prison cells m ig h t be furnished with the aspirational sym b ols of m edia-satu rated co n s u m e r capitalism - posters of g la m o u r m odels and pop stars, pictures of expensive sports cars, hi-tech audio e q u ip m en t and, increasingly, televisions - but to reduce these sy m b ols to mere products of an exploitative m e d ia 's desire to take ad vantage of passiv e dupes w ho know no better, negates the real sense of a gency and e m p o w e r m e n t w h ich the choice, purchase and use of these consu m a b les can produce, albeit that it is within a structure of d om ination and exploitation. Cu ltural theorist Dick H ebd ig e (1989) discusses the social significance of efforts to construct new identities through con sp icu ou s con su m p tion and develops a 'sociology of a spiration'; less concerned with w h a t people are or even w h a t they w ant, but m u ch more interested in w h a t people aspire to be. W h ile he does not m ak e any claim s for it being a substitute for class analysis, H ebd ige believes that aspiration is an im portant d im ension of social

stratification

none-the-less.

M arket

research,

packaging

and

presentation have cut across the old s o cia l-se x u a l polarities so that 'lifestyle' has b ec o m e a social p h e n o m en o n no less real than previously privileged sociological categories such as class. Unlike Brittan, Hebdige is optim istic a b ou t the po stm od ern condition; in addition to constructing new identities th rough con su m p tion fuelled by m ed ia industries such as advertising, he suggests that another im portant m e an s by which people form aspects of their identity is through active use of m edia form s and texts. In other w ords, far from being passiv e d upes, people as individuals and as groups use the m edia in positive, constructive w a y s to develop new identities. As indicated above, the culture industries, inclu ding the mass m edia, serve not sim ply to sell people their products, b u t to allow them to buy into wider form s of co m m u n ity and alliance. Within the context of the total institution, the desire to feel connected to a w id er c o m m u n ity is easily understo od.

A u t o n o m y , cho ice and p e rso n a l respo n sibility

Allow ing 'ch o ice ' in any significant sense is very difficult in prisons becau se of the classification system w hich lu m p s together prisoners perceived to be of sim ilar security risk, regardless of the differences b etw ee n their crim es or their personalities. H ow ever, the ability to m ake even the sm allest choices fosters the illusion of control that is a basic h u m a n need (M cK a y et al 1979) and the p ris o n e r's frustrations at not being able to m ak e even m inor decisions for him self are found in m any p ersonal accounts of inm ate life (e.g. Caird 1974; Boyle 1977; Shanno n 1«

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and M organ 1996). The loss of a u to n o m y in prison is usually total and, again, the issue of self-identity is central, as the prisoner is reduced to the w eak , help less, d ep en d e n t status of a child w h o is unable to contest parental p o w e r other than by reference to a g eneralised, and frequently flouted, expectation of 'f a irn e ss' (Sykes 1958; M athiesen 1965). Vagg (1994) notes that this state of 'infantilisation' is created by the need to ask perm ission for virtually everything one w ishes to do and is further enforced by the m an n er in w hich perm ission is sou ght; one has to ask 'correctly' in order to avoid conflict with staff. 'Infantilisation' also points to the rigidity of staff control over inm ates and encapsulates the notion that the creation of d ep en d e n ce is also the creation of a m eans of control. If inmates depend upon staff to facilitate, for e xam p le, extra visits, the threat of refusal to allow visits is a m eans of ensuring com pliance and good behaviour. O ne of the w a y s in w h ich a u ton om y is preserved in prisons is through p erfo rm ance, w h ich is often subtly linked to prior m edia consu m ption. The characterisation of everyd ay life as pe rfo rm an ce or spectacle has d om inated the cultural studies tradition, and a large body of w o rk has b een generated concerning p e o p le 's collective and individual in v o lv e m e n t in majority cultures, minority cultures, fan cultures and subcultu res. An especially productive focus within this body of research has b een the relationship b etw ee n subjectivity and power, and the extent to w h ich they are to be found in the realm s of the everyd ay (de Certeau 1984; Fiske 1989; Silverstone 1994; Miller and M cH o u l 1998). Abercrom bie and L ong hu rst (1998) coin the term 'diffused au d ien ce' to encapsulate the com bination of perfo rm ance, spectacle and narcissism that constitu tes m o d e rn social life. They argue that the o m nip resence of m edia in every d ay life has led to a general 'h eig htening ' of beh a v io u r w hich 'carries with it so m e sense of specialness, a m o m e n t of b eing transported out of the m u n d a n e , even if the transportation is brief and slight' (ibid.: 40). In prison societies, it is the public self w hich m o st obviously constitutes p erfo rm ance, b ut equally, private actions can be described as p erfo rm ances. From the overtly m ascu line posturing that can be seen in the g y m n a s iu m s and on the sports fields, to the act of w atching television or listening to m usic in o n e 's cell; every elem ent of life w hich in som e w a y transcends the p a ra m o u n t reality of being inside prison is invested with a sense of 'the sacred and the e xtraord in ary ' (ibid.: 41) and thus constitutes perfo rm ance. As A b ercrom bie and Long hu rst state, 'all pe rfo rm an ce s involve a degree of cerem ony and ritual' (ibid.) and in an en v iron m en t w h ere one is effectively stripped of choice and autonomy, the m o st m u n d a n e practices (reading, listening to m usic, cleaning one's teeth, even using the toilet) can be a ccom panied by an acute sense of 17

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sacredness and ritual not experienced in the execution of such m u n d an e tasks in 'o rd inary life'. As such, pe rfo rm a n ce can be regarded as one of the prim ary loci of agency and e m p o w e r m e n t in the face of potentially ov erw h e lm in g structural d em ands.

T h e d e p riv a tio n o f h e te ro se x u a l relation sh ip s and n o tio n s of m a scu lin ity

O ne of the m o st striking features of m e n 's prisons is the relative scarcity of w o m en. This represents a problem for the presentation of the ro bust sexual appetite norm ally associated with m a n h ood a m o n g this group, to the extent that som e researchers have likened im p ris o n m e n t to physical castration (Sykes 1958; Segal 1990). O thers m aintain that even in the highly constrained en v iro n m en t of the prison there exists the possibility for m en to fashion a 'w a y of b e in g ' (P ronger 1990) as an adaptive stance to the patterns im posed on them by their environm ent. Indeed, an em erging them e in the literature on constructions of m asculinity that is review ed in C h apter 2, is that m a n y social institu tions organise m asculine p o w e r through constructs of sexuality, socialising their inhabitants in the w ay s of 'd oin g ' heterosexuality as a m e an s of validating their masculinity and gaining acceptance to the group (stu dies of sexuality in families and in schools are especially pro m inent in this respect; see M ac an Ghaill 1996; M e ssersch m id t 1999). M o s t obviously, an exaggerated version of heterosexuality is m aintained d iscursiv ely through story-telling and banter, both of w hich m ay contain an elem en t of e m b e llish m e n t and exaggeration (Thurston 1996). For exam p le , boastin g about sexual conq u ests is co m m o n and, in an e n v iro n m en t w h ere m isogy ny and ho m o p h o b ia go hand in hand with proof of o n e 's own 'n o rm a l' masculinity, the n u m b e r of children fath ered, usually with more than one w o m a n , is frequently view ed as a favourable criterion (M athiesen 1965). Yet in a seem ingly intractable contradiction, hom osexu a lity - the subject of m uch scorn and derision a m o n g prisoners and officers - is an abidin g feature of prison life. A ctual h o m o s e x u a l encou nters and relationships are c o m m o n p la ce and can, for som e individuals, take the place of heterosexu al relations in a w a y that is relatively n orm alised, and am ounts to an act of resistance. Furtherm ore, in a bizarre m u tation of sexual p o w er relations, a man w ho rapes another m an can be a sy m b ol of superordinancy, signifying him as a 'd ou ble m a n ' (Scacco 1975). How ever, the notion of the subject as consum er, freely choosing their identity from a vast array of com m od ified choices, m ay be problem atic in this context as it ignores the com plex interaction b etw ee n biological determ inants, psy cholog ical processes and social expectations. W hile it 18

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m ay be the gift of som e m e n to play at will with the conv entio ns of gender, m a n y others will be constrained from doing so by a variety of p sychological and cultural im pedim ents. Despite the relative n o r m a ­ lisation of hom osexu ality in prisons, m a n y inm ates strenuously resist h o m o se xu a l ad vances, and the existence of sexual predators can m ak e the prison world extrem ely unpredictable, frightening and alien, especially to the new or vulnerable inm ate (King 1992). A co m m o n response a m o n g low er w o rk ing -class m en to the requirem ent of presentin g an overtly m ascu line facade is to take up bod y b u ild in g , w hich may serve the purpose of attracting a mate or, conversely, of w arding off potential a d v a n ce s.5 In prison, keeping physically fit is u n derstand ab le given the level o f fear a m o n g inmates and prison officers. M ore than that, how ever, the serio us pursuit of an excessively m u scu la r p hy siqu e is significant in term s of the presentation of self as a pow erful and self-controlled individual. The b od y is constructed as a site of difference in relation to others w h o are physically less strong, and is a key p erform ative device. In institu tions where standard prison clothing is issued, rem odelling the body m ay be the p rim ary m eans of asserting one's individual personality and gaining gro und in an overtly com petitive environm ent. It is a statem ent of presence and of p o w e r (which obviou sly m ak e s it attractive to those who are marginalised or d ise m p o w e red ) and it represents the ultimate achiev em ent of self-control and agency. N ot only do individuals form an un d erstand ing of them selv es by contin ually re-w orking their sense of self as they go through life, b u t their personal b iog rap hy is also constructed partly through the system atic ordering of the b od y through fitness, shape and diet (G id dens 1991a). Put simply, the constructed , laboured-over b o d y is the locus of an u n d er valued presence in the w o rld, albeit one which is open to reconstruction and the pleasures of narcissism. It also accords with the ideology of the 'tim e -d o e r' w ho w ishes to use the institution for w h atev er benefits m ight be available (Irwin 1970) and the 'w ith d r a w e r ' (C ohen and Taylor 1972) w ho is attracted to a solitary, narcissistic pursuit w hich entails no relation to other inm ates (Ward Jouve 1988). M ed ia and p o pular culture provide m u ch of the substance from which prisoners construct their m asculine identities, and a n u m b e r of observers of prison inm ates have testified to the im portance of role m odels from the w o rld s of sport and entertainm ent. Both participation in sporting activities, and e ng ag ing in d iscourse which d em onstrates k no w le d g e and opinion about sport, are po w erfu l indicato rs of one's m asculine credentials. M oreover, sport acts as a routine every d ay leisure activity, yet also acts as a release from the daily grind and transcends the every d ay 19

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via media e ntertainm ent netw o rks (M iller and M c H o u l 1998). In both professional and a m ateu r circles, pe rfo rm a n ce and spectatorship are central, and now h e re is the aestheticisation of the h u m a n body more obvious. In the last few decades, during w h ich the culture industries have taken narcissistic b od y d ev elo p m en t to new heights, it is likely that a large proportio n of male inm ates - like the w id er social stratum from w hich they are draw n - have equated 'm a k in g it' with achieving the tough, seem ingly indestructible physiqu e of Sc h w a rz en n eg e r or Stallone. But as the fo llow ing chapter will d em onstrate, con tem p orary society is m arked by the superord inancy of a particularly aggressive kind of masculinity, and the heroes identified as in m a te s' role m o d els in m uch of the prison literature ('tough guys' such as John W ayne and Clint E astw ood ) have been supersed ed by m ore violent characters played by the likes of Je a n -C la u d e Van D a m m e and S tephen Segal, w h ose status as good g u y / b a d guy is frequently am bivalent.

F e a r of c o n t a m in a t io n and assault

The precedence of security, the te m poral structure of prison life and the spatial arran g em e n ts of m u ch prison architecture leave the prisoner with few op portu nities for privacy. The deprivation of security and fear of assault are correspond ingly am o n g the bigg est p roblem s associated with im p riso n m e n t (Sykes 1958; Toch 1975; Kalinich 1980; Adler 1996). With less evidence of the solidarity and com rad eship found by Sykes, m ost su b seq u e n t studies are in agre em en t that one of the w orst aspects of im p riso n m e n t is having to live a m o n g other prisoners, and accounts of inmates w ho request period s in solitary con fin e m e n t are co m m o n . Brittan (1977) pre-em pts more recent c o m m e n tato rs on the nature of risk by suggestin g that for all of us in late m o dern society, the ebb and flow of every d ay life involve consciou sness of differences b etw ee n the boring present and the threatening future, the possibility of pain and suffering, and the actuality of personal troubles. But for those w h o live and w ork in prisons, the need to be attuned to risk is especially acute, and both actu al risks, and the ever-present aw areness of p ossible risks, shape and determ ine m any aspects of life, both structurally and culturally. In addition, prisoners live u n d er alm ost constan t surveillance, subject to staff m e m b ers w h o m ay periodically, and w ithout w arning, expose them to sud d en searches, cell checks or interrogations by drugs officers. G offm an (1961a, 1961b) argues that this aspect of m ortificatio n has a contam in ativ e ele m e n t w hereby the threat of assault or invasion of one's personal territory by staff or fellow inm ates is not just of a physical or 20

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superficial nature but has a deeply penetrative p sychological impact b ecau se the agency of m ortificatio n is another h u m a n being. W hile the m o st profou nd case of interpersonal contam in atio n in our society is rape, G offm an (ibid.) reports that there are m any less severe exam p les of the penetration of the private reserves of the individual in environm ents w h ere privacy is all b ut non-existent. But w hile a heightened aw areness of potential risks m ight be the p a ra m o u n t reality in w hich m a n y prisoners and prison officers (and, arguably, m o st of us in general life) cond u ct their every d ay lives, an unrem itting atm o sphere of risk and fear would result in inoperative institutions. Consequently, the construction of alternative life-w orlds (Brittan 1977; G id d e n s 1991a) w hich privilege other e m otional qualities - intimacy, c o m p a n io n sh ip , hum our, learning, relaxation, co m p e ti­ tiveness, boredom or w h atev er - is a prim ary m eans of copin g with an otherw ise potentially o v erw h e lm in g p a ra m o u n t reality. Such alternative life-w orlds frequently involve p o pular culture and, in prison, perhaps even more than in general life, the m ed ia provide a refu ge from the d e m a n d s of public presentation and the rigours of social life. In an en v iron m en t w h ere every d ay life is som e tim e s described in terms of its 'th in n e ss' (Sapsford 1983), m edia can provide a richness, colou r and texture that are, in so m e way, com p a rab le to life outside.

Fear of p e rso n a l de te rioration and b re a kd o w n

Anxiety a bout personal deterioratio n has two elem ents. At one level, prisoners are concerned about being cut off from the outside world to an extent w here they fear that on release they will be as aliens in an un k n o w n world. The benefits of having w ide access to the m edia of m ass co m m u n ic atio n s hardly need explaining in this context. But at a more fu nd a m e n ta l level som e inm ates serving long sentences may fear the possibility of 'turning, or being turned, from a live person into a dead thing, into a stone, into a robot, an au to m ato n , w itho ut personal a u to n o m y of action, an it w itho ut subjectivity' (C ohen and Taylor 1972: 109). Jo h n son and Toch (1982) surm ise that the m ain factors w hich give rise to this fear are the inability to counter the un favo urab le definitions of oneself w h ich are continually offered; the decreasing ability over a long period to 'm ark time', resulting in a fear of losing other cognitive faculties as well; and the d ep en d e n cy w h ich long-term im p riso n m e n t instils in inmates, so that they a ssum e an uncharacteristically passiv e role and fear losing the capacity to think and act for them selves. O ne m ight expect that education could provide a w ay out of this state of im m ob ilisatio n, but 21

Capti ve audi ence

a m o n g a population w h ose literacy levels are poor, education provision is frequently rejected. So hum iliating and alienating have been previous experien ces of the education system that, like their low er w orking-class cou nterparts on the outsid e, the tho ug ht of retu rnin g to edu cation can in duce a 'kind of post-traum atic stress' accom panied by 'intrusiv e recollections and the kind of intense psychological distress that is characteristic of disorders like a g o ra p h o b ia ' (C harlesw orth 2000: 252). For these

inmates,

access

to

m ass

m edia

m ay

take

on

a

heightened

significance as a m eans of staying attuned to issues of local and global relevance and of keeping mentally alert.

C o n t e x t u a l i s i n g t h e i m p o r t a n c e o f m e d i a in e v e r y d a y life

It can be seen from the d iscussion thus far that for m ost inmates of total institutions, eve ryd a y life is som ething to be got through, to be surviv ed, with the sense of self intact, and it is not difficult to im agine how m edia resources can alleviate som e of the d iscom forts and hardships e n c o u n ­ tered in prison. But a n u m b e r of w riters have recently argued that the relationship betw ee n every d ay life and media is in fact more than this and that m edia is every d ay life (A ltheide and Snow 1979; M o rley and Silverstone 1991; A b ercrom bie and L onghu rst 1998; Silverstone 1994, 1999;). The perceiv ed centrality of m edia in daily life is partially explained by their facilitation of a sense of security, grounded in familiar spatial and tem po ral rhythms. M a n y c o m m e n ta to rs share Brittan's belief that lived experien ce is fraught with anxiety, risk and the b reak d ow n of interper­ sonal trust. T he arg u m e n t is that w h ere once our ability to trust in the continuation of predictable and routinised activities w as upheld by faceto-face encou nters, increasingly social and technological d ev elopm en ts have extended the pa ram eters of ou r k n ow le d g e, so that ontological security is now a function of s p a c e -tim e distantiation (G id dens 1990). M o d e rn societies are no longer reliant on kinship relations or locality but on w id er processes w h ich lie b eyond the physical space and time that we, as individuals, occupy. O ur collective horizo ns have b road en ed , so that the kn ow le d g e and inform ation required in order to alleviate our fears are now global in scope. N ot only does m u ch m edia c ontent address these concerns directly, b ut television and other m edia provide a predictable tem poral flow that contains and controls the m a n a g e m e n t of otherwise u n m an a g e a b le anxieties (Silv erstone 1994). These view s m ight, how ever, seem a little overstated. T he characteri­ sation of m edia as central to every d ay experien ce and at the core of our capacity to m ak e sense of the world in w hich we live could be countered 22

P r i s o n , pai n a n d i d e n t i t y : a r e v i e w o f t h e l i t e r a t u r e

by the a rgu m ent that there are alternative form s of experience - not least that of face-to-face interaction - w hich are arguably at least as im portant in the fo rm ation of self and identity. Furtherm ore, there are m any every d ay activities - such as going to school or work - that contribute to our sense of spatial and te m poral aw areness, and foster ontological security. How ever, even in m ore m o derate analyses lived experience, while rem aining fu nd am ental, is increasingly recognised as being s u p ­ plem ented or displaced by m ediated experience, w hich in turn impacts upon processes of self-form ation and ontology. T h o m p s o n com m e n ts (1995: 233) that 'ind ivid uals increasingly draw on mediated experience to inform and refashion the project of the self', and there can be little d ou bt that contem p ora ry society is a truly m edia-saturated society: The m ed ia, in all their forms, have worked their w ay into daily life on an un precedented scale. . . Besides being regulative or constitu­ tive of every d ay life, the m ed ia also provide images, m o dels of pe r­ fo rm ance, or fram ew ork s of action and tho ug ht which beco m e routine resources of every d ay life. People, in other w o rd s, use w h at the m edia provide in daily life (A bercrom bie and L ong hu rst 1998: 104). This reflection on m edia aud ien ces using the m edia is im portant. W hether or not one follows recent co m m e n ta to r s' view s of the m e d ia 's o m n i­ presence in m o d e rn life, the potential use of m edia as a prim ary m eans of exerting o n e 's agency and a u to n o m y is central to c ontem p orary m edia and cu ltural studies. For e xam p le, a n u m b e r of writers have noted that aud ien ces are extrem ely selective in w h a t they take from the vast range of m edia m essag es available: People relate to the m edia on the basis of personal identities and then use m edia as sources of inform ation and situations to play out those identities. M e d ia 's influence is that it serves as a repository of inform ation and situations for v o lu ntary action by audience m e m b ers. Therefore, m edia influence should be understood not as a cause bey on d an individ ual's control b ut as som ething consciously used by people to varying degrees. The m edia world can b eco m e an en v iro n m en t for total im m e rsio n , a world tempered by critical evaluation, or an aspect of culture alm ost totally rejected by an individual (Snow 1983: 62). Indeed, m u ch of the intense and infinite 'm e d ia s ca p e ' (A ppad urai 1993) w h ich is m o d e rn life is disregarded or rejected by audiences: not all 23

Capti ve audi ence

media products are m eaningful to aud ien ce m e m b ers, and m o st people will select images and m ea n in gs from the m edia and com bine them with other experiences connected with w ork, family and social relationships to form particular im agined w orlds and m aintain an ontological sense of self (Snow 1983; H e rm e s 1995; T h o m p so n 1995). A very recent d ev elo p ­ m ent in m edia studies has b een an increased interest in exploring w hat hap p e n s to notio ns of self in the context of changing and proliferating sy stem s and form s of m ediated com m u n ica tion (Grodin and Lindlof 1996). For G rodin and Lindlof, it is not ju st m edia content that affects identity, b ut also the presence of m edia technologies. This will be an im portant point in the context of the prison: in co m m o n with the p la cem en t of television in public spaces such as sh op p in g centres, restaurants and pubs, its instalm ent in prisons chang es the natu re of social interaction and the w ays individuals experience them selv es in relation to others. G rodin and L ind lof believe that the increase in nu m be rs of m ediated experien ces that individuals are having, in conjunction with the mobility and interactivity of m edia technologies, are serving to u n d erm ine m any notions of self and identity that have endured through the m o dern period. They ask: (ibid.: 6) W h a t does it m e an for self-experience that we can now form relatio nship s over electronic mail with those w h om we m ay never meet? Do we think of ou rselves differently than those of the previous century b ecau se w e are exposed to multifarious p e rs o n ­ alities and lifestyles through use of televisio n, radio, and ne w sp ap e rs (Gergen 1991)? W h a t im ag es of self are portrayed in film, television and m ag azines, and to w h a t ideological perspectiv es are these im ages aligned? For e xam p le, are we a culture d om inated by im ages of self as a u to n o m o u s and self-determ ining, or are other im ages em erg ing and in w hat contexts? W h a t do talk show s and other m edia that fo cus on self-expression and healing tell us about the cond ition of self and identity in con tem p ora ry times? Renew ed interest in aud ien ce studies has resulted in reception analysis b e co m in g increasingly global in outlook over the last decade. Yet sim ultaneously, there have been calls for a return to local 'co m m u n ity ' studies of m edia use in order to e xam ine in detail the kinds of m icrosocial contexts in w h ich m ost m ed ia use takes place (Jensen and R osengren 1990). There has also been a d ev eloping interest in accou nting for the actual unfolding of every d ay interactions with m edia within the contexts in which they are consu m ed . In part, this new focus has answered criticisms that the d ev elop m en ts in m edia technologies have w eak ened 24

P r i s o n , pai n a n d i d e n t i t y : a r e v i e w o f t h e l i t e r a t u r e

or even m ad e obsolete the notion of audiences. For exam p le, despite his early pioneering w ork on m edia audiences, M cQ u ail (1994) has more recently suggested that the notio n of aud ien ces is untenable. He points to four d ev elo p m en ts in su p p ort of this view: an a b u n d an ce of supply and increased m edia choice; the increasingly individualised nature of m edia w hich encou rag es 'n a rro w ca stin g ' to smaller, niche aud ien ces; a m ore versatile m edia based on interactive c o m p u te r technology; and a g ro w ing internationalisation of transm ission and reception so that aud ien ces are no longer confined within tem poral, spatial or cu ltural b ound aries. All these factors, according to M cQ u ail (and others: see, for e xam p le, Allor 1988), m ak e the idea of the aud ience as an identifiable social collectivity u n k n o w ab le and irrelevant. W hile this view is hypothetically valid in so far as no one is obliged to accept the same p ackage of information or entertainm ent at the same time as anyone else, in practice this is not very close to realisation. A udiences are a product not only of technological and industrial d evelopm ent, but of social and behavioural forces which generate strong social and norm ative ties a m ong otherwise diverse groups. In the specific context of the prison, new information and com m u nication technologies tend to be relatively restricted to inmates and therefore have a less profound impact on this group of m edia consu m ers than in society at large. A rgum ents about greater choice, more autonomy, multiplication and fragm entation of the audience, and audience behaviour being more selective and interactive than previously, are also of less consequence in this environm ent. Even in society at large, M cQ u ail's com m e n ts seem overstated. T he received notion of a m ass audience may arguably have less relevance for the reality of contem porary mediated com m unication than it once did, b ut live coverage of major world events such as royal w ed d ing s and funerals, and global musical events, attract billions of viewers, and even British television serials such as soap operas regularly attract domestic audiences of around seventeen million. Moreover, time spent w atching television is the third m ost c o m m o n activity behind w o rk and sleep. The notio n of audiences is thus central to understanding the w ays in which mediated com m unication is organised as a practical activity in local, private and familiar settings w hich them selves shape the selection and use of media by specific individuals and groups. Indeed, if Abercrom bie and L onghu rst's (1998) notions of perform ance and the diffused audience are ad opted, the concept has more relevance than ever before. In any case, the a cad em ic study of aud ien ces is far from re d u n d a n t and a new generation of researchers has retained the uses and gratifications' prem ise of an active audience, b ut adopted a more sociocultural approach to studying the conditions of m edia reception. E m p h a sisin g the 25

Ca p t i v e a u d i e n c e

polysemic nature of most media texts (that is, their 'm eanings' are not given and obvious, but are open to several different interpretations or decodings), they have emphasised the need for detailed ethnographic descriptions of particular audiences in specific kinds of contexts. This has most often resulted in a com m itm ent to qualitative research which seeks to understand media use as a significant element in everyday life in relation to four main categories of users: the family or household (Lull 1980; 1988; Ang 1985, 1991; Morley 1980, 1986, 1992); subcultures and fan cultures (Hebdige 1979; Tulloch and Jenkins 1995); women (Radway 1984; Gray, 1987, 1992; Herm es 1995); and children (Hodge and Tripp 1986; Buckingham 1993a, 1993b). One of the most important audience studies in the early phase of their developm ent was David Morley's The N ationw ide A udience (1980) which he followed up with the equally influential Fam ily Television: Culture, Pow er and D om estic Leisure (1986) and Television A udiences and Cultural Studies (1992). Concerned with the 'increasingly varied uses to which the television set can now be put' (Morley 1986: 8) his work draws upon a range of theoretical fram eworks including symbolic interactionism and psychoanalysis. M orley's approach is also firmly rooted in cultural studies and takes as its starting point the premise that although audiences are active producers of meaning, media discourses will none the less be decoded in accordance with the broader societal and cultural practices in which the viewer is situated. Although Morley's focus, like that of most reception analysts, is the domestic household which he takes to be the 'dynamic unit of consumption' (ibid. 15), his approach is of interest because it allows him to analyse individual viewing activity within its social contcxt, and to study television as a source of unallocated power by some individuals over others. Through a series of interviews with lower working-class families, he gathered evidence about who watches television; how; at what times; in relation to what other activities; and in conjunction with which other family members. He found that even in the busiest households, television can provide an environment for privacy and personal space, functioning as a way of avoiding conflicts or reducing tensions in lieu of spatial privacy (Morley 1986: 21). Conversely, television may also be used as a method for engaging in shared experience and social interaction with others (ibid.: 20). His most interesting finding, however, is that use of television is strongly gendered and that through the operation of power over this media technology, the dominant social group (men, or when they are not present, male children) restrict the range of material and symbolic options open to the less powerful members of the household (w omen and girls). On the whole, according to the findings of Family 26

P r i s o n , pai n a n d i d e n t i t y : a r e v i e w o f t h e l i t e r a t u r e

T elevision, m en enjoy uninterrupted access to the kinds of television they d esignate as im portant and have no qu a lm s ab ou t using it as a prim ary m e an s of relaxation in w h a t they regard as their leisure time. W om en tend to watch in a m u ch m ore haphazard and distracted fashion, frequently com bin in g the view ing of their favourite pro g ram m e s with attending to the needs of other family m em b ers. In contrast to their male partners, w o m e n are still to be seen at w ork within the dom estic sphere (even if they have paid e m p lo y m e n t outside the h o m e as well) and conseq uently their view ing preferences are frequently overlooked. The position of p o w er that w o rking-class men occupy in relation to m edia technologies will inform m uch of the em pirical analysis of media use in prisons. Spigel and Jenk ins (1991) note that com p eten ce of media technologies can start early in life for m ales, and they quote one respond ent, Dan, w h ose parents attempted to prevent him from watching D allas by pulling out the cord from the back of the set: 'I w as the one w ho figured out how to fix the TV. And to this day, they alw ays give me the clicker [at family gatherings]. It's like I'm the m aster of the T V ' (ibid.: 139). For D an, not only does this small act of child hood resistance to ad ult control m ark out his p lacem en t in the family structure, b u t it also d em onstrates that w here m asculine pow er is the ultimate d eterm in a n t on occasions of conflict over view ing choices ('We discuss w h a t w e w a n t to watch and the big g est wins. Th at's me. I'm the b iggest' is a typical co m m e n t from a male respond ent in M o rle y 's 1986 study), it is even m ore pro fou nd ly d isplayed w h ere there is a rem ote control device, w hich is usually the sym bolic possession of the father of the household (or the son in the fath er's absence) and frequently sits on the arm of 'D a d d y 's c h a ir' to be used exclusively by him. This use often takes the form of obsessive chan n e l-h op p in g across pro gra m m e s, w h ich is one of the biggest com p la in ts of w o m e n w h o are trying to watch a single pro gram m e. The m ain exceptions to this general pattern are to be found in h ou seh old s where the m an is u n em p lo y ed and the w o m a n w orking. Here M o rley found that m en are slightly more likely to give w ay to the view ing preferences of their partners, although their more flexible timetables mean they can video their choice of p ro g ram m in g and watch it alone the fo llow ing day. A s M orley poin ts out, this w ould seem to sug gest that the position of p o w e r assum ed by m en in this context is not based on biology, b u t is culturally determ ined and linked to the socio­ cultural definition of being the 'b re a d w in n e r'. W hen this aspect of traditional masculinity is felt to be absent, the man may be prepared, or feel com pelled , to give w ay to the d em an d s of other family m em b ers. How ever, other un em p lo yed m en in M o rle y's sam p le had no such com pulsio n and felt it necessary to exert their masculinity even more 27

Capti ve audi ence

forcibly in m o nop o lising the TV. O ne striking e xam p le is the un em plo y ed m an w h o had the television set sw itched on virtually all the time and insisted on w atching it in uninterrupted silence. Such was his feeling of control in the d om estic setting (presu m ably one of the few areas of his life w here he experienced a sense of authority) that he beca m e reluctant to leave it to pursue other activities outside the h o m e for fear of losing his 'total p o w e r ' (M orley 1986: 70). But the fact that aud ien ce research has been confined to the d omestic sphere m eans that there is currently very little understand ing of how mediated com m u n ication is organised as an every d ay activity in other local environm ents and how it is shaped and determ ined by those locales. Despite the a c k n o w le d g e m e n t on the part of a n u m b e r of writers that television chang es its m ean in g from context to context (M orley 1986, 1992; Silverstone 1994), these authors' persistence in limiting b oth the social dim ension of context to the d om estic setting, and the technological dim ension of context to television, has severely restricted the field of enquiry. O ne writer w h o has attem pted to build on the w o rk of other cultural theorists, but extend their analysis to the study of a wide range of p o pular cultural form s and sites of cultural reception, is Jo hn Fiske, w h o se perspectives on aud ien ces will be apparent in the discussion of prisoners' re sponses to media in the later chapters of this book. D raw ing on the w o rk of de C erteau (1984), Fiske (1989) argues that it is through every d ay practices that cultural goods and services are tran sform ed , and identities are constitu ted. Popu lar culture m ay be produced by the culture industry, but it is m ade by the people (ibid.). Inherent in the 'po pularity ' of p o pular culture is not only the notio n that co m m o d itie s have to be m ass produced for e con om ic profit, but that they m u st be potentially tran sform able into subversive readings and practices of resistance by consu m ers. S u m m in g up the approach of de C erteau and Fiske, Stevenson (1995: 90) says: E very d ay life has to operate within the instrum ental spaces that have been carved out by the po w e rfu l [but t]o read a fashion m ag azine, listen to a pu nk album , put on a soccer su p p o rte r's scarf, or pin up a picture of Bruce Spring steen, is to d iscover a w ay of using co m m o n culture that is not strictly prescribed by its m akers. The act of consu m ption is part of the 'tactics' of the w eak that while occu py ing the spaces of the strong converts disciplinary and instrum ental time into that which is free and creative. To illustrate the w a y s in w hich m ed ia texts can be used as a form of resistance, Fiske d raw s up on the research of H od g e and Tripp (1986) who 28

P r i s o n , pai n a n d i d e n t i t y : a r e v i e w o f t h e l i t e r a t u r e

are concerned with how children and parents read television differently, and w ho, coincidentally, rem ind us of the sim ilarities b etw ee n different types of 'total institu tion'. In an analysis of the popularity of the soap opera P rison er C ell B lock H , H od g e and Tripp found that the schoolchildren psychically identified with the prisoners in the TV series. They explain this by reference to the structural sim ilarities of the position of the pupils within the school and those of the fictional prisoners. Both live under a single authority, are subject to a tightly scheduled order im posed from above, and have their activities co-ordin ated by the rational plan of the institution. The schoolchildren recognised that the prisoners in the show w ere reduced to 'childlike' roles, and they drew parallels b etw een their te achers and the prison officers. They also voiced a n u m b e r of similarities, as they saw th em , b etw ee n them selv es and the inmates: they were often shut in, separated from friends, felt they had no rights, w ere only there b ecau se they had to be, and had to keep rules they felt w ere pointless. But they also recognised and attem pted to em ulate strategies of resistance in the soap; for exa m p le , the prisoners w ere ad ep t at co m m u n ica tin g under the eyes of their guards with a secret language of gestures and slang. For Fiske (1987: 132), the popularity of this p ro g ram m e is explained by the children's un d erstand ing that schools are like prisons and they use P rison er C ell B lock H to articulate and m ak e sense of their e xperien ce of subordination and p o w erlessness within an institutional social structure. H ow ever, despite his claim s to the contrary, the m icro-politics of aud ience con su m p tion are not convin cingly positioned within m a cro ­ social relations in Fiske's w ork, and his approach has been criticised for, a m o n g other things, concentrating on text at the e xpense of context (Stevenson 1995). O ne of the pro blem s facing aud ience research in its current phase, then, is a ccounting for the influences of m edia on both m acro and micro levels of analysis. As M cQ u ail (1994: 3 2 0 -2 1 ) puts it: 'M edia use can. . . be seen to be both limited and motivated by com plex and interacting forces in society and in the personal b iog ra p hy of the individual. This is a sobering tho ug ht for those w ho hop e to explain as well as describe patterns of audience b ehaviour.' In the light of this recognition, and m in d fu l of the fact that this study follows conventional aud ience research in isolating g end er as the key variable in relations of p o w e r as they are reinforced by m edia use, it is im p ortan t to em p ha sise that it does not do so at the e xpense of other factors such as class, race, statu s and physical location. A b ov e all else, 29

Captive audience

this w o r k is p r e d i c a t e d on the a s s u m p t i o n t h a t m e d i a u s e w ill tak e on h e i g h t e n e d s ig n if i c a n c e , a n d m a y s e r v e d iffe re n t p u r p o s e s , in the c o n t e x t o f the to ta l in s titu tio n . T h e aim of this i n v e s t i g a t i o n is n o t s i m p l y to r e c o g n i s e the s t r u c t u r a l a n d i d e o l o g i c a l f u n c t i o n s o f m e d i a in a g i v e n l o c a le , n o r to i n v e s t i g a t e i n d i v i d u a l o r s o c i a l c o n s u m p t i o n , n o r e v e n to u n d erstan d

th e

m e d ia 's

role

in

th e

ritu a l

or

s o c ia l

organ isation

of

e v e r y d a y life. R a th e r , it is to u n d e r s t a n d all t h e s e d i m e n s i o n s a s th ey i n t e r a c t w'ith, a n d a c t b a c k o n , e a c h o th e r. W ith th is in m i n d , th e f o llo w in g ch ap ter

w ill

in t r o d u c e

tw o

im p ortan t

th e o r e t i c a l

p ersp ectives

from

s o c io lo g y . G i d d e n s ' t h e o r y o f s t r u c t u r a t i o n w ill p r o v i d e a c o u n t e r to the d e p r i v a t i o n i s t th es is , the f o r m e r a r g u i n g t h a t s u b o r d i n a t e s a l w a y s h a v e some r e s o u r c e s at th e ir d i s p o s a l w'ith w h i c h t h e y c a n a lte r th e b a l a n c e of p o w e r , a n d B o u r d i e u 's n o t i o n o f ' h a b i t u s ' w ill b e e m p l o y e d f u r t h e r to e x p l o r e c o n s t r u c t i o n s o f m a s c u l i n i t y in the p r i s o n s e ttin g .

Notes 1. Certainly, the prisons that have been built recently bear great similarities to other public sector build in gs such as m odern hospitals and schools. How ever, although

'total

institution' m ight be deemed inappropriate in relation to m odern prisons, the term conjures up an im agery whose topic is not really institutions b ut confinem ent (Sparks et al 1996: 60). In its evocation of the 'role-stripping' procedures of bureaucratisation, the inherent deprivatio ns of incarceration, and the substitution of institutional values for hu m a n ones, 'total institution' is a com pelling empirical description (Jones and Fowles 1984: 22) and one that will be used th roughout this book. 2. A lthough m ost studies of media uses have focused exclusively on television, som e have considered other media. O ne of the earliest uses and gratifications studies w as H erzog's (1944) analysis of radio listening while, m ost recently, the w ays in w hich music is used in the constitution of self has been an em erging them e (D eN ora, 2000). 3. Analogies betw een long-term un em p lo y m en t and long-term im p rison m e n t are evident throughout this study, and striking parallels can be found in u n em p lo y m en t studies by Bostyn and Wight (1987), Finem an (1987), Fryer and M cK enna (1987) and B urm an (1988). 4. Interestingly, C ohen and Taylor and a n u m ber of other writers (Caird 1974; King and M cD e rm o tt 1995; Sparks et al 1996) note the im portance of m ealtim es as significant landm arks in the day, w eek and year (with 'special' foods being allowed at w eek end s and Christm as), b ut fail to appreciate that media play a similarly im portant role in the marking of time. 5. King and M cD e rm o tt (1995) report an 'astonishingly high' concern about physical condition in prisons, w hich inversely corresponded to actual sports and recreational facilities. Thus, in prisons where inm ates spent most time locked up in their cells and had little opportu nities for sport, or where there existed long waiting-lists for physical education, concern about physical well-being exceeded 65 per cent. In prisons where there were no barriers to the pursuit of physical activities, the proportions dropped to betw een 45 per cent and 51 per cent (ibid. 181).

30

Chapter 2

Identity, self and c o n s t r u c t io n s o f m asculin ity

O ne of the m ost e n d uring legacies of the sociological prison literature re view ed in C h a p te r 1 has b een its success in highlighting the institutional pressures that bear upon inmates, especially as they enter prison

for the

first time or com e to term s with

a long

sen tence.

Deprivation theory, and the nu m e ro u s studies that have applied it over the last fifty years, have been invaluable in buildin g up a coherent picture of the pains of im p riso n m e n t in a wide variety of penal establishm ents across the world. They have also help ed to cou nter the m ore recent view of psychologists that prisons do an ad equate job of containing society's crim inals and that the p sychological effects of incarceration are m inim al (e.g. Bukstel and K ilm ann 1980; Sapsford 1983; Z a m b le and Porporino 1988). As Caird (1974: 98) remarks: 'If you set up a tw enty -foo t fence around a m a n 's body it would be naive to say: " B u t I d id n 't m ean to affect his m ind'". But the findings of deprivation studies are incom patible with the notio n that prisoners' re sponses to their circum stances m ay be partly located outside the prison walls. In other w ords, p risoners' copin g strategies m ay be to so m e extent d ep en d e n t upon social and cu ltural factors and learned responses to structural inequalities.1 This study aims to integrate creative h u m a n responses with en com p a ssin g structural determ inants, and is predicated on the assum p tio n that the p sychological survival of a prison sen ten ce m ay rely on in m ate s' potential to construct two separate identities. First, they m u st m aintain a private sense of self that pre-exists and is entirely divorced from the socially sanctioned identity of 'p r is o n e r'; and, secondly, they m u s t be capable of d raw ing upon a range of strategies, resources and prior experiences to provide the material from w hich they can construct a public identity that enables them to 'fit in' with the social en v iron m en t of the prison. It is proposed that w ith o u t a stable sense of self an d the n ecessary 'm a c h o ' credentials, 31

Capti ve audi ence

m any inm ates find the prison culture merciless and intolerable. Later chapters will explore how the m edia can help individuals in both these en d eav ou rs, and the particular properties of m ed ia as a m e an s of establishing and exerting unallocated (gendered) p o w er over others will be a salient theme. But befo re consid ering in m ore detail the role m edia plays in the prison culture, it is first necessary to explore the social and environm ental factors that shape this overtly m ascu line environm ent. C h ap te r 1 established that the deprivations suffered by prisoners, and their responses to such hardships, are in m any w ay s unique. But equally, the norm s and values of the prison society intersect with, and are mediated through, the belief system s and m o d es of b eh a v io u r co m m o n ly associated

with

the

b a ck g rou n d s

of

the

m ajority

of

inmates.

Consequently, an a d herence to low er w o rk ing -class m ascu line codes of b eh a v io u r is n ot only a typical response to im p riso n m e n t, b ut is arguably also one of the main factors in the social reproduction of class d is­ ad vantag e, crime and im prisonm ent.

T h e cu ltu ra l m ilie u o f the p r is o n

Prisoners are ov erw h e lm in g ly you ng, m ale, un em p lo y ed and d raw n from the low er w o rk in g classes (W almsley et al 1991). E xplanations of w h y the w o rking classes have seem ingly colluded in perpetu ating and reprodu cing their disad vantag ed class position have been a perennial concern of sociologists since the publication of the first vo lu m e of M arx's C apital in 1867 and, more recently, the penal sy stem 's central role in the e m erg ence of capitalism has preoccupied a n u m b e r of prison c o m ­ m entato rs (Rusche and K irchheim e 1 9 3 9 /1 9 6 8 ; Foucault 1977; Ignatieff 1978; H ow e 1994). These writers have claim ed that since im p rison m e n t w as introduced as the p rim ary m eans of p u n ish m en t in the eighteenth century, a m ove w hich coincided with a surplu s of labou r and a correspo nd ing d evaluation of hu m an life, prisons have essentially been used as hu m a n w areh o u se s designed to rem ove from society a subclass of

people

w ho

are

disenfranchised,

disaffected

and

econom ically

unproductive. But while un d o u b ted ly providing a sense of the pivotal im portance of social, historical and econom ic contexts in the contin uation of im prison m e n t, these studies have tended to be overdeterm inistic in their approach, and have failed to allow for the relative au ton om y of individuals even in highly regulated environm ents. On the questio n of agency - particularly the im portance of resistance - even F ou cault is found w an ting (Giddens 1984; H o w e 1994). So, in order to assess culturally attuned m odels w hich privilege the experien ces of individuals 32

I dent i t y, sel f and c o n s t r u c t i o n s o f ma s c ul i n i t y

and the cultural meanings they attach to structural determinants, it is necessary to go beyond prison studies and consider the findings of researchers from other fields of academ ic enquiry. In Learning to Labour, one of the most influential sociological studies of working class male culture, Paul Willis (1977), himself working within a broadly M arxist/W eberian tradition, reminds deterministic Marxists that although class is significant in shaping a person's life chances (determining, as it does, a range of factors including geographical location, local opportunity structure, job market and availability, educational aspirations and so on) these structural elements are none the less acted through, and mediated by, their cultural surroundings: For a proper treatment of [the reproduction of social d isadvan­ tage]. . . we m ust go to the cultural milieu. . . and accept a certain autonom y of the processes at this level which defeats any simple notion of mechanistic causation and gives the social agents involved some meaningful scope for viewing, inhabiting, and constructing their own world in a way which is recognisably human and not theoretically reductive (ibid.: 172). Willis' strength, then, is in recognising that structural forces and individual experience are linked by, and through, the interm ediary cultural sphere so that culture is central to both the production of meaning and the reproduction of social relations.2 Thus, although manual labour and relative poverty are the incontrovertible destiny of boys born into the working class, they are not simply passive or indifferent towards socio­ economic pressures; at a personal and cultural level they respond with contestation, resistance and compromise (MacLeod 1987). Yet, while these responses give back a sense of personal agency and sovereignty, perversely they also serve further to weaken the individual in relation to structural power and to reproduce disadvantage and discrimination. As Foucault (1980) suggests, resistance is assured given the range and diversity of sites of power in late modern society. But inevitably, resistance simply reinforces the need for subjugation and discipline. The reasons why groups of people who face structural discrimination do not take collective action to improve the conditions of their lives, but seemingly collude in their subordination by accepting the meaningless and often restricted life choices available to them, is a complex area of analysis. Simon Charlesworth (2000) has provided a recent exposition of this question in a phenom enolo gical account of working-class lives in a town in northern England. Am ong the factors he highlights as being integral to the reproduction of disadvantage are the presentation of a 33

Ca p t i v e a u d i e n c e

heavily managed 'front' indicating a potential capacity for aggression that must be constantly maintained in the face of systemic disrespect and stigmatisation; lives lived in the context of circumscribed horizons and minimal expectations; and an inability to look beyond government institutions to broader structures of inequality when apportioning blame for the pain and degradation routinely suffered. All these factors are potentially found among prisoners. However, there are arguably a num ber of additional reasons why prisoners apparently contribute to the reproduction of their circumstances and only infrequently collect together to challenge the structural authorities which contain them. First, they are a diverse and heterogeneous population whose concerns do not necessarily constitute a 'co m m on cause'. They are an aggregate, rather than a group, who happen to share a derived status (Mathiesen 1965). Secondly, because of the stigma attached to being a prisoner, they have no positive com m on social identity on which to base a call for collective action (Goffman 1961b). Thirdly, because of the deprivations attached to the experience of imprisonment, they lack resources and feel themselves to be im potent or even invisible, both within the prison and in the wider political and cultural spheres (Sykes 1958). Given these obstacles to col­ lective organisation it is perhaps not surprising that prisons are relatively ordered environments. But imprisonment is nevertheless a lived experience and must be managed in terms of the exigencies of everyday life by those inside. Consequently, small but significant acts of resistance are com m on, and in their study of prisoners at HM P Durham, Cohen and Taylor (1972) graphically dem onstrate that inmates do not passively experience imprisonment: they live, negotiate and resist it, even if in doing so they sometimes suffer predictable but undesirable consequences which merely reproduce the situation in which they find themselves (for example, a relatively minor act of intransigence may lead to the withdrawal of privileges, extension of tariff or temporary removal of the prisoner from his cell into segregation). The psychological survival of a prison sentence is therefore probably best thought of as a delicate balancing act between prisoner dem ands (that is, the dem ands of the self) and staff discretion, involving a degree of compromise on both sides and negotiated against a backdrop of institutional regulations, expectations and sanctions. Traditionally, sociology has tended to adopt an 'over-socialised' image of the human subject as a passive conform ist who eagerly co-operates with others but, as Wrong (1967) points out, people are also confrontational and their elemental impulses and motivations constantly jostle with the requirements of social conformity and discipline. Prison researchers Sparks et al (1996) further discredit the notion that people are basically 34

I de n t i t y , s el f a n d c o n s t r u c t i o n s o f m a s c u l i n i t y

'acceptance seekers' passively conform ing to an im posed regim e, and highlight the b alance that prison authorities m u st achieve b etw een situational and social control m ethods. If all form s of im p rison m e n t implied the unrelenting use of force as som e co m m e n ta to rs suggest, prisons would have no genuine internal sense of order and little sense of legitimacy on w hich to base the m aintenance of order. Either scenario - a muted and fragile order sustained by an enforced com pliance, or a b ed lam of violent and desperate prisoners with nothing to lose - is too crude an analysis, and places un du e focus on the processes of structure and agency w o rk ing as in d e p e n d en t forces (ibid.: 1996). For m any cultural theorists the division b etw een structure and agency in accounting for social reproduction is an ong o ing concern, b ut it is increasingly recognised that to view the tw o forces in a d icho tom ous fashion am o u n ts to a crude reductionism that either suppresses the significance of individual a u to n o m y or ignores the structural processes that lie outside the im m ed ia te experience of h u m a n actors (Giroux 1983a; G id d e n s 1984; L a yd er 1994). In the work of Foucault - a 'central reference point in the sociology of im p ris o n m e n t' (Garland 1990: 131) - w e find an attem pt to resolve the s tru c tu r e /a g e n c y and m ic r o / m a c r o dualism s by jo ining together discourse, practice, p o w er and k n ow le d g e at the interm ediary, im p e rson a l and institutional levels (institutions such as prisons, factories, schools, a sylu m s being the channels through which po w er is circulated). H ow ever, Foucault remains trapped in an interm ediate vacuum in w hich he can neither take full a ccou nt of the 'm acro' featu res of power, including state power, w hich he characterises as a m o rp h o u s and disorganised (Poulantzas 1978), nor the micro, individual aspects of power, b ecau se throu g ho u t his w o rk he retains the idea that p o w e r is an im personal and an o n y m o u s force w h ich is exercised outside the actions and intentions of hu m an subjects (Best and Kellner 1991; L ay d er 1994). A ltho ugh in his later w o rk he recognised that his early em phasis on the 'techno lo g y of p o w e r and d o m in atio n ' had all but eliminated the active subject altogether, and he then proceeded to com p en sa te for this oversight by concentrating solely on individuals as creative agents w h o can o v ercom e socially im posed limitations (the 'technology of self'), he never attem pted to conn ect the tw o phases of his w ork. C o n seq u e n tly scant regard is paid to the constitutiv e relationship b etw een the active h u m a n subject and the circulation of p o w er and produ ction of social life. The project to integrate structure and agency was taken up by G idd ens, w ho w as receptive to, but w h o ultimately rejected, m u ch of Fou cault's w ork. O f particular im portance to the current study is his attem pt to d em onstra te how social produ ction (the w a y in w hich social life is 35

Ca p t i v e a u d i e n c e

produced by people as they go about their day-to-day activities) and social reproduction (the way in which social life becomes patterned and social institutions are reproduced over time, providing order and continuity in society) are inextricably interlinked. It is this attempt to link social practices - the intended and unintended consequences of social activity - with social conditions - the practices, know ledge and resources which underpin the fabric of society - that lies at the heart of Giddens' theory of structuration; arguably the most sustained attempt to theorise human social activities in a way which avoids the conventional dualisms of subject and object, agency and structure, and structure and process (Bryant and Jary 1991). Specifically, structuration theory attempts to show how social structures are both constituted by human agency, and yet at the same time are the very medium of this constitution; what Giddens (1977: 121) terms a 'duality of structure'. Thus, in the current context, the penal system is both the medium in which the practices of the prison inmates and staff are shaped, and the (partly unintended) outcome of those hum an, minded practices as they act back on, and shape, future environing processes. Foucault (1977) dem onstrates that people in all areas of everyday life are subject to the patterns, discourses and logic of organisations and institutions. But the reverse is also true, and life (in any sphere, but not least the prison), although immensely routinised and structured, only 'happens' because 'real-life, flesh-and-blood people make it happen' (Sparks et al 1996: 72). Giddens' attempt to account for human agency in even the most restricted structural environments is a significant theoretical break­ through. Its rejection of the implicit (and sometimes explicit) portrayals of prisoners as having been 'm ortified' is an important development because the majority of prison research characterises power in prisons in a rather crude, one-dimensional way, and has arguably been guilty of the very thing it has accused the prison system itself of; that is, stripping inmates of their personalities and individual identities, and replacing them with crude typologies which lump them all together in stereotyped categories of predictive behaviour.3 Even though Giddens devotes little attention to the prison per se, his criticism of Foucault is particularly relevant in this context. Foucault's conceptualisation of the power of carceral organisations is rigid and mechanistic and those who are subject to forms of discipline are rendered acquiescent and anonymous. As Giddens (1984: 154) says, 'Foucault's bodies do not have faces'. Even the most rigorous forms of discipline cannot dissipate human agency altogether. Although there are circumstances in which autonomy is severely limited, it is 'rarely negated entirely' (ibid.: 156). Another aspect of Giddens' theoretical approach which is of particular 36

I de n t i t y , s el f a n d c o n s t r u c t i o n s o f m a s c u l i n i t y

interest here is that he is alert to p sychoan alytic theories and the role of un intend ed and unconscio us actions in the pro du ction and reproduction of social system s. T h u s in addition to the two conscious levels of action w hich he refers to - reflexive m o nito ring of action (w hat actors are able to say a b ou t the cond itions of their ow n action) and rationalisations of action (w hat actors know tacitly a bout the cond itions of their ow n action, b u t are unable to articulate) - he also proposes a third, m otivational, level of action w h ich involves processes largely barred from consciou sness (G id dens 1977). This is im portant b ecause it is frequently the know led g eab ility of agents at the core of G id d e n s ' thesis that is used by his critics to u n d erm ine it (see, for e xam p le, Boyne 1991). It has been suggested that G id d e n s ' stress on in divid uals' know led geability and reflexive m o nito ring 'tilts the b alance of structuration theory tow ards sub jectivism ' and gives 'v aunting p o w e r to hu m an a ge n cy ' (Kilmin ster 1991: 96; see also Jo h n son et al 1984; T h o m p s o n 1989; Spark s et al 1996; Vaughan 2001). Certainly, an o v er-em phasis on know le d g ea b le reflexivity m ig h t lead to an over-assertion of the p o w er of agents to shape the social structures around them and exercise un du e control over their futures. But three points pertain. First, m u ch action is un consciously driven and produces un intended or 'p e rv erse ' con se q u e n ces (G id dens 1984: 13). Secondly, hu m a n agency - both conscious and unconscio us - will nearly alw ays be in conflict with the actions of other hu m ans, as well as with structures, and is therefore usually a site of contestation, negotiation and com prom ise. Thirdly, althou gh G id d e n s is frequently contradictory about the role of the u n conscio us, believing that the infant is, from the very first days of his or her life, able consciously to influence interaction with others (Giddens, 1976), he also states that the routine activity which shapes everyd ay life gives, at a psychological level, a necessary and d esirable sense of ontological security, and that society need s a concept of the unconscio us to represent that kn ow le d g e w hich is k n ow n to, and applied by, the actor, b ut w hich he or she is not able to formulate discursively

(G id dens

1976,

1979,

1984).

Consequently,

despite

accusations that G id d e n s ' subjects have the ability to create m ea n in g and to pursue pu rposes seem ing ly unhin dered by larger structures of d om ina tion, there is nevertheless implicit in his theory the suggestio n that there are social structures and sy stem s which exist independ en tly of the con sciou s m o tiv ations and reasons people give for their actions. In any case, w hile it is perhaps fair to criticise G id d e n s on the grounds of over-assertin g the role of action in social processes and underplaying the notio n of constraint in social life, the introduction of a m o d e l of h u m a n agency w hich takes into accou nt both unconscio us drives and 37

Capti ve audi ence

k now le d g eab le choice is a refreshing d ev elop m en t, and cou nters the prevailing view of prisoners as passiv e subordinates. E ven the acts of 'w ith d r a w a l' noted by G offm a n and Co hen and Taylor, while they m ight in som e circum stances be motiv ated by u n conscio u s triggers, are often strategic and 'k n o w in g ' acts of resistance, rather than passive ad m issions of defeat. Similarly, and perhaps m ore controversially, attem pts at suicide and self-harm m ay be seen as acts of resistance, an assertion of agency ov er the b od y and the self (Liebling and Krarup, 1993) and, as such, may be m ore accurately thought of as a response rooted in 'm oral and political indig nation' rath er than in psychological d ysfunctio n (Giroux 1983b: 289). 'R esistance'

e n co m p a sse s

small,

personal

acts

of

defiance,

more

significant assaults on the self and, m ore rarely, large-scale eruptio ns of disorder. As a m e a n s of 'k eeping one's head above the mire of institu­ tionalisation' transgressing rules b eco m es 'p art of the survival kit' (Caird 1974: 62). Resistance is, by its very nature, a d y n am ic and active strategy, requiring insight into the structural constraints being resisted. In other words, the violation of a rule does not in itself constitute resistance, unless com m itted by so m e o n e w ho sees through the institutional ideology and know in g ly acts on that basis (Willis 1977; Giroux 1983a, 1983b; M acL eod 1987). It is this k n o w in g n ess and sense of being w ise to the ideological structures of the prison which help m any inm ates to maintain a stable sense of identity inside. A n u m b e r of writers have com pared G id d e n s ' theory with B ou rd ieu's (1977) notio n of 'hab itus' (M acLeod 1987; Layder 1994). Habitus is 'the basic stock of kn ow le d g e that people carry around in their head s as a result of living in particular cu ltures or sub cultu res' (L ayd er 1994: 143). It therefore correspond s with the w ork of Willis and other cu ltural theorists in that a person com ing into prison from a particular class background will carry the 'influence' of that e nvironm ent into his beh a v io u r in the new setting. For e xam p le, an inm ate from a low er w o rking-class b ackgrou nd m ight bring with him a type of know led ge, speech pattern, attitude and so on w hich will enable him to fit in to the inm ate culture more easily than his m iddle-class counterpart. But a m iddle-class prisoner m igh t feel m ore com fortable w h en dealing with figures of authority in the penal system , b ecau se of shared values, life experien ces and e du cational backgrou nd. H abitus, then, is the 'set of "d isp o s itio n s" that feeds into a person's a nticip atio ns a bout w h at they w an t and w h a t they can achieve in their interpersonal relatio ns' (L ayd er 1994: 144) and therefore bears similarities to G id d e n s ' 'rules and resources'; the 'm u tu al k n o w le d g e ' that people draw upon which inform their b eh a v io u r in any particular e ncou nter (Giddens 1984: 17 ff ) .A Like G id d e n s ' concep t of structure, habitus is the 38

I de n t i t y , s el f a n d c o n s t r u c t i o n s o f m a s c u l i n i t y

m eans

through

w hich

people

produce

and

reproduce

the

social

circum stances in w h ich they live. T he issue of resistance is missing from B ou rd ieu's theory, but w h at m akes it of particular interest in the current study is that he retains the idea of an objective world w h ich is different from the world of situated behaviour, w h ereas G id d e n s m aintains they are sim ply different aspects of the sam e thing (the duality of structure). Similarly, Bourdieu un derplays the aspect of G id d e n s ' work which is m ost troubling to m any com m e n tators; that is, that people are free and unfettered by social conditions. For B ourdieu, h u m an b eh av io u r is always conditioned by habitus and, while this study un derstand s h u m a n agency - an ability to 'm ake a difference' - to be crucial to the psychological surviv al of a prison term , it is relu ctant to go as far as G id d e n s in elevating the p o w e r of the individual creative subject over the structures that contain him. A n other criticism of structuratio n theory pertinent to the current context is that it fails properly to a ccou nt for 'social interconnected ness' (K ilm inster 1991: 99) and 'flattens ou t' the ontological terrain of society (L ayd er 1994: 146). G id d e n s concentrates on the con se q u e n ces of in dividual actions and broad social structures, but overlooks the com plexities of the collective actions of the in terd ep en d en t individuals and groups w h o m ake up societies (Willis' 'cultural milieu'). In other words, there is a missing area of analysis betw een the micro and the macro. Interd ep end ence is a com plicated, m ultifaceted, relational structure w herein the b alance of p o w e r is subject to significant shifts over time, and a com plex relationship exists b etw een interpersonal ne tw o rk s and society as a w hole (Kilmin ster 1991). Consequently, although it is true that w h en certain practices and institu tions are highly co-ordinated tow ard s their ow n reproduction, as prisons are, they tend to achieve a relatively high level of fixity (Sparks et al 1996), none the less the actions of the various hu m an b eing s w h o m a ke up the prison society will be inscribed with so m any different influences that the social practices shaped by them will be unique. Broad structures, inclu ding structural inequalities, are re produced by h u m a n action ov er time and space but, becau se h u m a n beings are unpredictable and conditioned by the prevailing culture at any given time, the flow and structure of social practices will never quite be a perfect repetition of w h a t w e n t before. A study w h ich has o v ercom e these lim itations is B u rm a n 's (1988) investigation of u n e m p lo y m e n t,5 an exam p le of a successful attem pt to apply structuration theory to the com plex interaction betw een the 'm icrosocial

sphere'

(individuals,

families,

groups,

friends),

the

'interm ed iate co m m u n ity sphere' (social ne tw o rk s such as clubs and local enterprises) and the 'm acrosocial sp here' (large organisations including 39

Capti ve audi ence

state bureaucracies). B u rm a n 's schem a will provide a fra m ew ork for analysis in the em pirical section of this study, which will broad ly argue that despite the m acro, structural constraints they face, inm ates construct their identities and assert their a gency through a nexus of micro and m eso associations.

S e lf a n d ide n tity

According to the social psy cholog ist Richard Jenkins (1996), the study of identity b ec am e one of the unifying fra m ew ork s of intellectual debate in the 1990s, and is the m o st effective device for bringing together w h at C. W right Mills calls the 'p riv ate troubles' of milieu and the 'public issues' of social structure, e n cou rag ing us to use one in order to m ak e sense of the other. Although individual identities and social identities are often regard ed separately, this study follow s Jen k in s' belief that each is routinely related to, and entangled with, the other, and that in the context of prisoners' identities, a necessary precursor for the creation and m aintenance of a conv in cing public persona is the construction of a healthy, private, interior sense of self, and vice versa. Perhaps the m ost significant distinction betw een individual and collective identities, and one that will be evident in the em pirical section of this study is that the form er e m p h asise s difference, while the latter stresses sim ilarity (ibid.: 19). In both cases, prisoners m a y call upon the w id e range of external resources and experien ces that constitutes their habitus, d ra w ing on the specific interpersonal relations (family, w ork, style, cultural preferences and so on) that m ark them out as being different from the rest of the inm ate population and, at the sam e time, hailing the dispositions and resources that enable them to engage with, and integrate into, the prevailing culture. On entering prison, the individual is - to the outside world - im ­ m ediately labelled a 'p r is o n e r' (along with other labels, such as 'crim inal' or 'deviant'). His ability to resist that identification, rather than internalis­ ing it, m ay be critical in d eterm ining how successfully he acc o m m o d ate s the pains of im prisonm ent. Put simply, public image m ay b eco m e selfim age (ibid.: 57). For som e , this is not necessarily problem atic; indeed the strategy of 'p riso n isa tio n '6 is a device that provides the aculturised inm ate with the status and p o w er necessary to absorb any sense of social rejection implicit in the label 'p rison er'. M o st inmates, how ever, view the labels ascribed to them negatively, and fear that the carrying of the ascription 'p r is o n er' d im inishes or even s u b s u m e s all other aspects of their identities. C o nseq u ently they spend m u ch of their prison sentences 40

I de n t i t y , s el f a n d c o n s t r u c t i o n s o f m a s c u l i n i t y

trying to hold on to their pre-prison selves, through contact with friends and families, the continuation of o ccu pations or hobbies, or through con su m p tion of popular cultural artefacts that w ere im portant to them on the outside. In addition, m any inm ates construct new identities inside, such as a stud ent identity or that of a particular trad esm an. For Sapsford (1983) the adoption of such identities n ou rishes the self and is typical of w o rk ing -class cu ltures, particularly am o n g the w o rking-class u n ­ e m ployed. He asserts that prison is a form of u n em p lo y m en t for men inasm uch as w ork is traditionally w h at gives m en status, and that w hat passes for w o rk in prison is actually m ore akin to occu pational therapy. Pre-em pting m u ch of the 'u nd erclass' literature, Sapsfo rd argues that stripped of their work identities and concom itantly their status, individuals experien ce a loss of any m ark e r by w h ich to locate them selves within the social w orld. T he ad option of work-related roles by prisoners represent 'e sca p e ' identities: for e xam p le, the tw o m o st c o m m o n 's tu d en t' and 'cra ftsm an ' - are usually regarded as prestigious in working-class com p a n y and offer the possibility of m obility up w ard s (ibid.: 1983: 104 -10 5). O ther roles ad opted by prisoners m ay include 'artist', 'm u s ician ', 'w riter', 'b o d y b u ild e r ' or 's p o rts m a n '; all of which might be said to be traditional routes out of the working-class. All these adopted roles m ight be interpreted as positive ad aptations to confinem ent. They recall Irw in's 'g lea n ers' and represent w ays of selfim p ro v e m en t w h ich m ay enhance the individ ual's public presentation of self, pro viding an opportunity to flaunt oneself sym bolically; a kind of 'p sychological o n e -u p m a n s h ip ' (C ohen and Taylor 1972). But more importantly, such roles w o rk to sustain and nurture the personal, interior, p sychological self. There may, how ever, be conflict b etw een the public and private aspects of these identities; for e xam p le, stud ent inmates s om etim es face ridicule or hostility from fellow inm ates and especially from staff. In a society w h ere ad vanced levels of education are at odds with the habitus of the majority, and w here a disproportionate n u m b e r of the population are illiterate, education does not alw ay s have a high prem ium placed on it. O ther factors - for exam p le , the relatively low educational attainm ent required by the prison service of its officers, and the pressure on gov ernors to re duce non-essential costs - com b in e to th w art prisoners' efforts to study. The fact that m o st inmate students persevere is a pow erfu l testim ony to the significance that the formation of such identities has on their sense of selves (usually characterised as self-w orth, self-esteem , self-im p ortance and so on). The self, then, m ight best be conceptualised as the e m otional 'core' w h ich people carry with them from context to context. It represents a place of retreat: w h en the public w o rk of identity m a n a g e m e n t b eco m es 41

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too a rd uo us it is im portant to have a private place w here the public façade can be put aside and one can 'be oneself'. This distinction b etw een the private sense of self and the public presentation of identity is usually conceptualised in terms of their 'b ack sta g e' and 'frontstage' settings respectively (Goffm an 1959; see also G id d e n s 1984). On the w h ole, the social aspect of one's identity will be presented frontstage in social e n g a g e m e n t with others. Backstage is w h ere one's basic, personal ontological security system is restored, and where the tensio ns associated with sustaining the particular bodily, gestural and verbal cod es that arc dem anded in this setting are diffused. Im p ris o n m en t m ay involve disruption of the equilibrium b etw een the tw o spheres, resulting in fu rther d a m a ge to the ind ivid ua l's sense of well-being. If forced to share a cell with one or m ore other inm ates, the prisoner m a y be contin ually in an enforced state of 'frontstage' with little op portu nity to restore his sense of self. If locked up on his ow n for prolonged periods, however, he m ay suffer equally in his inability to engage in activity frontstage. In prison, the b ou n d a rie s b etw ee n fro n ts ta g e /b a ck sta g e and p e r s o n a l/ social identities m ay not be clear cut, and the pressure for conform ity and com p liance m ay u n d e rm in e the in m ate 's personal and social identities, preventing both from fu nctioning as they w ould in other circum stances. The public identities adopted by inm ates depend upon tw o things: first, they correspond to the cultural conv entio ns of the im m ed iate prison en v iro n m en t (w hich vary from institution to institution but share certain characteristics); secondly, they d epend upon the repertoire of roles w hich the larger culture m ak es available (Sapsford 1983). In both cases, identities are not forced up on inmates, b u t are adopted by them through a process of social learning or socialisation. This calls to m ind the p o stm o d ern is t view that the subject can assum e different identities at different times in a perpetu al act of self-creation. L im itations of space p revent a full analysis of the on g o in g debate concerning w h eth er w e are w itnessing the em e rg en ce of a new era of 'p o s tm o d e rn ism ' replacing and leaving behind the three-hundred-year period of m o dernity which w ent befo re, and for the p u rposes of this study, the term Tate m o d e rn ity ' will be used, suggestin g certain im portant continuities as well as discontinuities with the m o dern project (Giddens 1991a; Hall 1992). The im portance of the debate for this study is tw ofold. First, there is a suggestion that while there has been a general trend to wards bureaucratic m a n a g e m e n t and rationalisation over the last two d ecad es (Feeley and Sim on 1992), in very recent years w e have seen a con c om ita n t 'refiguring of the penal sp ectru m ' resulting in a resurgence of 'e m o tiv e and ostentatiou s' p u n is h m e n t (Pratt 2000: 417) in the form of correctio nal initiatives designed in part publicly to stigmatise and sham e the offender 42

I de n t i t y , s el f a n d c o n s t r u c t i o n s o f m a s c u l i n i t y

- co m m u n ity sentences, electronic tagging, and the like - and in the form of public in v o lv e m e n t in the surveillance of released sex offenders, vigilantism , and so on. This supports G a rla n d 's (1990) view that the language of prison service accountability and prisoners' rights m asks a correspo nd ing chang e of tone regarding the 'e xpressive' function of the prison w hich appears to be retu rnin g to a site of public re venge (see also Liebling 2000). The second point about p o stm od ern ist theory w hich m ak es it of interest in the current context is its suggestion that m edia-inspired and consu m er-d riven aspirations have started to m erge and collide with traditional identifications (such as those based on class, race, gender, nationality) resulting in w h at cultural optim ists m ig h t see as a greater aw areness of the endless possibilities that the global m ark et has to offer for constructing the self (Jenkins 1996), and w h a t cu ltural pessimists characterise as an 'u nstable am alg am of self' (G id dens 1991a; Hall et al 1992). But w h eth er positive or negative in essence, the p o stm od ernist a ssum p tio n that w e are continu ou sly confronted by a 'b ew ild ering , fleeting multiplicity of possible identities, any one of w h ich w e could identify w ith ' (Hall 1992: 277) overlooks the structural and institutional constrain ts that m ost of are b ound by in at least som e spheres of our lives, and ignores social theories of learning. In the context of the prison, a po stm od ern analysis would n ot be able to accou nt for either the social roles that inmates im port into prison from outside, or for the socialisation processes they go through inside the institution. This is im portant, for it is th rough socialisation that the individ ual acquires the k n ow le d ge, skills and dispositions that enable him or her to function as an effective m e m b e r of a group. W ithou t the conscious and unconscio us assim ilation of the ideologies of the prison culture - a society where individuals are subjected to influences and sanctions in roughly equal m easure - and the ideologies of the low er w o rking-class culture from w h ich the m ajority of prisoners originate - the individual inm ate would be subjected to im m ea su rab le, and inescapable, role expectations (B ond eson 1989). A n other w e ak n e ss of po stm od ern ism is that althou gh it can certainly accou nt for the 'p u b lic' identities which w e present to others, it is less conv in cing w h en it com es to the d eep-seated sense of self that we internalise and that m ay im p a ct upon our feelings, em otions and b eh av io u r at a sub consciou s or unconscio us level. M o st of us m aintain a sense of being 'm ore or less unitary selves' (Jenkins 1996: 45), despite the enacted roles which vario us situations d em and primarily through the construction of a personal ontological narrative; a story one tells about oneself, which can be altered and m odified in accordance with different situations and periods in one's life and with different 'au d ie n ces' in m ind, 43

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b ut w hich essentially enables one to m ak e sense of - in order to act in one's life. In any case, the key point here is that while it m a y be possible for prison inm ates to a ssu m e certain outward characteristics in order to help them to fit in with aspects of the prison culture, such traits are likely to be little m ore than a façade, constructed to m ask the real personality beneath. Furtherm ore, while it is true that popular cu ltural form s and new c o m m u n icatio n technologies supp ort the p o stm od ern thesis in allow in g us to inscribe different characteristics on the identity w hich we present to others, and to conceal elem ents of 'o urselv es', it is a w ay of being which, as Craib (1998: 7) puts it, 'can bear little contact with an external reality, and cannot outlast a nything but the m o st cursory h u m an contact'. But more fu nd am entally than that, cultural identities - w h ether they are based on 'fixed' co m p o n e n ts such as class, gender and race, or on less stable aspects such as occu pation, leisure interests, social status, group m em b ersh ip and subcultu ral affiliations, or a com bination thereof - represent only half of the picture, and miss entirely w h at goes on 'inside' their bearer: 'Social identities can com e and go b ut m y identity goes on as som ething w hich unites all the social identities I ever had, have or will have. . . [it] overflow s, adds to, transform s the social identities that are attached to m e ' (ibid.: em p h a sis added). The notio n of identity is thus underpinned by a range of pow erfu l unconscio us as well as consciou s processes, w h ich are shaped and directed in various w ay s according to the disciplines and discou rses of the time, resulting in a plurality of parts w hich go to m ake up the 'w hole'. As stated earlier, althou gh personal and collective identities form a synthesis, one way in w hich they can usually be distinguished is by the f o rm e r's appeal to difference, individualism and un iq ueness, and by the latter's appeal to sim ilarity or sam eness. H ow ever, the picture is com plicated by the subject's u nconscious w h ich, at the levels of both private self and public identity, can create desires and fears w hich may m erge or conflict with the various discourses and structures in w hich they are situated. Identity and self converge with p o w e r and discourse in defining us, not only by w'ho w e are b u t also, crucially, by what, or w h o, w e are not (Hall 1992, 1997; Craib 1998; M in sk y 1996, 1998). Identities are often characterised by polarisation and by the discursiv e m arking of inclusion and exclusion within oppositional classificatory system s: 'insid ers' and 'o utsiders'; 'u s' and 'th e m '; men and w o m e n ; black and white; 'n o rm al' and 'd eviant' and so on, so that it is primarily a sense of 'difference' which is crucial to an un d e rstan d in g of the ways in which identities are shaped. In particular, it is the notio n of difference w hich has not only been put fo rward as a theory of crime, but w hich is crucial to un derstand ing the relationship b etw een identity and p o w er in 44

I dent i t y, sel f and c o n s t r u c t i o n s o f ma s c ul i n i t y

the generally disempowering world of the prison. In a psychoanalytic interpretation, 'difference' involves the denial of large parts of ourselves, or the projection of those parts of ourselves which make us feel vulnerable, on to 'others' in the external world. Stemming from the Oedipal conflict which arises when the infant begins to have sexual feelings and desires towards the opposite-sex parent, and at the same time has accom panyin g feelings of resentment and jealousy towards the same-sex parent, this perspective helps to explain the persecution of the 'other' throughout history. Put simply, in the case of the male child, he has previously seen himself as sharing an identity with his mother, but is suddenly confronted with the reality of her sexual difference. This induces a fear of castration and a masculine identification with the father, not only physically, but also as a source of cultural power and moral authority. In the context of this discovery, culture (i.e. the Law of the Father) wins over individual desire, and the child 'succumbs to a destructive unconscious solution' (Minsky 1998: 83) in which he expels or externalises the part of himself which he finds intolerable - in other words, the painful 'victim' feelings of humiliation and vulnerability - and projects them on to his newly discovered 'o ther', his mother. In this way he is able to disown the harm ful feelings which interfere with his newly discovered sense of power and project them on to 'w om an', who is now defined as 'different and therefore bad' (ibid.: 84). 'Subsequently, women, femininity or passivity wherever it exists may be deemed contemptible and feared because it represents a despised, castrated part of the self' (ibid.).7 For post-Freudian writers such as Minsky, the victimisation of feminised 'others' helps to explain sexism, racism, nationalism, tribalism, hom ophobia and religious persecution: implicit in all these forms of intolerance is the notion of a despised 'o ther' as the means to maintaining an idealised self. Symbolic cultural representations are intuitively 'picked up' by individuals, identified with at a psychical level, and then played out within social relations, thus reinforcing and reproducing divisions and inequalities (M esserschmidt 1986; Giddens 1991a; Craib 1998; Minsky 1996, 1998). It is the interplay betw een unconscious fears and culturally reinforced prejudices which defines who, at any given time, is designated 'the scapegoat " o t h e r " ' against whom we bolster our own individual sense of identity (Minsky 1998: 2). In the prison world, otherness is most evidently conferred on sex offenders. In a study of a Vulnerable Prisoner Unit (VPU), Richard Thurston (1996) notes that not only does the categorisation of inmates in the VPU as 'different' and 'feminine' represent a process of objectification, but it also works to sustain the acceptability of violence against them on a routine basis.8 45

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A lthough generally regarded as a con tem p ora ry concern, as long ago as 1955 the sociologist A lbert Co hen was m o ving tentatively to w ards an integrated theory of identity (in this case, crim inal identity) as the construction of consciou s and u n conscio u s processes in his g ro u n d ­ breaking

analysis

of

d elinqu ent

boys,

a

study

w h ich

is

greatly

a cknow led g ed by later researchers such as Clarke (1975), Willis (1977) and Corrigan (1975 1979) in their studies of male subcultu res: Because of the structure of the m o d e rn family and the nature of our o ccu pational system , children of both sexes tend to form early fem inin e identifications. The boy, how ever, unlike the girl, com es later u n d er strong social pressure to establish his masculinity, his differen ce from female figures. Because his m o ther is the object of the fem inine identification w hich he feels is the threat to his statu s as a male, he tends to react negativistically to those cond u ct norm s w hich h av e been associated with m o ther and therefore have acquired fe m inin e significance. Since m o ther has been the principal agent of indoctrination of 'g o o d ', re spectable behavio ur, 'g o od n ess' com es to sym bolise femininity, and engaging in 'bad ' behaviour acquires the fu nction of d enying his feminin ity and asserting his masculinity. This is the m otivation to juvenile d elinquency (C ohen 1955: 164). This quotatio n is im portant for three reasons. First, it provides an early m o del for the conn ection of conscious and unconscio us m o tiv ations for behaviour. Secondly, it unites personal and social identities and alludes to the w a y s in w hich individual agency, both consciou s and unconscious, correlates

to

patterns

of

interaction

learned

through

processes

of

socialisation (the 'social'). As will be d em onstrated later, individ uals are constantly engaged in these tw o interlo cking form s of e m otional end eav our: 'the "in te rn a l" w o rk of cop ing with contradiction, conflict and am b iv alence, and the "e x te r n a l" w o rk of reconciling w h at goes on inside with w h a t one is " s u p p o s e d " or " a l l o w e d " to feel' (Craib 1998: 113). Thirdly, Co hen d raw s our attention to the im portance for m ales of co n ­ structing and m aintaining a culturally acceptable 'm a scu lin e ' identity. N ow here are the tensio ns b etw een conscious and un conscio u s drives, private and social identities, and acceptable or un acceptable m asculinities m ore evident than in the pred om inantly male locale of the prison.

46

I de n t i t y , s el f a n d c o n s t r u c t i o n s o f m a s c u l i n i t y

T h e social c o n s t r u c t io n o f m a s c u lin it y

In order to e xam ine the relationship b etw ee n institu tional d em an d s and the individual m o tiv ations w hich enable inm ates to surviv e im p riso n ­ ment, it is necessary to consid er w h at m any prison sociologists regard as the defining characteristic of the social life of prisons. O f all Syk es's 'pains of im p ris o n m e n t', the d ep rivation of security is probably the least studied, yet the fear for personal safety which is engendered in every direction betw een inm ates and staff is arguably the over-riding feature of life in m o st institutions.9 For m o st inm ates, peer group respect, in dividual status and access to scarce resources all rest upon a reputation for aggressiveness and physical strength. As in any organisation a clim ate of fear is b ound to lead to the exploitation of w e ak e r individuals by more po w erfu l ones and, in prison, the illusion of p o w er often rests on outward displays of intim idation and violence. It is necessary, then, to explore w h a t has been described as the prison-coping strategy par ex cellen ce; 'm an lin e ss' (Toch 1975: 146), first in its broad est social context, and then within the specific context of the prison. Th at prisons contain violent m en is hard ly a revelation, b ut the exact natu re of the 'm a c h o ' culture, the extent to w h ich it em erges as a result of the deprivations of im p riso n m e n t or is imported into prison by inm ates (and therefore sim ply represents a m icrocosm of the lower w o rking-class culture from w hich m o st inm ates originate), and the precise m e a n s by w h ich hierarchies of d om ination are created and maintained am o n g groups of male inm ates, have yet to be thoroughly explored. Indeed, despite the fact that men com prise the vast majority of prisoners w o rld w id e, hence the concentration of research on male prisons, m o st studies treat the g end er of their subjects as more or less incidental (Gelsthorpe and M orris 1990; Sim 1994). This is perhaps not surprising w h en even the e m erg ent literature from g end er studies co ncentrated for d ecad es on the subordination of w o m e n u n d er a global system of patriarchy; only relatively recently has the notion of 'm ascu linity ' been problem atised in any m ean in g fu l w ay (N ew ton 1994). So, while ethnic and generational differences am o n g prison inm ates have been studied (Genders and Player 1995), the assum p tio n a m o n g c rim ­ inologists has tended to be that, in the m ainly male world of the m e n 's prison, the n orm al rules of patriarchy do not apply. H ow ever, the notion of patriarchy (as it is c o m m o n ly used) although sim plistic, is not irrelevant to the pred om in an tly m ale en v iron m en t and it is now widely accepted that m en can be its victim s as well as its perpetrators.

47

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4P a t r i a r c h y ‘f r a tr ia r c h y ’ a n d the s t u d y o f m a s c u lin ity

Despite its wide usag e, how ever, 'patriarchy ' is s o m e w h a t m isleading. Its m ean in g has been corrupted in the w ak e of the fe m inist w o m e n 's m o v e m e n t, so that it is now popularly used to describe w h a t m ight more properly be termed 'a n d ro cra cy' - rule by men (R em y 1990). 'M ascu linity ' first b ecam e the subject of aca d em ic study in the m id -1970s, and it is therefore un su rprisin g that it w as substantively constructed as a pro blem atic from within a feminist fram ew ork (K im m el 1990). The result of this was that in the early days of gender studies, d im en sion s of division and oppression other than those im posed by white, middle-class, heterosexu al m en on w o m e n w ere largely ignored (ibid.). This changed with the publication of Tolson's The Lim its o f M ascu lin ity in 1977 w hich w as arguably the first w o rk to analyse in detail the social construction of m asculinity as it pertains to relatio nships b etw ee n pow erfu l and (relatively) pow erless m en, as opposed to sim ply the general dom ination of m en over w o m e n . A com bination of personal accounts of his own child hood ,

anecd otal

evidence

gathered

from

acq uaintances,

and

qualitative data based on conversations with you ng gang m e m b ers, b rou ght together and interpreted through a social constructionist fra m e ­ w ork, it was the first attem pt to define a 'problem of m ascu linity' involving an ad ju stm e n t to disintegrating im ag es of self, and was pivotal in e ncou rag ing the previously fem ale-dom inated and feminist gender studies to em bra ce the study of m en and masculinity. Building on Tolson's w ork, a small n u m b e r of g end er theorists have argued that masculinities arc nu m erou s, e p hem eral, contested and highly problem atic. Thu s, in the process of d econstructing masculinity, recent writers, notably Brittan (1989), Hearn and M o rg an (1990), C onnell (1987, 1995), and Jefferson (1997), have suggested a m ore com p le x co n c ep tu ­ alisation of masculinity than had previously been em p lo y e d , the most significant

aspect

of

w h ich

is

a

shift

to

the

notio n

of

multiple

m asculinities. To talk of 'm a scu linity ' in the sin gular is now regarded by these writers as crude biological reductionism , and their em phasis is m uch m ore focused on the interplay betw ee n different fo r m s of masculinity. This has led to a re conceptualisation of the structure of gender relations and a recognition a m o n g som e co m m e n ta to rs that the term

'patriarchy'

has

entered

a cad em ic

debate

and

consciou sness as a kind of short-hand ascription oversim plifies the structures of g end er (Connell 1987).

the w hich

popular grossly

O ne w a y of o v ercom ing the am biguities inherent in the term 'patriarchy ' (the rule of the fathers) is to consider, instead, the m erits of 'fratriarchy' (the rule of the brothers); a m o de of m ale d om ination which, 48

I dent i t y, sel f and c o n s t r u c t i o n s o f ma s c ul i n i t y

while sharing some of the origins of patriarchy, is none the less concerned with a quite different set of values, and which seems more appropriate in an analysis of a predominantly male environment. Although it does not appear to be in com mon usage, and certainly could not be said to be a sharply defined analytical tool, the term 'fratriarchy' is used by Brod (1990) and Remy (1990) to account for the disjunction between the facts of public male power and the feelings of individual male powerlessness. It thus explains how, within a broadly patriarchal society, in which the oppression and subjugation of women is well documented, superordinate notions of masculinity serve to weaken - for w ant of a better word, 'feminise' - the authority of some men. Where patriarchy is a father-toson transmission of authority, and is therefore intergenerational, the dimension of temporal continuity is rendered more problematic in the intragenerational relationships of the brotherhood: 'As opposed to the patriarch, who embodied many levels and kinds of authority in his single person, the brothers stand in uneasy relationships with each other, engaged in sibling rivalry while trying to keep the power of the family of man as a whole intact' (Brod 1990: 133). Furthermore, while the brothers may share the desires of the patriarch in matters of paternity and parenting, it is a concern largely fuelled by self-interest. Elsewhere, Gilmore (1990: 223) states that the three core elements of manhood are im pregnating w om en, providing for one's dep endants and protecting one's kin. While these codes of behaviour are undoubtedly characteristic of men across the socioeconomic strata, it is arguable that in the lower working classes these ideals are transmuted according to the dem ands of association with other men and the 'freedom' to do as one pleases and 'have a good time'. As such, even men w'ho marry a n d / o r have children may perm anently remain psychologically trapped in the fraternal fellowship, eschewing all responsibilities and thriving on the conflict and aggression which are characteristic of most male associations. As Remy (1990: 45) demonstrates in the parlance of the 1970s, this generally amounts to 'causing a bit of bovver'. Remy (ibid.) uses the term 'm en's h u t'10 as a metaphor for the public institutions beyond the private world of the hom e, where men go primarily to associate with other men: 'this is. . . where those males who have earned the right to call themselves men, or are in the process of attaining this emblem of privilege, gather'. 'M en's huts' for the middle classes are institutions such as golf clubs, 'gentlem en's' clubs and Freem asons' lodges, while working-class manifestations include pubs and betting-shops. Male bonding has also, of course, found its expression in a highly visible form in political arenas, including the House of 49

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C o m m o n s and extrem e fascist organisations such as the Nazi m o v e m e n t (ibid.)- T he interesting aspect of m e n 's huts, from the perspective of the current consideration of u n eq ual p o w er relations am o n g m en, is that they not only e m phatically exclude w o m e n , b ut also those m ales w h o have, as R e m y says, not yet earned the right to call them selves m en. This form of 'social closure' (Weber 1964) operates through a n u m b e r of m e ch an ism s, inclu ding exclusion of those w ho have not yet passed the requisite rites of passag e, those w h o are either too old, or too y ou ng , to be fully respected by their peers, and those w h o arc not versed in the special language or 'a rgot' w hich frequently characterises these groups. In all these respects, prison societies can be said to resem ble m e n 's huts and can be seen as a contin uation of practices ad opted in the w orking class world of m an u a l labou r w h ere male ascen dancy over other m en on the basis of age, authority and peer group credentials is frequently evident. A p prenticeships and probationary training period s are co m m o n ly rem em b ered in terms of d rud gery and sham e; a hum iliating induction into masculinity as well as trade. Yet once the training has been successfully com pleted , the apprentices are generally accepted as 'brothers' (C ockburn 1986). Similarly, the new prison inm ate will frequently have to undergo a period of testing, involving so m e kind of initiation which m ay entail physical assertio ns of strength (M cD e rm ott and King 1988). Young offenders institutes are particularly notoriou s for the b ullying w hich takes place on induction, b u t in all custodial settings, if the victim succeeds in defend ing him self and asserting his autonomy, he will often be accepted, at least by som e sectio ns of the prison fraternity (Sykes and M essing er 1960; N e w to n 1994). A re cognition of the disparity w hich exists b etw een the structural d om in an ce of patriarchy, and individual feelings of p o w erlessness a m ong the fratriarchy, has led m a n y writers to claim that the w o m e n 's m o v e m e n t has left men feeling confused by the wide range of div erse and often contradictory im peratives placed upon them. In particular, the frequently invoked 'crisis' of m asculinity has b rou g h t to the surface the need to reconceptualise m ascu linity in terms of its d om in an t, he gem on ic representation, and other, subordinated versions of it. Bearing similarities to the 'm yth of m an lin ess' (Toch 1975) and the 'm a scu line m y stiqu e' (M iedzian 1991), the term 'h e g e m o n ic m ascu linity ' (Connell 1987), encapsulates the social ascen dancy of som e m en over other m en and w o m e n , but goes one step further than 'fratriarchy' in identifying its deeply e m b e d d ed , structural character. It recognises that m en, too, can experien ce subordination, stigm atisation and marginalisation at every level, as a co nseq u ence of their sexuality, ethnic identity, class position, religious beliefs or som e other 'difference' (Hearn and M organ 1990). 50

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Using 'h e g e m o n y ' in m uch the sense that G ram sci (1971) intended, C o nnell (1987) is clear to point out that h e g em ony in this context is not ascen d ancy based on the use of force: indeed coercion is rarely required given that h e g em o n y is achieved in social forces w h ich extend beyond contests of brute p o w e r into the organisation of public and private life. How ever, he also e m phasises that h e g e m o n y and force are not incom patible, and that the two often go hand in hand. As Thu rston's (1996) study of vu ln erable prisoners d em onstrates, physical violence frequently end orses d o m in a n t cu ltural patterns. The fact that assaults on som e inm ates (by both fellow inm ates and by officers) occur and are tolerated by those with the authority to intervene d em onstrates that h e g em o n ic values based on physical coercion are part of the com plex horizontal and vertical relatio nships instituted b etw een prisoners and prison officers, and b etw ee n these groups and w h a t Sim (1994: 102) calls the 'techno crats w ho occu py po w erfu l positions as g ov ernors, area m an a g e rs and state bureaucrats in the H o m e Office'. H e g em o n ic masculinity is clearly, then, a structural device which u n derstand s the production and re-production of m ascu line attributes, attitudes and b ehav io urs as ou tcom es of social processes and inequalities w hich are upheld at every level of society. It is therefore not surprising that m an y of the d o m in a n t features of the prison society (intergroup loyalty, ad herence to a 'code of h o n o u r ', a distinctive jargon, d isplays of aggressive toughness, passing initiation rites, opposition to authority and so on) can be found in m any u n d e rclass11 cultures. Studies of lower w o rking-class culture have provided an im portant focus in a cad em ic sociology since the 1970s and have un do ub tedly done m u ch to popularise and give credibility to eth n og ra p h ic research m etho ds, as well as providing som e of the im petus for the em erging studies of masculinity. In Willis' 1977 study of school-age boys in the M id lan d s, he found a construction of m asculinity based on m ach ism o and b ond ing with other Tads' w h ich effectively prepared them for a later life of repetitive, m an u al labour. The m acho solidarity of the 'culture of w o rk ' w h ich found its genesis in the Tads' subculture at school produced an extrem e form of m asculinity ('m a c h ism o ') w hich com pen sated for their social sub ord ination to other m en, enabling collective resistance to authority and self-respect (Tolson 1977). O f course, since L earn in g to L abou r w as pu blished , long-term e m p lo y m e n t in industry has b eco m e less of an option for m ale schoolleavers in Britain and, while the im age persists of a w o rking-class m a s c u ­ linity b o u n d up with the requirem ents of hard m an u a l labour, you ng men are g ro w ing to m aturity with an increasingly w eak a ttach m en t to the world of w o rk (Wilson 1987). In an ever m ore com petitive and 'fem inised ' 51

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labour m arket, those w itho ut qualifications and other ad vantages clearly have their life chances d im inished , but in m any areas of high un em p lo y m en t, you ng m en are second - or even third-generation un em p lo y ed , and therefore have sim ply never been socialised into the world of work. S eem ing ly con d e m n e d to failure from the day they were born, these males have little to give them a sense of self-worth other than their ability to exert p o w e r over others through bullying and intim idation. In creating a m acho façade they are attem pting to transm ute the qualities of he g em o n ic masculinity - power, control, authority, respect and so on - to give them m ea n in g within their ow n culture. Unlike w o m e n (for w h o m no equ iv alent 'h e g e m on ic fe m in in ity '12 exists) being a m an of w h atev er class, age or ethnic b a ck grou nd , involves constantly proving that you are a man: 'M ascu linity is som e th in g you can never feel at ease with. It is alw ays s om ething you have to be ready to defend and prove. You have to prove that you are as m u ch of a man as everyone else. O ften this m e a n s putting others d ow n. . .'13 (Seidler 1991: 132). H e g em o n ic m asculinity is, how ever, very different from the notion of a biologically d eterm ined male sex role, and the ideal of masculinity most prized by a culture m ay not correspond to the actual personalities of the m ajority of m en. Indeed, the w inning of h e g em o n y often involves the creation of m o d els of m asculinity w h ich - if not w h at po w erfu l men are - nevertheless are w h a t they are m otivated to supp ort in the interests of m aintainin g their power. T hese m o dels are frequently fantasy figures, or real people w h ose im age is intrinsically b ound up in a s o m e w h a t e xaggerated m ed ia persona; for e xam p le, footballers, pop stars and 'action movie heroes'. F urtherm ore, the fact that the com paratively few female cou nterparts of these e m b o d im e n ts of a m ascu line 'ideal', with all its conn otations of power, wealth and success, are frequently treated with hostility or resistance by the culture industries and the public at large is an indication of a patriarchal system w hich finds its cultural expressio n in he g em o n ic masculinity. All form s of masculinity inevitably involve a certain degree of putting on a 'm an ly front', and it therefore see m s reasonable to consider the outw ard manifestation of all m asculinities as 'p resentation' or 'p e r­ fo rm ance'. This d ram aturgical conception of self, m ad e fam ous by G o ffm an (1959), once again recalls the interplay b etw een structure and agency. Toison (1977) takes up the d ram atic motif and gives it a classbased edge, arguing that the w o rking class boy 'expresses him self, not so m u ch in an inner com petitive struggle for a ch iev em en t, as through a collective to ughness, a m ascu line "p e r f o r m a n c e " recognised and a p ­ proved by his " m a t e s " ' (ibid: 43). A lthough it is not being suggested here that m iddle-class boy s do not share this need to live up to certain 52

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idealised representations of masculinity in order to gain the respect of their peers (based p red om inantly on edu cational and sporting a chiev em ent, perhaps), the concern here is with underclass males for w h om m ascu linity is a kind of ritualised dram atic e nactm ent; generally m u n d a n e and predictable, but pu nctuated by sporadic bursts of excitem ent. In a study of Sun derland street-corner culture, Corrigan (1975) testifies to the intense activity which is involved in the com m on pursuit of 'd oing nothing', echoing other co m m e n ta to rs' observations concerning passin g time in prison. Occasionally, confrontations or 'contests of h o n o u r ' b etw een rival gangs have to be fought and w on in order to preserve a m a sc u lin c reputation (N ew b urn and Stanko 1994). Such contests are usually fought over territory and a d o m in a n t feature of the w o rk ing class is the intense loyalty to the locality; districts, n e ig h b ou rh oo d s, streets and even sm aller 'p a tch es ' than that are closely m arked by gang s and guarded , 'often to apparent absurdity' (Tolson 1977: 42). A lthough the ability to 'p rove on e se lf' by physical m e an s is essential in h e g em on ic, underclass culture, another im portant aspect of the lower w o rk in g class m ale's existence is the ability to 'talk up' his physical prowess. Even if an individual rarely has the need to e ng ag e in actual com bat, he m u st im press his 'a u d ie n ce' with his repertoire of stories and jokes. T he stories do not have to be true necessarily, b u t they m u s t be as interesting as possible, and m e aning ful to the story-teller's 'public'. Within his peer group he is socialised into this m o de of behaviour, learning at an early age that b ravad o is a key elem ent in gaining m em b ersh ip of the fratriarchy. N ot only do the stories serve the im portant function of filling time, b u t they are also youthful versions of the M an n erbiin d e, underlining the gro u p 's collective identity and internal solidarity (Tolson 1977; Corrigan 1975, 1979). Ironically, it is the very existence of m ale subcultures w hich w ea k ens the he g em o n ic notio n of masculinity to w h ich they are culturally encou rag ed to aspire and ensures the social reproduction of d isad vantage and m arginalisation. G e n d er is constructed as a situated social and interactional a ccom p lish m e n t; it grow s out of social practices in specific social structural settings and, at the sam e time, serves to inform such practices in reciprocal relation (M esse rsch m id t 1999: 199). Inside the locally constructed w o rk ing -class world there is little room for deviation from the prescribed n o rm s w h ich characterise this group, and conform ity is p aram oun t. But while collective allegiance to the locality provides the group with som e of its internal cohesion, the ov erw h e lm in g price w hich the y o u n g w o rking -class b oy has to pay is conform ity to the m o n oto n y and routines of w o rk in g class culture (Tolson 1977: 44). In this context, 53

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then, it would appear that Bourdieu's (1977) concept of habitus is more convincing than Giddens' theory of structuration. As Layder (1994: 157) notes: 'Bourdieu makes clear distinctions between the external context of activity, the immediate situational circumstances, and the habitus which acts as a conduit betw een them'. The compliance which group m e m ­ bership demands is imposed at all three levels of social interaction (micro, meso and macro) and always involves compromise in the face of restraints. It is at the intermediate level where habitus is key; it represents the 'resources that people draw on to make activity happen, but at the same time limits its potential' (ibid.). The importance attached to 'putting on a front' in order to adjust to the disintegrating sense of self, and the engagem ent in gratuitous violence which is characteristic of much underclass masculinity, masks the overwhelm ing sense of futility and disappointment which many disadvantaged youths feel. W hat charac­ terises their 'performances' is a sense of fatalism, of 'taking the world as you find it' (Tolson 1977: 43) but this prevents them from doing anything to overcome the structural disadvantages they face; indeed, it frequently serves to perpetuate their marginalisation. It is thus reasonable to suppose that male aggression, much of which is 'acted out' in a stylised fashion, is the human response to structural inequalities. Without the sense of incorporation which the traditional world of work facilitates, young people are less apt to form their identities on the basis of occupation and life chances, and are more likely to get their sense of self through football, music or some other 'fanship'. The difficulty which faces them is that all these identifications require conspicuous consumption of designer-label clothing and accessories, and it may be that young men in today's anomic society are fostering at an early age, not the skills necessary to prepare them for a mundane working life in industry but, rather, the wells of ungratified desire which instil a sense of dissatisfaction with the gains to be made through legitimate means. Although it is not being suggested that all lower working-class males are unable to find ways of accomplishing masculinity in ways that do not involve crime, it might reasonably be assumed that those who do offend bring into prison with them a masculine ideology and com m itm ent to a criminal subculture which prepares them for life inside. For men with few material advantages, the rewards of reproduction, provision and protection may only be securable by conflict and struggle; and marginalisation, whether it is along economic, class or racial lines (or all three) is likely to lead to clashes for personal power with rivals from a similar background (M esserschmidt 1986). The intensity of the desirable male image would appear, therefore, to be linked strongly to social organisation, environment and productivity: as Gilmore (1990: 224) 54

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notes, 'the harsher the e nvironm ent and the scarcer the resources, the m ore m an h ood is stressed as inspiratio n and goal'. Few environm ents offer a m ore intensely harsh, un -pro du ctive and im pov erished set of circum stances than the prison.

H e g e m o n i c m a s c u l i n i t y in p r i s o n s

The desire to prove one's m a n h ood w hich frequently leads to criminal behaviour, conviction and im p rison m e n t m ay itself, then, be a pre­ requisite to a successful adaptation to life inside. This m ay be particularly true of those w h o have com m itted very serious offences, w h o m ight be said to im port with them into prison the ideology of aggressive m acho values which precipitated their crim es in the first place. Indeed, feminist writer N icole Ward Jouve, in her a ccou nt of the circum stances surrou nding the crim es of 'Yorkshire R ip p e r ' Peter Sutcliffe (1988: 144), argues that 'the w h ole aura of. . . aggressive m alen ess that surrounded Sutcliffe m ad e his m u rd ers possible'. This aura w as provided partially by a father w ho, Ward Jo u v e suspects, w ould rath er have a m ass m u r­ derer for a son than a closet h o m o se xu a l, and by friends of the offender, w ho 'regarded pro stitute-bashing as a jo ke' (ibid.). Yet m acho values are not the preserve of the underclass, or the psychopath. Even though the likelihood of them b eco m in g prisonised or actively seeking to adapt to prison life is arguably less probable, w hite-collar crim inals and inmates from an ostensib ly m iddle-class background will have their masculinity tested in various w ay s during the course of their sen ten ces by the d ep rivations of im prison m e n t, all of w hich - in enforcing a state of infantilised d ep en d e n cy - attack the very core of he gem on ic m asculinity w h ich m en of all social classes are culturally encou raged to aspire to. Ward Jo u v e's (ibid.) exploratio n of Sutcliffe's relationship with his father rein forces the point that he g em o n ic m ascu linity is not achieved solely through d om ination over w o m e n , but is also constructed

in

relation to subordinated or less po w erfu l m en. H e g e m o n y does n ot m ean total or uncontested d o m in a n ce ; it is not fixed, but m ay alter over time, and it is achieved within a b alance of forces so that other form s are sub ju g ated, n ot eliminated altogether. But achieving he g em o n y may depend on preventing alternatives from gaining cu ltural definition and legitimacy. For e xam p le, in the context of the prison, the p o w e r achieved and held on to by those at the top of the prisoner hierarchy is to som e degree legitim ised, norm alised and sustained by its opposite n u m b e r at the bottom . Put simply, the he gem on ic masculinity at the apex of the hierarchy of p o w er - represented m o st strongly by the professional 55

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criminal and arm ed robber - is culturally reinforced by its opposite n u m b e r at the bottom - the rapist and paed ophile w h o deviate from co n ­ ventional heterosexu al m ascu line norms. An interesting aspect of the prison hierarchy is that, although it has alw ays existed, it has changed in recent years to the extent that there are now m any more prisoners prepared to inflict physical violence on those w h o languish at or near the bottom (Coyle 1994). O ne of the most significant factors in the increase in interpersonal violence right across the prison population is the drugs culture w h ich is evident in all British prisons. According to Coyle, how ever, it is also partially explained by the role of the tabloid press w ho give a high profile to crim inal cases involving certain kinds of offences, e n cou rag ing other prisoners to place th em selv es in the role of vigilantes on behalf of society at large. T he fact that the tabloids enjo y the highest circulation figures am ong the British press while reporting the lurid details of crim es against the most vulnerable m e m b ers of society, yet frequently fail to report sub seq uent assaults by som e prisoners on their fellow inmates, is perhaps a further indication of the implicit sanction society places on the exertion of he g em o n ic m ascu line values over weaker, subordinated ones. H e g em o n ic masculinity in prisons, then, is clearly as b ound up with aggression and violence as it is on the outside. Th a t is not to say that the m ost violent m en (in respect to their crim es or to their b ehav io ur in prison) are the m o st p o w e rfu l inside; indeed the volatile offender is more likely to be marginalised than respected. N evertheless, a certain degree of 'controlled a ggression' is required in order to surviv e the p sychological and physical rigours of im prisonm ent. A sce n d a n cy achieved by m eans of threats, bullying and predatory aggressiveness is not hegem ony, but the necessity of establishing a n o -nonsense, tough reputation on reception into a new institution is well d ocu m en ted in personal accounts of life inside (e.g. Boyle 1977; Probyn 1977; Sha n n o n and M o rg an 1996). Indeed, as in the world of m anu al w ork, the successful c o m pletion of 'initiation rites' is frequently an im p orta n t elem en t of establishing one's m asculine credentials, and g u a ranteeing som e acceptance by, and solidarity with, other m en, in the hop e of ensuring a relatively trouble-free passage through one's sentence (G rapen daal 1990). Conversely, if an inm ate 'fails' his initiation test, or is for som e other reason labelled as w eak, he m ust live with the k no w le d g e his reputation for w ea k ness will spread, and that he m ay be targeted by his m ore aggressive peers. Such physical jostling for positions of p o w er and status are co m m o n a m o n g low er w ork ing class groups of m ales, b ut it is perhaps especially visible in prisons b ecau se they are such blatantly statu s-d epriving e nvironm ents and therefore create a particularly acute need for indices of relative status 56

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(Toch 1975: 64). Of course, even after a tough façade has been established, it has to be maintained and this in itself can be a great source of pressure. Toch reminds us of the analogous nature of self and identity in his com m ent that some inmates go to extraordinary lengths to accom modate an image of themselves which conform s to the hegemonic ideal, but that their manly self-portraits crumble, indeed are 'relinquished with gratitude', during conversations with researchers (Toch 1975: 15).

C on clu d in g thoughts

This chapter has demonstrated that the overt masculinity evident in so many studies of im prisonment has parallels in the wider culture beyond the prison walls. The explanation of aggressive masculinity in purely biological terms is problematic, but even if it is accepted that aggression has a biological basis, it is none the less also dependent on culture in so far as violence takes social forms and is therefore historically conditioned and culturally determined. In short, violence, whatever its roots, is generally enacted with knowledge of the rules and norms which govern the expression and control of aggression in any given time and place (Dunning et al 1988). Many studies have suggested that the criminal life of the offender begins with some degree of contact with delinquent or offending peers, through whom a criminal identity and perspective are acquired. Echoing Goffman's use of the term, Irwin (1970) states that any new phase of the offender's 'career', including the frequently cyclical path through arrest, sentencing, imprisonment and release, is structured by meanings and definitions brought to the phase from perspectives gathered earlier. Criminality as a learned response to the imperatives enforced by hegemonic masculinity is suggested in a num ber of inmates' autobiographical accounts, and sociological studies of lower workingclass culture show the excessive display of one's masculinity, including aggressive and violent behaviour, to be a central feature of working-class life. It hardly needs to be stated that any previous contact or involvement with criminal perspectives and behavio ur systems prior to arrest will inevitably shape the new inmate's over-riding prison identity and coping strategies. But given the evidence already cited for the brutalising and psychologically damaging effects of im prisonment on all but the most 'prisonised' inmates, it would be naïve to suggest (as do Irw'in and Cressey 1962, and Irwin 1970) that the prison is simply one functioning part of a wider criminal mechanism, and that inmates only adapt to incarceration to the extent of it being another integrated episode within 57

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a long criminal career. Indeed, to sug g est that the social life of a prison revolv es entirely around essentialist male beliefs and crim inal ideologies not only presu p p oses that the inm ate culture is virtually identical across all male prisons regardless of category, physical location and m a n a g e m e n t policy, b ut is also tantam ou nt to blam in g the victims of the bullying, oppression and fear w h ich characterise m any prisons (Stevens 1994). W h a te v e r their circum stances, individuals are not mere bearers of structure b u t are com p le x a m a lg a m s of several influences, respond ing to their life experiences with greater or lesser degrees of com pliance and confrontation, and defining their own individuality in terms of both cultural conform ity and resistance. A s Layder (1994: 210) com m ents: 'u niqu e psy ch ob iog ra p h ical experiences will intersect with the d ynam ics of particular situations and the influence of w id er social contexts to d eterm ine a person's b e h a v io u r'. In prisons, as in other spheres of life, the m arking of 's a m e n e s s' and 'difference' is crucial to the construction of identity positions and both m ay be reproduced and m ediated through a range of s y m b olic sy stem s and through form s of social inclusion and exclusion. For e xam p le, individuals m ay be marginalised (or accepted) on the basis of the crim es for which they are serving a prison sentence, or for their stance on a particular aspect of the prison culture such as drugs use, or indeed 'o th e rn e ss' m ig ht be conferred on m uch more m u n d a n e and spurious grounds. H y per-m ascu linity as an identity position can cou nter som e aspects of marginalisation and is one of the m o st co m m o n re sponses to the im perative to conform to the low er w o rking-class d om inated prison culture. It is thus s im ultaneously a reflection of w id er social n o rm s and a response to the specific, unique properties of im prisonm ent. But not every inm ate wrill conform to the h e g em o n ic m ascu line ideal; as already d em onstrated , he g em o n ic m a s ­ culinity carries no intrinsic m ean in g w ithout the subordinated versions against w h ich it is pitched. In its more general analysis of identity and the extent to w hich the self can retain a sense of agency in the m o st structurally restraining of e nvironm ents, this chapter has m ad e reference to a n u m b e r of m e ta­ narratives w h ich have advanced social theory. M arxism , in putting social relations rath er than an abstract notio n of the individual at the centre of its theoretical system , displaced the view there is a universal 'e ssence of m a n ' at the core of each subject (Bocock and T h o m p s o n 1992). Freud 'd isco vered' the unconscious, u n d erm ining the traditional E nlig htenm ent view of the individ ual as a w holly rational being, capable of calculating the con se q u e n ces of his or her actions. He also offered the first insight into gendered relations and the hu m a n fear of the 'o th e r'. But psy choa n a ly sis is alm ost entirely unable to accou nt for the im portance of 58

I de n t i t y , s el f a n d c o n s t r u c t i o n s o f m a s c u l i n i t y

social, political and e con om ic factors in constructing individual p e rso n ­ ality. F e m in is m 's a c h iev em en t w as in politicising identity and shifting the em p h a sis on how individ uals are formed as gendered subjects, a theme taken up by a new generation of g end er theorists concerned to investigate the origins, relations and form s of masculinity w hich are privileged in late modernity. Finally, late m o dernity (or p o stm od ern ism ) heralds a period of significant social change w hich m ay have a profound im p act upon individual and collective identities, b u t w h ose long-term trajectory remains uncertain. F ou cault is perhaps the m o st striking exa m p le of the rejection of grand theory with its analysis of m o m en to u s historical individuals and events, preferring to concentrate on the sm aller narratives w hich analyse p o w er a m o n g groups w ho have been m arginalised, stigmatised or neglected in conv entional historical accounts. H ow ever, F ou cault ignores w h at Layder (1994: 112) calls the 'interactive d im ension of m eaning '. W hile he is right to highlight the socially constructed production of m eaning at the level of discourses, practices and p o w e r relations, he overlooks that elem ent of m ea n in g that is produced through the 'inter-subjective processes of negotiation, definition and general form s of creativity that are b rou g ht into play w h en e v e r and w h erever hu m an beings mix socially' (ibid.). F urtherm ore, his historical em p h a sis prevents him from analysing everyday, situated behavio ur, and even though his later work claim s to focus on 'e veryd ay life', he rem ains strangely un concerned with actual face-to-face encou nters or the m inutiae of day-to-day interaction. This om ission of the intersubjectiv e sphere w ea kens an approach which otherw ise succeeded in disclosin g new dim ensions of p o w e r and alternative w ay s of investigating its effects (ibid.). T he q uest to look for p o w e r at every level of society has led Bourdieu and G id d e n s (am ong others) to reassert the im portance of analysing every d ay life, and to revive the notio n of h u m a n b ein g s' inclination to be affected by, and affect, their social environm ent. Influenced by Garfinkel and G offm an , it is un su rprisin g that G id d e n s asserts that it is in the ordinary spheres of m u n d an e, trivial or fleeting interaction that institutions, organisations and cultural patterns are reproduced over time and space. H ow ever, this study accords the interm ediate level of culture and interpersonal relations a level of im portance not found in G id d e n s ' w o rk , and will therefore use B ou rd ieu's notio n of habitus as a co m p le m e n t to structuratio n theory. W hile the macro picture - the H om e Office, prison service and wider culture - is im portant to an u n d ersta nd ing of m edia provision, access and regulation, and the micro level - the personal use of m edia by individuals - will illuminate the specific m ean in gs and m otivations sou ght by prisoners from m edia resources as a m e a n s of ov ercom ing the pains of 59

Captive audience

i m p r i s o n m e n t , the m e s o l evel of t he p r i s o n c u l t u r e c a n also c o n t r i b u t e to our understanding struction and Burman

of p r i s o n

life, p a r t i c u l a r l y in r e la t i on to t he c o n ­

m a i n t e n a n c e of identity. F o l l o w i n g t he e x a m p l e s e t b y

( 1 9 8 8 ) , this s t u d y is c o n c e r n e d

to i n t e r r o g a t e t he c o n c e p t of

i d e n t i t y a s it is d e f i n e d a n d m e d i a t e d t h r o u g h t he m i c r o s p h e r e of the individual,

and

t he

intermediate

and

macrocultural

spheres

beyond

i n d i v i d u a l , p r i v a t e e x p e r i e n c e . T h e ' d i al e ct ic of c o n t r o l ' p r e s e n t in all s oc i al s t r u c t u r e s e n c o m p a s s e s

a r a n g e of p os s i b l e m e a n s of e x e r t i n g

powder in t he e v e r y d a y c o n t e x t o f the p r i s o n . T h e s i t ua t i o n a l a n d s oc ial controls

implemented

documented

by

prison

authorities

and

staff

a re

well

e l s e w h e r e (s ee , for e x a m p l e , S p a r k s et al 1 9 9 6 ) , b u t the

o p p o r t u n i t i e s for i n m a t e s to e x e r t their a g e n c y - o v e r e a c h o t h e r a n d o v e r t he ' s y s t e m ' - are also n u m e r o u s a n d v a r i e d , a n d w'ill b e i n v e s t i g a t e d in r el at ion to m e d i a a c c e s s a n d c o n s u m p t i o n in t he r e m a i n d e r of this b o o k .

Notes 1 The depriv ation thesis - em phasising the degradations indigen ou s to the experience of im prisonm ent - has been challenged by the 'im p o rtation' m o del (Irwin and Cressey 1962); a social learning perspectiv e that stresses pre- and extra-prison influences that shape inmate adju stm ents. Long regarded as com peting perspectives, they are now generally regarded as co m plem entary and the current study recognises that while inm ates clearly im port with them into prison div erse experiences, belief system s and m oral standpoints (far w ider indeed than one easily identifiable criminal subcultu re), none the less, the experience of confinem ent unites them, to som e degree, in a shared experience of, and response to, pain and depriv atio n (G rapendaal 1990). 2 'C ulture' is used by Willis in the sense that M ary Douglas (1966) uses it (itself a d ev elop m en t of D urkh eim 's work), i.e. the public, standardised values of a community. 3 A failing that Cohen and Taylor recognise of them selves in their later reflection on their research (1977). 4 A lthough G id d e n s ' term also incorporates the fo rm a l rules and resources that govern institutional cond u ct and is therefore o f w ider relevance in the prison context. 5 W hich G idd ens highlights as being of particular interest to him (in Bryant and Jary 1991). 6 'P risonisation' is a m uch-used term coined by C le m m e r in 1940 (2nd edn 1958) to indicate the process of socialisation or assim ilation w hich takes place w h en the prisoner enters an institution. Although often characterised as a destructive process, prisonisation is not sim ply a form of 'institutionalisation' as described by som e (Z am bie and Porporin o 1988; M organ 1997). Like institu tionalisation, prisonisation may involve the acceptance of inferior roles and a large degree of passivity in relation to the formal structures of the institution. But it also indicates a positive willingness to accept the mores of the primary inmate group and is a rather more proactive surviv al strategy by which inm ates learn how to 'play the sy stem ' and use the proliferation of underground econom ies, and the existence of subcultural gangs and hierarchies, to their advantage. These illegitimate activities, far from grinding dow n the inmate, actually provide him with the status and p o w er necessary to ameliorate the sense of social rejection and loss of status inherent in the label 'p r is o n e r' (Kalinich 1980).

60

Identity, self and c o n s t r u c t io n s o f m a sculinity

7 T w o o f the m o s t c o m p e llin g e x p lo r a tio n s o f m a s c u lin e v io le n t c rim e that ad d res s p s y c h o a n a ly tic facto rs are case s tu d ies o f the s a m e m a n : serial killer, P eter S u tcliffe (Ward Jo u v e 1988; S m ith 1993). T h e s tre n g th o f these s tu d ies lies in their re co g n itio n of S u tcliffe 's rep e ated failure to liv e up to social e x p e c ta tio n s o f m a n lin e s s , le a d in g him first to b la m e the fe m in in e in h im s e lf, and then to e x te rn a lise the hatred and p ro je ct it on to w o m e n (Jefferso n, 1997). 8 Interestingly, ev e n prison officers active ly co llu d ed in this d e m o n is a t io n o f sex o ffe n d e rs, and e x p resse d s u r p ris e that the re sea rch er w is h e d to talk to p ris o n e rs in the V P U a b o u t m a le v io le n c e , the im p lica tio n being that these w e re not 'real' m e n (T h u rs to n 1996). 9 A d l e r (1996) reports that 51 p e r c e n t of p ris o n e rs and 67 p er cent o f prison officers a d m it to feeling sc are d , w h ile Sc rato n et al's (1991) stu d y o f P ete rh e a d finds that 86 per c e n t of p ris o n e rs in te rv ie w e d felt u n safe. G iv e n the p re v a ilin g 'm a c h o ' c u ltu re, th e se figures are likely to u n d e r-r e p r e s e n t actu al fe e lin g s of fear. 10 From the G e r m a n 'M an n erbtin d e', or 'm e n 's l e a g u e ', co in e d by early G e r m a n so cio lo g ists to d e n o te the kind of fra triarchy d escrib e d here. A lth o u g h , like 'fra tria rc h y ', the notio n of the M iin n erb iin d e is re latively u n d e r -u s e d , it has b ee n taken up in v a r io u s g u is es by fe m in is t w riters, no ta b ly M illett (1971), C o c k b u r n (19 83 ; 1986) and H e y (1986). 11 T h e u n d e rcla s s literatu re is too e x te n s iv e , and the precise m e a n in g o f the w o rd too c o n te s te d , to e xp lo re th o ro u g h ly here, b ut 'u n d e r c la s s ' will be used th r o u g h o u t this b ook in a d d itio n to the s y n o n y m ic 'lo w e r w o r k i n g c la s s ' b e c a u s e , w ith its s u b te rra n e a n c o n n o ta tio n s , in b oth

le ft-w in g and rig h t-w in g a c c o u n ts it e n c a p s u la te s the prison

p o p u la tio n , the p o ten tia l prison

p o p u la tio n

a n d , m o s t im p ortan tly , the a u th o ritie s '

a ttitu d e s to w a rd s them . 12 A c c o r d in g to C o n n e ll (1 987: 183), there is 'a b e w ild e rin g v a r ie ty o f traits con sid ere d ch a ra cte ris tic o f w o m e n ' b u t there is no su p e ro rd in a te v e rsio n o f fe m in in ity w h ic h is deem ed

m o re

stru ctu ra lly

p o w e r fu l

than

others.

A ll

v e rs io n s

of

fe m in in ity

are

s u b o rd in a te to the p a tr ia rc h a l p o w e r of m e n , re n d e r in g an y jo stlin g for p o sitio n s of p o w e r a m o n g w o m e n u ltim a te ly futile. T h e re d o e s e xist, h o w e v e r, an 'e m p h a s is e d fe m in in ity ', co n s tru cte d a ro u n d c o m p li a n c e w ith the g lo b a l s u b ju g a tio n o f w o m e n , and o rg an ise d at an in d iv id u a l level a ro u n d the a c c o m m o d a t i o n of m e n 's interests and desires. T h e re is th us likely to b e a kind o f 'fit' b e tw e e n h e g e m o n i c m a s c u lin ity and e m p h a s is e d fem inin ity, w h ic h m a y help to e x p la in w h y m a n y w o m e n re m a in in v io le n t re latio n sh ip s (ibid.: 185). 13 T h e need to 'p r o v e ' o n e 's 'w o m a n h o o d ' d o e s n o t e xist in the w a y that s o m e m a le s deem it n e c e s s a ry to p ro v e their m a n h o o d , th us m a k in g the n o tio n o f h e g e m o n i c fe m in in ity ev e n m o re u n ten a b le.

61

Chapter 3

R e s e a r c h c o n t e x t and m e t h o d o l o g y

In its consideration of micro, m eso and macro forces, the em pirical section of this b ook aims to take both aud ience studies and prison research in a new direction. To these ends, this chapter describes the research m etho do lo gies used to study the im p a ct that the introductio n of m edia resources into prisons has had on those environm ents, and on the people w h o live and work in them. The role m edia play in the negotiation of po w er and construction of inm ate identities will be an im portant and innovative

focus

for,

despite

the

extensive

literature

on

audience

behaviour, our k n ow le d g e of individ ual m o tiv ations and of the social constitu tion of m ediated com m u nica tion in localised, private, com m u nity-based settings rem ains at a prim itive level, and there is currently little un derstand ing of how identity develops from both selective and fortu itous uses of m edia resources (Lindlof and M ey er 1987). Taking

its

lead

from

uses

and

gratifications

research,

but

in

a

refinem ent of the m o del as outlined in C h apter 1, this analysis will try to accou nt for the m o tiv ations sou ght rath er than those gained and the m eaning s desired rath er than those achieved. That is not to say that a stud y of needs m et by vario us m edia is unlikely to shed light on people's perceptions of them selves, but illum ination of the inner self is inclined to be m ore successfully achieved with an o p en-end ed , discursiv e approach exploring m o tiv ations and aspirations, rath er than m easuring actual results observed as is characteristic of m ore positivistic studies. Of course the reasons w h y prisoners watch certain television p ro g ra m m e s, listen to specific radio stations and read particular n e w sp a p e rs, m ag azines or books are broadly d ep en d e n t on the sam e over-riding factors as those gov erning any other audience m e m b ers. A b o v e and beyond personal preference is habitus; age, family b a ckg rou nd , education and general cultural context all have a bearing on the m ed ia habits of individuals. Such personal factors m ay intersect with the policies of 62

R e se a r c h c o n t e x t and m e t h o d o l o g y

m ed ia produ cers so that view ers will frequently be

'interpellated '1

according to their so cio d em o g ra p h ic profile; hence the increasing output targeted at child ren, teenagers, y o u n g m en, m id dle-ag ed w o m e n , specific g e og raphical regions and even those inside or with a pro fessional interest in p risons.2 Availability and routine are also im portant factors; people are likely to develop loyalties to wards particular m edia or channels which, in the first instance at least, are d ep en d e n t up on the availability of reception. In term s of specific content preferences, m o st people will form early patterns of likes and dislikes for broad kinds of content (sport, new s, comedy, soaps), although personal taste is, to so m e extent, always governed by a w areness of alternatives (M cQ u ail 1994). M o st importantly, given the new direction in w hich this study is a ttem pting to take audience research, individ uals' m ed ia use will alw ays be affected by social context, especially w here view ing, listening or reading are shared - and thus may have to be negotiated or modified - with other, non-related, individuals. All these factors have to be considered carefully w h en approaching the study of m edia consu m ption in prisons, for it is not being argued that media use takes a fu nd am entally d ifferen t form within the context of a total institution. On the contrary, it is suggested that the reasons why people inside prison seek gratification from mass m edia are similar, yet intensified, w h en com pared to those experienced in ordinary life. Prisons are b oth part of society and yet, at the sam e time, are extraord inary social environm ents. Consequently, m edia - while fu nd am entally fulfilling functions sim ilar to those found in the dom estic sphere and elsew here nevertheless m ay take on an elevated significance in a sem i-closed institution. A rguably even m ore central in the unfolding of eve ry d a y life, m edia resources m ay give structure and pu rpose to otherw ise unfulfilling e xistences, and give back to prisoners a sense of identity the institu tional system has system atically violated. As with 'n o rm a l' view'ers, readers and listeners, media use a m o n g prisoners m ig h t be largely a second choice activity when com pared to 'real' social interaction with others, and sim ilarly it m ay be the case that m edia are used far m ore than they are valued (H im m e lw e it and Sw ift 1976). But like the u n em p lo y ed , prison inm ates are likely to have a far greater degree of atta ch m en t to and appreciation of m edia as a source of entertainm ent, escap ism , identity and opinion reinforcem ent, social interaction, or sim ply a m eans of e n d uring painfu lly s lo w -m o v in g periods of time. In accepting the basic prem ises of the uses and gratifications approach - that a udiences actively use m edia resources for a n u m b e r of identifiable p u rposes - this study is nevertheless predicated on the belief that indi­ viduals are not the sole initiators of action and that locus of control issues m ay lie beyond the individual user. Furtherm ore, the research m e th o d o l­ 63

Ca p t i v e a u d i e n c e

ogy of uses and gratifications - which may include open-ended methods of inquiry, but also embraces survey reports, highly structured interviews and multiple choice questionnaires - is problematic, not only because of its implicitly prescriptive and positivist nature, but because of what Lindlof and M eyer (1987: 3) term the 'ambivalent, happenstance, routinised and class-determined character' with which such information-seeking is riddled. Their recommendation for researching the relationship between mediated com munication and specific cultures is to adopt interpretative qualitative methods or, what is conventionally termed, 'ethnography', a research strategy that encompasses seven methods of analysis: participant observation, observation, 'just being around', group discussions, recorded discussions, informal interviews and use of existing sources (Willis 1974: 12-14). Although each of these methods is distinctive from the rest, they share a logic of discovery and alertness to the diverse forms and details of social life which means that, when used in conjunction with each another, they provide a holistic description of cultural membership (Lindlof 1995). As Willis (1982: 78) himself puts it: 'An ethnographic argument shouts at us that how ever persuasive and inclusive some of the theoretical arguments concerning the formation of the subject may be, they can by no means fully account for real, solid, warm, m oving, and acting bodies in actual situations.' The particular advantage of ethnographic inquiry for my purposes was that it implicitly understands Giddens' (1984: 285) assertion that we cannot adequately describe social activity 'w ithout know ing what its constituent actors know, tacitly as well as discursively’. It thus allows the researcher to look beyond the obvious uses of media resources (those which are self-evidently reported by the respondent or which are easily observable to the outsider) to those less apparent uses and the meanings generated from them, many of which are embedded in the taken-forgranted contexts of everyday social usage. Ethnography is therefore an approach that can study local realities and needs without imposing the value assumptions of traditional media 'effects' research. Furthermore, with its com plex layers of rules and behavioural codes that permeate the multifarious subcultures, the prison provides a fascinating and challeng­ ing environment for ethnographic study. Although direct observation of prisoners interacting with media in their cells is mostly prohibited, access to information about media use is freely available and, unlike con­ ventional ethnographic audience research which, by its very nature, intrudes on the most private sphere of an individual’s life - the hom e the prisoner's access to media is, in some respects, much more openly displayed, whether he likes it or not. Rosters listing the names of inmates whose 'turn' it is to receive one of the wing newspapers are posted up 64

R e se a r c h c o n t e x t and m e t h o d o l o g y

on the w ing office wall; prison librarians are only too h appy to show the researcher the records of m ag a zines and journ als subscrib ed to by individual prisoners; radios and sound sy stem s blare out of cell w ind ow s; and talk a b ou t television provides m u ch of the substance of social intercourse. In fact, the b o und aries b etw een public and private are blurred to the extent that the depriv atio n of private space suffered by m o st prison inm ates, together with the general level of mistrust accorded other inmates and staff, and the essentially punitive attitu de of society at large, result in m ost prisoners being only too glad to talk to a nonju d g em ental 'o u ts id e r' ab ou t virtually any topic arising from their experien ce of im prisonm ent. All these factors com b in e to m ak e e thnog ra p hy a 'n atu ra l' choice and, relative to the aud ience research described earlier, prisoners are a willing group of inform ants less likely (indeed, less able) to keep som e areas of their lives hidd en from a stranger. Despite observation of m o st interactio ns with m edia being im possible, observation of the w id er context is relatively straightforw ard, and both prisoners and prison staff get used to an 'o u tsid e r’s' presence very quickly.3 F urtherm ore, observation is far from casual or d etached ; indeed, in a reflexive accou nt of the research experience in prison, A lison Liebling favours the term 'reserved participation' (first coined by Tony Bottom s) to capture the sense of activity involved in w h at is otherw ise som etim es assum ed to be a passiv e role: [T]he term 'o bse rv a tion ' does not ad equately captu re the process of being present in others' w orlds. We see, observe, b u t inw ardly (su b ­ jectively) digest scenes and encou nters; our inner lives inter-playing with the lives of others. We w atch, hear, take notes, drink tea, chat, experien ce periods of e n g ag em ent, distraction, w a rm th, sadness or fear; we are entertained, frustrated, fascinated, puzzled - we are no more 'passive' agents in our research than our research 'p artners' are (Liebling 1999a: 160). In addition to un dertaking this type of 'reserved particip a tion’, collecting interview data, p red om inantly from prisoners, b ut also from officers and governors, b eca m e the main objective of this part of the study. I a d ­ ministered a questionnaire on in-cell television to ten g overnors and seven other professionals w o rk ing within the prison service (see C h a p te r 6) and informally interview ed several officers and at least one gov ernor grade in each establishm ent. This multidirectional approach ensured that not only was detailed inform ation about m edia access and availability in prisons gained, but also a great deal of data w as collected 65

Ca p t i v e a u d i e n c e

concerning the individual and collective motivations that inmates bring with them to the viewing, listening or reading context. This corres­ pondingly allowed interpretative conclusions to be drawn about the subjective meanings generated from media texts and resources, and the relationship between these meanings and the processes of identity adjustment that the experience of imprisonment entails. Before the interview schedule could begin, however, a period of detailed observa­ tion of the research context had to be undertaken. Extensive reading of existing literature on prisons was helpful in preparing for entering a total institution, but I felt it important to spend a reasonable amount of time actually inside a prison, interacting with prisoners and staff and observing at first hand the dem ands on the inmates' sense of self. The empirical study was undertaken betw een N ovem ber 1998 and June 1999 at four men's prisons (with supplementary visits to two further men's prisons) of different security categories in central England.4 The main and most intensive period of research took place at two Category C prisons, but prior to this I spent varying amounts of time (ranging from a few hours to five days) at the other four prisons, which allowed me to become acclimatised to what is, after all, an unusual environment. These visits also enabled me informally to test some of my general hypotheses re­ lating to media consumption and identity.

Pilo t ph a se

My first research site was Gartree, a Category B lifer establishment. In N ovem ber 1998 I was invited to give a paper at a conference organised by the Gartree Debating Society on 'Prisoners and the media'. I followed up my paper with a visit to the Gartree Debating Society in the following January, and in February I spent a further five days at Gartree ac­ com panyin g a new recruit to the prison service on an induction week for trainee officers. This was a fascinating insight into the expectations and fears of a young, female graduate recruit with no previous experience of prisons. It also enabled me to familiarise myself with the field, accustom myself to its unfamiliar practices and routines, and do some initial hypothesis-testing. Following my five-day induction, I returned to Gartree to take two GCSE sociology classes while the regular teacher was on holiday. Subsequently, I attended weekly meetings of Prison Dialogue5 for three months early in 1999, at Whitemoor, a maxim um-security Category A 'Dispersal' prison, and chaired a meeting of the Lifer Discus­ sion Group there on one occasion. I also attended Prison Dialogue at Blakenhurst - a local, privately run prison - for two full days in March.

R e s e a r c h c o n t e x t and m e t h o d o l o g y

Finally in this early phase, I visited Leicester, a local jail, where I was shown round the prison by a training officer. Although much of this period was spent conducting preliminary investigations and was in­ tended as an extended pilot exercise, there was never a point at which 1 felt one stage of the research had finished and the next had begun. Rather, it was a continuous process of exploration and discovery, in which a holistic approach was taken. As time went on I refined my questions and my selection of respondents probably became more astute, but there was no clearly defined point when I could claim the 'real' research began.

T h e m a in phase of research

The main research sites, where the most intensive period of investigation was carried out, were HM P Ashwell and HM P Stocken, two Category C training institutions separated by less than ten miles in the English East Midlands. These two prisons were chosen at the suggestion of the Prison Service Area Manager because of the 'o pen' and progressive outlook of their m anagem ent teams, their contrasting style and features, and their geographical proximity to each other. Prior to my fieldwork, the Governor and Head of Inmate Activities gave me a comprehensive tour of both prisons, respectively. This had the advantage of giving my presence some sense of legitimacy in the eyes of the prison staff, which eased the research process later on when I was largely relying on officers to introduce me to willing inmates. I was also allocated keys in both prisons, which similarly appeared to authorise my presence in the eyes of both staff and inmates. Indeed, in both these establishments my stays were marked by a remarkable level of co-operation and interest in my research, and the relatively relaxed regimes ensured I quickly felt part of the conceptual and social furniture. It soon became clear, however, that 'fitting in' to the everyday rhythms of a prison culture - to the extent where inmates and staff equally accept one’s presence and legitimacy - is a delicate balancing act. While it is important that a certain amount of approval is given (and, more significantly, is seen to be given) by both parties, it is also critical the researcher should not be seen by either group as over-identifying with the other. Thus, while maintaining good relationships with the prisoners and protecting their confidences, I simultaneously had to work at sustaining cordial relations with staff, many of whom were keen to know what inmates had said to me. How ever amicable the relations are betw een staff and inmates (and I believe Ashwell and Stocken to be quite good in this respect) there is always a degree of 'them ' and 'us', and I 67

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sometimes found myself treading a fine line between upholding the relationships I had formed with inmates, and keeping 'on side' with the staff who view security as their highest priority and are obliged to write reports on the minutiae of their charges' lives, how ever trivial it might seem to an outsider. So emphatically drawn are the lines of demarcation betw een officers and prisoners that I found myself subconsciously devising a num ber of strategies for distancing myself from the discourses and symbolic practices of the prison staff when with my inmate respondents. These strategies ranged from wearing clothing which could not be semiotically construed as any kind of uniform (in the way that even suits can be 'read' in terms of their signification of power and status) and using prison vernacular or 'argot' when appropriate, to making clear to participants at the outset of each interview that I was a university researcher, independent of the Hom e Office and prison service, and with no particular agenda, political or otherwise. This modus operandi seemed necessary for three principal reasons. First, the keys I had been issued are arguably the most resonant symbol marking out the powerful from the powerless, the keepers from the kept, in this environment.6 Secondly, because I relied on the officers' good will to let me use their offices and to select suitable participants for me to interview, and because I was interested to hear their views on a number of aspects of my research, I frequently found myself having to justify to inmates the many hours I spent in wing offices. This led to a third difficulty: while spending a great deal of time with staff, 1 none the less had to maintain an ideological distance from them, at least in the eyes of the prisoners. In many respects, I found the occupational culture of prison officers much more difficult to remain impartial towards than the inmate culture. I had gained some knowledge of the occupational practices and beliefs of officers at Gartree which afforded me direct experience of the structures and informal rules of the prison officers' 'canteen culture', including the residues of sexism, racism and lack of humanity towards convicted offenders that one might expect to encounter. On the other hand, during my many conversations and interactions with individual officers, I found that, far from being opposed to every aspect of their occupational culture, I identified with much of what they told me, including some of the contradictory feelings they expressed with regard to those in their custody. With both groups I found that the least troublesome strategy was discretely to concur with whatever was being said about the other.

68

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I n -c e ll t e l e v is i o n a n d ‘I n c e n t i v e s a n d E a r n e d P r iv ile g e s '

Although the potential uses of the full range of m edia were of interest to m e, one of the key factors in shaping my fieldwork was the c oncom itant introduction of personal television sets for individ uals' use in cells (hereafter termed 'in-cell television' or TV). Consequently, at Gartree, W h ite m o o r and parts of Stocken, in-cell TV w as being installed for the first time while I w as there, and at A shw ell it had been present for only six weeks. At all the prisons, unsurprisin gly, questions about entitlem ent, restrictions and cost of the new schem e were para m ou n t. In-cell television had been a salient issue for at least five years prior to the start of my research, but it w as of particular significance at the time of m y fieldwork b ecause the H om e Office had just anno unced that the s chem e - at that time restricted to 2,500 sets - w ould be extended across the prison estate. It w as to be im plem ented as part of the 'Incentives and Earned Privileges' (IEP) schem e, an initiative introduced in 1995 follow ing the publication in 1991 of the report of the inquiry into the d isturbances at Stran gew ay s by Lord Ju stice Woolf. O n e of Woolf's key re co m m en d a tio n s w as that prisoners' rights should be formally established in the form of 'contracts' or 'c o m p a c ts ' betw een gov ernors and inmates, setting out the legitimate expectations to w hich an inm ate is entitled. It w as Woolf's intention that institutions would have to provide, in writing, the reasons for any decisio ns w hich would adversely affect any prisoner, such as being placed in an institution of significant distance from his h o m e or being transferred to a new prison w ith o u t w a rn in g or explanation, both of w hich are reasonably co m m o n occurrences. H ow ever, w h en it cam e to policy form ulation, the prison service interpreted the findings of the W oolf report rath er loosely, so that the basic entitlem ents which Woolf thought prisoners have a right to expect were, in the end , designated 'privileges' to be earned by com pliance and good cond u ct, or w ithd raw n for bad beh a v io u r or m iscond uct. There are essentially three categories w hich inm ates m ay fall into, w h ich d eterm ine the type and a m o u n t of privileges they can expect: Basic, Standard and Enhanced . In m o st of the prisons I visited, inm ates enter the institution on Standard regim e (although in som e prisons inm ates m ay start on either of the other two levels). After a period of time (which varies from prison to prison) Standard prisoners m ay ad v an ce to Enhanced status if they m eet the pre­ required criteria. If, how ever, they disobey the prison rules, they may be put on to Basic regim e and, in so m e prisons, isolated in a specially segregated Basic R eg im e Unit (BRU), with co nseq u ent loss of status and privileges. O ne of the key intentions of TEP was to achieve som e uniform ity in the prison system as a w h ole (L iebling et al 1997). However, 69

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the anticipated coherence in policy has only been partly achieved because some acceptable earned privileges can be devised locally and some prison governors have interpreted privilege entitlement policy more liberally than others. In fact the scheme is frequently interpreted loosely enough for the staff of some institutions to talk of a 'Super-Enhanced' regime for the especially well behaved, and a 'Sub-Basic' regime for the especially troublesome. In the case of the former, accommodation is often separated from the main wings (in Stocken and Ashw'ell it is housed in mobile units originally built for oil workers in Scandinavia, and affords inmates the 'luxuries' of carpets, washing machines and 'real', i.e. metal cutlery). The latter usually refers either to the prison's segregation unit or 'punishment block’, or to the threat of being moved to another wing or even being 'shipped out' to a more notorious prison. Not part of the formal nationwide IEP policy at the time of my research, in-cell television was one of the privileges being implemented locally. For example, Stocken was one of two prisons which had had in-cell TV since 1992, when it was installed in one wing as part of a trial experiment, but during my research it was being extended to other wings accom modating Enhanced prisoners. In both Stocken and the other pioneer of the scheme (Garth in Lancashire), it was acknowledged by prisoners, staff and governors to be a success, yet between 1992 and 1997 rumours persisted that personal TV sets would be withdrawn at the demand of the Home Secretary. Jupp (1989: 136) highlights the importance of timing in relation to research, noting that the nature of interplay between the key individuals - subjects, researcher, gatekeepers and sponsors - is largely dependent upon the political climate which is both reflected in, and framed by, the governm ent of the day. The research on which this book is based was formally begun in October 1997, some five months after a 'New Labour' governm ent had entered office with the biggest majority of any postwar government, following eighteen years of Conservative rule. A distinctive feature of the Conservative 'New Right' ideology had been that from the early 1980s there was a rapid drift towards a 'law and order society' (Hall 1980) which, among other things, resulted in tougher sentencing policies and more offenders being imprisoned (Dunbar and Langdon 1998). One of the key engineers of this hard-line policy in the latter years of the Conservative administration was Michael Howard, Home Secretary from 1993 to 1997. Following a brief period of optimism after the publication of the Woolf report in 1991 (in which the idea of in-cell television as a potential earnable privilege was first given formal recognition), prison reformers had to concede that despite all evidence to the contrary, Howard strongly defended the efficacy of im prisonment as a criminal 70

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justice strategy, and believed that the m ore h u m a n e prison regim es beco m e, the less effective they are as a deterrent. The 'get to u g h ' rhetoric of that political era - variously termed 'authoritarian p o p u lism ' or 'p opulist pu nitiveness' - thus extended to cond itions inside prisons. Although W oolf had b rou g ht an end to the practice of slo pping -ou t and ensured that basic cond itions in so m e of the w orst prisons im proved, the new H om e Secretary did not w an t to a p pear to be 'soft' on any aspect of penal policy. So it was that, in April 1996, M ichael H ow ard announced he was w ith d ra w in g television sets from prison cells. H ow ard 's decision did n ot com e as a surprise for m o st prisoners and prison service personnel, as the availability of personal television sets for individual prisoners' view ing had alw ay s b een a contentious subject. First discussed in 1981 by a w o rk in g group set up to evaluate control in dispersal prisons, in-cell television has been the subject of fierce debate within the prison service and in political and public arenas. At the heart of the prison service's discussions about the schem e w as that the potential ad v an ta g e s - that televisio n 'n o rm alise s' the prison regim e, that it provides a po w erfu l incentive for good behaviour, that it links inmates to the outside world and so on - m u st be weighed up against the potential d isad vantag es, to both prisoners and prison staff. A m o n g the draw b ack s outlined by the original w orking c o m m ittee were that in-cell television m igh t result in a lack of interest in associatio n and e m p lo y m e n t; that there was a risk of a decline in s ta ff /in m a te relations as a result of less face -to-face contact; that it m ig h t be seen as a w ay to m ak e earlier lock-up times acceptable to prisoners; and that the n u m be rs of inm ates attending voluntary evening classes would drop (M cC ly m o n t 1993). In addition, the schem e faced hostility from the Prison Officers' Association w ho feared that earlier lock-up times and reduced association activity would result in job losses for staff. For the gov ern m en t, how ever, the m ain

issue

regarding

in-cell

televisio n w as alm ost certainly public (specifically, its ow n electoral constituency) opinion. In 1996 H ow ard publicly rejected the advice of Sir Jo hn L ea rm on t w h o, in a report on the escape of three life-sentence prisoners from P ark hurst in 1995, re com m en d e d extending the installation of in-cell television across all prisons, and a nno unced , to the contrary, that the tw enty prisons w h ich currently had the facility would be required to rem ove televisions from cells alm ost immediately. A to ngue-in-cheek editorial in the G uardian a nno u nced the ne w s on 22 April 1996: The Sun will be ecstatic. The hard-line, no-n on se n se Michael H ow ard is w ith d raw in g television sets from prison cells. Good old 71

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H ow ard . British crim inals have had it too soft for too long. It is time the n a nny state stopped such n a m b y -p a m b y in g . W h a t thugs sent to prison need is an old-fashioned dose of austerity and hard discipline. T hat would m ake sure they didn't repeat their crim es on release. But w ould it? Indeed, will w ith d ra w in g TV s im pro ve prison security? Ask Sir John L earm ont, the tough arm y general invited by M ichael How ard to review security after escapes from P arkhurst and W hitem oor. His 2 50-pag e report last year included a long list of w ay s in w h ich security could be tightened. O ne involved e xtend ing the use of TVs in cells, cu rrently restricted to 20 prisons. The reason w as simple: TV reduces tensions, leaves prisoners with less time to d w ell on grievances, frees prison staff for more constructive tasks than patrolling landings. M ichael H ow ard k now s this but prefers to m aintain a tough im ag e rath er than pursue a realistic policy. W hen a N ew L abour g o v ern m e n t w as elected in 1997, m an y reformers and prison sociologists hoped that a more liberal approach would be taken to prison policy. Ind eed , although it is arguable that the rhetoric, p hilo sophy and policies of Blair's g o v ern m e n t are not strikingly dissim ilar to those of their predecessors, their co m m itm e n t to installing in-cell television across the prison estate is generally view ed as a h u m anitarian decisio n, even if its roots arc econom ic. Furtherm ore, after a political era in w hich aca d em ic research was treated with suspicion, if not outright hostility (Jupp 1989), there can be little d ou bt that relations b etw een the H om e Office and the aca d em ic research c o m m u n ity have improved in the last few years and, although psy chological, quantitative research is still preferred, it has been noted that there has em erged in recent years a 'sm all n u m b e r of m ore im ag inativ e and sociologically informed pieces of prison research' (M atthew s 1999: 92). Given this new relative op enness, it w as s o m e w h a t disappo inting to d iscover in the course of m y research that decisio ns concerning the availability and access to prisoners of m edia resources were still m arked by a strong degree of sensitivity and official reticence.

R esearch strateg y and m e th o d o lo g y

A ccess is a continual process of negotiation and renegotiation in prisons w hich does not necessarily end w hen you are 'in'. In all prisons there exist a series of layers of p eople w h o have the p o w e r to grant or w ithhold access. T he m o st obviou s source of this p o w er was the officers on wing 72

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duty on any given day. For m uch of my stay at A shw ell and Stocken I asked officers to sug gest inmates to be interview ed, and they usually w e n t to fetch them from their cells or rang the w o rk s h o p s to ask them to be released and returned to the wing. In general, they m ad e their choices on the basis of those w h o were im m ediately visible or available, those w h o would be interested in the topic, those w h o were articulate and thoughtful or, occasionally, those w h o w ere serio us offenders, or who would be aggressively opinionated . The latter were considered w orthy of a 'w in d up' and were b rou ght to me amid m u ch sniggering am ong the officers but, in the spirit of the sport that was being acted out, I went ahead and interview ed them and found them to be a m o n g my m ost in form ative respondents. This source of e nterta inm ent was taken only so far th ough, and w as confined to those inm ates w h o the staff found merely difficult or troublesome. O n the w h ole, I trusted the officers to find suitable respondents for me to interview, and I was grateful for their know led g e and un derstand ing of the p eople in their care. A n other im portant source of access w as the inmates them selves. Such is the m icro-politics of research that I knew that gaining fo rmal, physical entry into the prison did not guarantee me inform al, social access. On m y first day at A shw ell, a life-sentence prisoner refused to speak to me, and predicted that none of the other lifers would agree to be interviewed either. His reason w as that they had all talked to outsiders before and had not benefited in any w ay from the experience. It crossed m y m ind he m ay have influence a m o n g the other lifers, and m ight act as an unofficial gatekeeper, but happily this was not the case. All the other inmates I requested m eetings with were only too ha p p y to break the m o n o to n y of the day and tell their stories to an interested observer. After a day or two in each prison, the inmates got used to seeing me around, and word got out ab ou t w h at I was doing. Frequently people w ould stop m e in the corridors and ask if they could talk to m e, or those I had interview ed w ould sugg est n am e s of others w ho w ould be interested in my research. This proved a usefu l netw o rk, and gave m e easy access to prisoners with strong view s on my broad areas of concern, although it perhaps also had the effect of leading m e to people with a particu lar axe to grind about in-cell television. I interview ed sev en ty-tw o prisoners. Sixty-two were interviewed individually: tw enty -eig ht at A shw ell and thirty-four at Stocken. Ten further inm ates at S tocken took part in three fo cus gro ups: one of four participants and two of three participants. In line with other reception studies w hich have d raw n participants from 'n aturally' existing groups or c o m m u n ities that exist independ en tly of the research, I did not restrict m y sam ple to a particular set of variables. As m entioned previously, the 73

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main criterion for interview ing respondents was that they were prison inm ates w ho had been 'selected' by an officer, reco m m en d e d by another p articipant or w ho had volu nteered to be interview ed. At the sam e time, how ever, the selection of respondents did have to be shaped by m yself to som e degree, so that they m ig h t h ighlight possible differences in perception caused by factors such as age, habitus, sentence type and length, IEP status, residence on a particular w ing and so on. The particu lar benefit of being in Category C prisons was that my research participants ranged across the w h ole spectrum of ages, offending histories and prison sentences, from young petty offenders w ho were inside for ju st a few w eeks, and w ho regard ed their sentence as a mildly inconv enient interruption in their norm al routine, to the older (in som e cases, quite elderly) 'p rofessional crim inals' m any of w h o had spent their lives in correctio nal institutions and had previously experienced several prisons at the 'h e av y ' (that is, Categories A and B) end of im prisonm ent. The sentence lengths of my subjects ranged from eleven w eek s to life, with an inm ate in his thirty-third year inside being the respond ent serving the greatest continu ou s length of time. In both institu tions, I interviewed m ore long-term ers than short-term ers, and there w as a slight over-representatio n of lifers. M o st interview s w ere cond u cted on a one-to-one basis, although tow ards the end of the research period I experim ented with chang ing the form at to include som e interview s with small fo cus groups of three or four people, anticip ating that respondents m ig ht m ak e sense of their experien ces differently and in greater depth by talking them through in conversation with others (Hansen et al 1998). The vast m ajority of television aud ience studies have used focus group interview s as their prim ary m eans of investigation, in order to explore how view ers interact with a specified text and with each other so that m e a n in g s are collectively constructed th rough talk and exchange. This approach can, in part, be defended by the fact that for m ost of us, w atching television is primarily a social activity, and interaction betw ee n people in a group situation is a norm a l feature of m o st people's view ing. In the prison context, however, m edia use arguably has m ore profou nd im plications for the se lf than it does in general life, and the circum stances of m o st p risoners' viewing have altered with the introduction of in-cell television, so that m edia use is generally a solitary activity. Certainly, I found that group interview s sim ply encou rag ed consensus, and participants seem ed rather more inhibited in volu nteering their thoughts and experiences in front of each other than w h en they were sim ply talking to m e .7 As H ansen et al (1998) point out, part of the difficulty for the researcher in eliciting information about how people interpret, a cco m m o d a te and negotiate m edia content 74

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is that m o st people do not consciou sly think about, let alone articulate, how they use m edia content in their daily lives. To encou rage prisoners - w h o, by the very circum stances of their im p riso n m e n t are used to k eeping their thoughts and feelings to them selv es - to talk in depth about a subject usually discussed with a level of superficiality reserved for the w e ath e r (Hoijer 1990; H ansen et al 1998) required careful handlin g. I therefore adopted som e of the concerns and m eth o d o lo g ie s of oral history; a decisio n w h ich w as, to som e extent, b orn e out of the interview s them selves. T he result of the intentio nal interview bias to wards lifers and long-term ers was that I talked to som e people (both inmates and staff) w ho had very long histories in the prison system , and several interview s took on structural-historical d im en sion s as life-histories were recounted and specific processes (for e xam p le, the introductio n of radios into prisons) were described in terms of their particular historical-structural positioning. Although the current study ca n n o t be said to constitu te an oral history in so far as its interests are far broad er than the relationship betw een present and past, it does share with oral history a c o m m itm e n t to exploring the 'felt texture of people's lives' (D eacon et al 1999: 291). Like oral-historical accounts, its fo cus on talk, and in particular on the kinds of m edia talk generated in a discrete and b ound ed setting, required a level of m u tu a l trust and respect that is m ost easily established in oneto-one encou nters where interview s can be 'naturalistic', resem bling unforced every d a y conversation. D iscussions w h ich explored issues of identity and self in relation to both m edia preferences and to the lived experience of im p riso n m e n t frequently to uched on topics that m ight be considered sensitive or taboo in a group setting. Moreover, the value of free-format, in-depth interview ing is that it can penetrate the defences people put up to prevent their hidd en beliefs com ing to light, uncovering hidden feelings, attitu des and beliefs of which they m ay be wholly or partially u n aw are (G id dens 1984; Berger 1998). This requires an atm o sp here w h ere inform ation can be shared openly, and the interview s w hich yielded the richest and m ost detailed data were those in w hich a strong rapport w as established early on b etw een m y self and the resp ond ent.8 Because of this im perative, a further s a m pling bias should be noted; that is, that the m ajority of m y respondents m ig h t be said to have d em onstrated levels of articulation and intellectual depth bey on d w h at m ight be expected from an 'av era ge' sa m p le of prison inmates. In keeping with other prison studies (C ohen and Taylor 1972; L indlof 1987), I found that talking to m ore educated, articulate people eased the research process, both in term s of saving time in lengthy e xplanations regarding the nature and pu rpose of the research, and in the quality of inform ation 75

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received. Additionally, it tended to be those inm ates w ho were studying for a cad em ic qualifications and, in particular, university degrees, w ho were m o st interested in participating in the research project, and who volunteered m ost enthusiastically. H ow ever, in the interests of producing a m ax im u m variation sam ple, and in order to avoid the elitism inherent in som e of the prison studies of the past, I additionally sou g ht out those w h o were less articulate or w h o had experienced only the m o st cursory level of education. But in the case of som e of the m o st prisonised indeed, institu tionalised - of inmates, it was sim ply not possible for them to drop the public facade of cheerful stoicism and allow a stranger to penetrate their deepest thoughts about their experiences. A m o n g those w h o were m o st receptive, how ever, one of the key factors in establishing m u tu al trust and rapport w as the structure of questio ning, b uild in g from the general to the specific in a 'fu n n e l-a p p ro ac h ' (e.g. from the non-directive 'w h a t do you think of x as a p rison?' to the rath er more focused 'to w h a t extent do you feel like an individual in p rison?' and the even m ore specific 'w h o is your favourite television presenter?'). The interview s w ere focused upon them es that had arisen from the literature review (although new the m e s emerged in the course of the fieldwork) and responses w ere written up under headings. All participants were asked ab ou t their attitu des to the prison they w ere in; ab ou t the effects of im p ris o n m e n t on their lives, their social identities and their private sense of self; about the structure of their daily ro utines; and about the im portance of m edia resources in prison. A list of pre-set questions gave a loose structure to the interview s, but I allow ed the conversation to proceed in a fairly non-directive w ay to perm it participants to describe their feelings and experiences at their ow n pace and in their ow n words. I obviously had to try to 'c o n ta in ' the subject m atter within the pa ram eters of my research them es and I w as keen to cover all the points on m y list of questions with as m an y respond ents as possible, so som e p ro m pting w as inevitable. H ow ever, with m ost participants 1 w as able to do this, while still allow in g them to d eterm ine m uch of the pace and range of the conversation. Interview s varied in length b etw ee n about tw enty m inutes to nearly four hou rs, althou gh m o st lasted approxim ately l ’/2 to 2 hours. W hen not interview ing inm ates, I w as either in the wing offices talking to staff, or on the landings chatting with inmates, often p icking up on subjects w e had previously discussed more formally in interviews. As with all unstructured interview s there is a risk of p ersonal reactivity; in other w ords, of the researcher altering the situation by her very presence. W hile this is un avoid ably the case, I felt the vast majority of interview ees - while they m ay have slightly tempered their lang uage and 76

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s h o w n me a degree of w h at might be characterised as old-fashioned, 'g e n tle m a n ly ' courtesy not usually found in general life - were unfailingly, candidly, honest in their re sponses to me. Indeed, m any in terview s yielded inform ation, that w as of a deeply personal nature, and breathtakingly frank. For several inm ates, talking to me seem ed to have a therapeutic effect (although I have no fo rmal counselling skills, nor contrived to give that impression). O thers were sim ply glad to have the op portu nity to tell their stories in their ow n w o rd s and at their ow n speed, although in som e cases this m ay have had a narcissistic edge as som e respondents saw an op portu nity to further their ow n causes. W hile som e bargaining inevitably takes place b etw een researcher and resp ond ent (Lindlof 1995) I occasionally had to cut short interview s with those inmates w ho had very obviou s personal ag endas and w ho were keen to speak to m e in an attem pt to ad vance their particu lar political or personal interests. In som e instances, ostensibly self-serving motivations for participation w ere also of interest to me (for e xam p le, in the case of the 'professional litigators' w ho are described below ). But in other cases where it b eca m e clear the inform ant had an ulterior motive in speaking to m e (such as the inm ate who believed that I could influence the decisions of the Security Unit with regard to the early release of prisoners w ho had been electronically tagged) I discou raged their participation. I decided n ot to use an audio or video recorder for fear of b ring ing an artificiality to the situation and disrupting the norm al ongoing social process (Willis 1974: 13). My ow n 'presentation of self' was prim arily that of a university researcher and, like others befo re me, I felt I w ould gain significantly m ore vo lu nteers by explicitly stating I w as conducting ind ep end en t research than if I attempted any artifice of 'o fficiald om ' (Grodin 1990, cited in Lin dlof 1995). This in d epend en ce from fo rmal structures of p o w e r was reinforced by the informality I strove to create in interview s and w h ich I felt w as necessary for the generation of the kind of data I was interested in (Willis 1974: 13). I therefore rejected the idea of using a recording device b ecau se I felt it m ight lend an air of formality to proceed ings and b ecause of the conc om itant possibility of reactivity, and especially the risk of respond ents w ithho ld ing information of a sensitive or personal nature or feeling that the tape recorder w as a 'b etray al' of the informal and intimate natu re of the relationship entered into (Hansen et al, 1998: 56). Confidentiality and the freedom to speak 'off the record' w ere of prim e concern to alm ost ev e ry on e I spoke to, and a n u m b e r of them reported they had confided in me inform ation they had not told any on e else. For the sam e reason, although I m a d e extensive notes as they talked, I wrote in full view of them. M u ch of m y note-taking was in shorthand or illegible to any on e b ut m yself, yet it seemed 77

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im portant to at least offer an im pression of op enness. In the three em pirical chapters that follow, I have been careful to quote only w h a t I know to have been recorded verbatim.

M y id e ntities

Finally in this sectio n, I discuss aspects of m y ow n identity on the g round s that, as Jennifer H u nt (1989: 42) eloquently puts it: 'f ield w ork is, in part, the discovery of the self through the d etour of the o th e r ' (see also Coffey 1999; Liebling 1999a). O f interest here are not only the identities that I sou g ht to present, but also the various identities that were constructed of and for m e by m y respondents. A t a superficial level my identities included those of docto ral researcher during the main interview ing stages at A shw ell and Stocken, tutor at Gartree and Stocken, conference speaker at Gartree, and dialogue group m e m b e r at W h ite m o o r and Blakenhurst, all of w hich m ight be defined as 'o u ts id e r' identities. But at a m ore p ersonal level, individ ual participants in my research assigned to me a n u m b e r of different identities based on notio ns of my professional status, m y social p o w e r and m y gender. W hile not explicitly the identities of an 'in s id e r', these constructed form u lations certainly seem to indicate a transitional state som e w h ere betw ee n 'o u ts id e r' and 'in s id e r',

m ark ing

the

passage

b etw een

stranger

and

familiar

acquaintance. O f course, these are not the only defining traits, and no dou bt my age, social class, race, ethnicity and m any other personal characteristics all shaped the research process (Warren 1988). But in terms of the identities that were constructed of and for me by inm ates, it was my 'fem a le n ess' in a p red om inantly male e nvironm ent, m y acad em ic (and, by im plication, non-prison service) credentials and my w illingness to suspend m oral ju d g e m e n ts a b ou t respond ents that appeared m o st salient in respond ents' decisio ns a b ou t w hat, and how m uch, information to give me. P r o fe s s io n a l S ta tu s

M a n y inm ates positioned m e as an 'expert' or 'intellectual' w h ich was, on the w h ole, help ful in providing m e with a non-threatening but responsive persona, and in allow in g them to discard the m ore overt defensiveness with w hich they arm them selv es during m o st encounters outside their ow n prison subgrou ps. This positioning generally placed me in a respected but somew'hat distant position from respond ents but was also used in su p p ort of their ow n view s, as in one exchang e at 78

R e se a r c h c o n t e x t and m e t h o d o l o g y

W h ite m o o r w here a participant in the dialogue group seized upon a m inor d isag reem en t b etw ee n m y se lf and one of the other Prison D ialogue representativ es, Eric, conc erning the safety of genetically m odified crops and turned it into a fu ll-blown verbal attack on him. The essence of the d isag re e m en t w as that Eric, now in his seventies and retired, once worked in the chem icals industry and strongly believed that research into genetic m odifications in the food chain should be allow ed to pro gress unhind ered. T hat I felt differently was hardly material w h en D ennis, a participant w h ose contributions to the group were frequently vociferous and confrontational, took ov er m y position and started to ask Eric: 'W hy should w e believe y o u ? She's the expert, she's the researcher, she h asn 't got an axe to grind or a profit to m ake from it.' The noisy exchang e continued for so m e time, and m ad e both Eric and m y self feel u n com fortable. Ironically, my arg u m e n t had been hijacked by som eon e w ho w as positioning me as the 'e xpert', yet was rendering me invisible and unheard. At other times, their construction of me as an a cad em ic was far more inclusive, and on a n u m b e r of occasions I felt that individuals were re aching out to m e as a 'fellow s ch o la r'. This first happened at Gartree w h ere a prisoner introduced him self by that description on a ccou nt of his statu s as a stud ent un dertaking an M A degree in m usic. Subsequently, several inm ates related to me m o st strongly on the basis of som e on e with w h om they could exch a n ge inform ation and ideas. Som e took a paternalistic approach, seeing an opportunity to 'teach' m e or pass on to m e som e of their ow n special interests. This occasionally h appened with respect to television or radio p ro g ram m e s ('You m u s t tune in to . . .'), but m ostly occurred in relation to books, as with one inm ate at Blakenhurst w ho was devoted to the w o rk of Jane Austen, and an inm ate at A shw ell w ho feigned profound d isbelief that so m e o n e he had talked to happily for over three hou rs did not share his love of book s by Ja m es A. Mitchener. But it was again at W h ite m o o r that I encountered s o m e o n e who e m phatically and rath er poignantly w ished to relate to m e as a likem ind ed and intellectual equal. On my first visit to the dialogue group, R obert told me that althou gh he knew he would inevitably be regarded as 'one of them ' (a 'co n ') he also felt him self to be like me. He said that if things had gone 'a ccording to p lan' he w ould have just finished univ ersity and be thinking ab ou t his career and m arriage but, as things stood, he had to m a k e do with reading for an Open U niv ersity degree within prison. O v e r the next three m o nths he alw ays m ad e a point of seeking m e out and askin g me ab ou t my research and teaching. He told me m u ch about his fam ily and his com fortable and h appy child hood , all 79

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the while rein forcing his m id dle-class credentials and e m phasising his 'o therness' com pared to the group as a whole. His desire to be seen as so m e o n e other than a m a x im u m -se cu rity life-sentence prisoner was profou nd ly affecting, and his 'o th e rn e ss' w as tolerated and even encou rag ed by the education staff w h o, on a later occasion, told me they had broken several prison regulations to allow him to continue studying for a science degree. S o c ia l P o w e r

A second d im ension of my identity concerned the social p o w er relations b etw ee n my respond ents and myself. As discussed earlier, I w as attuned to the fact that, as in any encou nters b etw een strangers, signs of social, e con om ic and cu ltural p o w e r can w eigh heavily in setting the tone of the interaction (Lindlof 1995: 176) and I ju dged my dress and speech patterns accordingly. G iven that social p o w e r relations b etw een interview er and respond ent will inevitably affect how the event is perceived I w as keen to establish a perception that w e w ere equ al partners in the interview process. This did not m ean that we shared inform ation equally, b ut that I was able to offer inm ates the op portu nity to express them selves and share their tho ug hts a b ou t their experiences of prison in w ays not usually available to them. I cam e a w ay from m an y interview s with the opinion that the quality of inform ation I had gained from a respond ent was m atch ed by his ow n feelings of e m p o w e r m e n t in participating. In m any other research contexts, giving participants a sense of e m p o w e r m e n t is a form of play-acting d esigned to give them the im pression that they have a stake in the research project (Lindlof 1995). In the prison setting, how ever, a slightly different d ynam ic c o m es into play. As in other research locations, prisoners can assert their agency by resisting response to som e questio ns, raising issues unforeseen by the interviewer, suggestin g the relevance of so m e aspects over others and so on (L indlof 1995). But unlike other research contexts, the prisoner exists in an en v iro n m en t where his opinion is rarely sought, and where he is seldom defined by any thing other than his criminal history, the degree of respect he publicly show s for the prison's form al structures of p o w e r or his w illingness to toe the institu tional line. T he fact I w as so m e o n e w h o was not interested in their crimes, was outside the prison hierarchy and was giving them the time and space to tell those aspects of their stories which they w anted to d iv ulge, com bined substantially to reduce the pow er differences which characterise m o st of their interactio ns in prison.

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G en der

The primary dimension of my identity, however, was almost certainly my gender. Relatively little has been written concerning gender issues in sociological fieldwork and, with the exception of explicitly feminist works, most studies of total institutions - Goffman's A sylum s (1961b) being a prime example - are 'ungendered texts' (Warren 1988: 54) in which the gender of researcher and respondents remains unproblematised (although Gelsthorpe and Morris 1990; Sparks et al 1996; Rawlinson 2000; and Smith and Wincup 2000 are among those who do address issues of gender in prison fieldwork). Where gender is discussed at length, as in Genders and Player's (1995) study of Grendon Therapeutic Community, in which they elucidate on the experience of being female researchers in a m an's prison, their account is marred by a vainglorious tone which does little to enhance their professional credibility. Warren (1988) distinguishes four themes relating to gender in anthropological field research that have some bearing on the present discussion. First, she highlights the fieldworker's entrée and initial reception as being a reflection of her gendered characteristics, including marital status, age and physical appearance. Her conclusion is that women are generally more likely to be perceived as 'harmless' by males, to the extent they may be afforded access 'bordering on trespass' (ibid.: 18). Certainly I was surprised at the level of access I was permitted during my research, not only to areas of prisons usually kept hidden, but also to confidential files on individual prisoners. As it happened, 1 was uninterested in looking at documents detailing the criminal and prison histories of the men I was interviewing, as they were of little relevance to my research and potentially could have adversely affected my attempts to instigate relationships based on equality of power. But the very fact that several (male) officers offered me the opportunity to view private files to which prisoners themselves do not have access, despite very often having only a very limited understanding of my research, may support Warren's suggestion that my gender provided me with a harm less façade. Alternatively, it may simply indicate the disregard many prison officers have for prisoners, and their obstinate refusal to see them as human beings with rights to privacy and confidentiality. Warren's second theme is that of 'finding a place' within a strange culture. Here the role of gender is problematised, for not only does the female researcher have to conform to assumptions about w om en being unchallenging and com pliant (characteristics that are commonly associated with the private or domestic sphere), but she m ust also be seen 81

Capti ve audi ence

to be operatin g successfully in the m a le-do m inated public sphere. It was certainly clear to m e that w hen interacting with prison officers, those characteristics traditionally associated with masculinity - participation in go o d -h u m o u red banter, the ability to be seen as 'tough but fair' with inm ates (or on occasions, ju st tough) and so on - were more highly prized than those traditionally associated with fe m ininity - com passion, em p ath y and patience. This fact was b rou ght h o m e to m e by Julie, an officer w h o was nearing the end of her probationary period , and w ho confid ed in me that she intended to leave the prison service b ecause she felt alienated and victimised by her male colleagues. O f particular grievance w as the fact that she w as n ot allow ed to display any signs of com passion or hu m anity to the inmates. If a prisoner asked for his cell door to be unlocked, the culture of the staff office dictated that you m ad e him w ait, even if you had nothing else to do. W h e n Julie re sponded im m ediately her colleagues rebuked her. The third issue Warren highlights as being an im portant consideratio n for w o m e n ente ring a p red om inantly male culture is that of sexuality and the body. As a novice to prison research, I w e n t into the field with a set of expectations based on c o m m o n assum p tio ns about sexuality in prisons, au g m ented by k n ow le d g e of studies by researchers such as Sykes, w ho suggests that the deprivation of heterosexu al relatio nship s is one of the severest pains of im prisonm ent. It w as s om ething of a surprise, then, to discover that a n u m b e r of female prison officers accentuated their sexuality through the use of m ak e up, jew ellery and p e rfu m e .9 A n u m b e r of m y prison respondents talked about these w o m e n scornfully and the view that they m ig ht be 'asking for trouble' was widely expressed. For other inm ates, the you thfu ln ess and sexual attractiv eness of som e of the female staff only served to intensify their ow n experien ces of ageing and fears of physical deterioration. For e xam p le, Herbie confessed he s om etim es found him self 'running around after the girls as if I were still thirty years old'. H av ing spent several d ecad es inside, the passage of time has stultified his a w areness of his g ro w ing m atu rity: 'I h a v en 't got a day older since being in prison. I'm still thirty. I forget that I'm really sixtyodd. I w o n d er w h y I'm not getting any w here with the female screws and then I look in the mirror and of course get a shock.' D uring m y research I was not aw are of any problem s arising from my g end er or my sexuality and, in general, female researchers probably exploit such factors to their ad vantag e (Smith and W incup 2000). How ever, Warren notes that in m any cultural settings, the cu stom s of g end er restrict w o m e n partly or com pletely from som e settings such as m ale-drink ing locations. These 'm e n 's huts' (Remy 1990) are w here men traditionally spend time to gether in relaxation and 'p la y ' and, in the 82

R e se a r c h c o n t e x t and m e t h o d o l o g y

prison setting, the closest a p proxim ation to such venu es are the wing associatio n ro om s w hich often contain bar-style recreation facilities such as pool tables and table-footb all, as well as televisions. It w as w h en these ro om s w ere occupied that I m ost felt like an intruder, especially in the early evening w h en the fo rmal structures and routines are relaxed. W hen surrou nded by large groups of prisoners, constructing their 'o w n tim e' w atching football on TV or playing pool, my presence seemed inappropriate and invasiv e. Warren (1988: 29) suggests that it is perceived wisdom that w o m e n w ho enter 'm e n 's settings' transgress co m m o n and cross-cultural codes of b eh av io u r and open them selv es up to 'sexual overtures'. It w as perhaps with this sub consciou s thought that I retreated to the staff offices w h en inm ates were clearly at leisure. In the one-to-one interview s, h o w e v e r (all of w hich took place during the 'w ork in g d ay'), m y female 'o th e rn e ss' - like m y construction as an intellectual - served to place me in a respected b u t s o m e w h a t removed position in relation to the prisoners. Despite asking all m y participants to call me by my first n am e, a small n u m b e r insisted on calling me 'M iss' as they did the fe male officers and other staff. In her study of gang m e m b ers, H orow itz (1986) notes she was constructed as 'a lady ' which a cknow led ged her feminin ity and otherness, but also im plied she was sexually unobtainable. It seem s fair to supp ose that the designation of the term 'M is s ' served the sam e purpose. H orow itz goes on to sugg est that the gang m e m b e r s' construction of her as a 'l ad y ' w as sub seq uently d ropped b ecau se her persona did not fit in with the fe male social workers w ho were m o st frequently ascribed the label. She w as m u ch more personally and informally involved in their activities than were the social w o rk ers w h o remained em phatically 'o u tsid e ' the cu ltural processes, alig nm ents and codes of the group. In time, she w as accordingly ad dressed by her first n a m e and ascribed the role of 're p o rte r'; an identity that transcended gender (ibid.: 4 1 4 -1 6 ). For those prisoners w h o insisted on calling m e 'M iss', how ever, there was no such chance of greate r involvem ent, and interview s with these men tended to be of limited value. The ascription of a form of address m ore usually reserved for female officers, p sy chologists and teachers carried with it a range of obligations and expectations, which no doubt affected both m y pe rfo rm a n ce and that of the interview ee. In short, those inmates w ho constructed my identity as a 'M iss' - the equ iv alent of H orow itz's respond ents' notions of w h at constitu tes a 'l ad y ' - were m ore restrained in their language and their m a n n er than those w ho used the m ore personal form of address, and they were more likely to resist my attem pts to build up a rap p ort with them. Lik ew ise, those respondents w ho called me by my first n am e were, on the w h ole, more relaxed, and 83

Capti ve audi ence

more inclined to accept and contribute to a sense of ra p p o rt10. T h e y also more readily identified m e as an in d e p e n d en t 'r e se arch e r', an identity w h ich - like H orow itz's status as 're p o rte r' - provided them with the necessary identity with w hich I could ask them questions and they could readily and openly respond (ibid.). Like H orow itz's inform ants, the majority of prisoners w h o m I spoke to were able to think of m e as a 're se arch e r' in a w ay w hich transcended gender. For som e, it even allowed them to befriend m e and regard m e as 'o ne of them ' (or even as 'one of the lads' as one inm ate said tow ards the end of my visits to A shw ell, as opposed to the more am b ig u o u s 'o ne of them ', referring to all those with officially sanctioned p o w er over them). To this extent, and with a small n u m b e r of inm ates in each e stablishm ent, rapp ort was supersed ed by genuine, if very transitory, friendship. It w o u ld , how ever, be a m istake to as s u m e that the culturally ascribed identities that are co m m o n ly constructed around g end er did not effect m y research in any way. It would be naive to ignore the possibility that so m e inm ates were primarily motivated to speak to me b ecau se my g end er and b ecause my transience in the prison m ad e me som ething of a novelty, and equally naive to assum e unproblem atically that the intim ate, 'co nfessional' interview w h ich itself is frequently characterised as a 'fem in in e' style - is guaranteed to un cover s pontaneo us yet 'au thentic' material. Bourdieu (1996: 27) notes that the more confessional the interview, the greater the researcher's claim to have produced 'an extraord inary discou rse' yet, as he further implies, and M u rd ock (1997) d evelops, interview s are never sim ple expressio ns of belief or experience w aiting to be uncovered by a com p eten t and skilled researcher. Rather, interview s are 'alw ay s pe rfo rm a n ce s in which respond ents assum e identities and m anag e im pressions' (M urdock 1997: 188). Recalling S y k e s' (1958) belief that the loss of opportunity for relations with the opposite sex is one of the m ost profound deprivations felt by inm ates, it w a s perhaps of little surprise that so m e interview ees e ngaged in perfo rm a n ce based on established cu ltural rituals of courtship. In most cases this a m o u nted to mild flirtation or asking me personal questions a b ou t where I live, w h eth er I am married and so on. Often such questions w ere asked in a k now in g , ironic or to ngue-in-cheek m anner, although one am u sing incident occurred with a respond ent w ho had constructed his identity around the dual them es of 'ro m a n tic' and 'm usician'. Follo wing my interview with him, I looked up to see him with a guitar u n d er each arm being herded back to his cell by two officers. He had apparently said he was going to serenade me! It is also worth re m e m b erin g Sy kes' suggestion that, as w e partially define ourselves in relation to w h a t we are not, it is w o m en w h o, by their very polarity, give 84

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the male inmate a masculine sense of self. As has already been discussed, the prison society involves many permutations of the 'proof' of masculinity, made all the more necessary and extreme in its manifestations by the relative scarcity of women. It is perhaps of little surprise, then, that some inmates constructed my identity in relation to their own hegemonic masculine positions, either affording me a level of 'gentlem anly' courtesy rarely encountered in other spheres of life or, alternatively, asserting their masculine credentials by using language and behaviour that are characteristic of the prison culture. Warren's fourth theme is sexual politics. The question of whether male and female researchers can enter the same field and produce the same findings is one that arguably should be more rigorously addressed within accounts of sociological research methods. As mentioned earlier, the characteristics usually felt to be most beneficial to the ethnographer - for example, the ability to com municate and gain 'confessional rapport' - are those most usually associated with femaleness (Warren 1988: 42). However, as Warren observes, there has been a tradition in sociological fieldwork of emphasising the advantages of using male fieldworkers to interview male subjects. Notwithstanding the androcentric history of most fields of academ ic inquiry, members of the early Chicago School, which did much to shape modern sociology, assumed unproblematically that men are more likely to achieve rapport with respondents (both male and female) than women (ibid.: 43). Such considerations are certainly pertinent in the prison context, and I have no real way of know ing whether my gender was a factor in the way my research was shaped, or whether a male researcher in the same circumstances would have obtained similar or very different information.11 Sociological fieldwork is always partly autobiographical, reflecting the researcher's personality, as well as those of her subjects, and it is not uncommon for researchers to have different interpretations of similar settings (Hunt 1989: 41-42). Lindlof (1995: 139) goes as far as to suggest that it might have been much harder for a woman to have gained access to the (American) men's prison he studied. Thankfully, this was not the case with my study and I judge that being a woman did not hinder the research process in any perceptible way. In fact, although I had no com m on experiential grounding with my respondents, it is arguable that a greater level of insight is gained from the interaction of differences. As Lindlof (ibid.: 140) perceptively comments: 'A fascination with the border separating " u s " and "them" is sometimes the impetus for inquiry.' In conclusion to this chapter on research methodologies, it should be stated that what follows in the next three chapters is, of necessity, a distillation of my findings, although one which aims to capture the 85

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essence of the research experien ce in the prisons I visited. M y prim ary concern is not ju st to report w h a t respond ents said, but to reconstruct how they m ade sen se of w h at they were saying, and how their interpretations can be m ade sen se o f within the w id er social and political context. To these ends, I have offered m y ow n reflexive, theory-guid ed analysis of their accounts, so that far from sim ply a ttem pting to present and synthesise the inm ates' ow n descriptions and interpretations of their social practices, I have - in the tradition of critical sociology - attempted to 'relate action to that m ore inclusive constellation of facts in w hich it is set' (B urm an 1988: 6). W hile my readings of their accounts may be m ark ed ly different from their ow n un derstand ing s of w h at they told me, and will alm ost certainly be expressed in very different language, my p rim ary concern w as to take a b road er view of their first-hand experien ces and the narration of their stories, and to contextualise them within the patterns and processes that inform the w id er social structures, w hile at the sam e time taking a ccou nt of the inner psychic realm w hich s o m e tim e s gives a significance to lived experien ce that is not transparent to the consciou sness of the actor (C harlesw orth 2000 ).12 In short, a central tenet of the em pirical accounts that follow is that neither the social practices of prison inm ates, nor their descriptions thereof, are w holly the responses of individually orientated actors m ak ing rational decisio ns and statem ents with regard to the cond itions of their existence (G id dens 1984). A ctors' fram es of reference are inform ed by a wide range of conscious and un conscio us drives, and p risoners' actions will always derive from, and be a response to, the practices of others as they are ordered across space and time (ibid.). As established throu gho u t this book, the enveloping social structures that are internalised by individual prisoners (w ho subsequently act back on and shape those structures) represent the conv erg ence of three separate spheres. First are the im m ed ia te spheres of personal history, family and friends that constitu te the habitu s of the individual inmate. Second ly are the interm ediate spheres of the prison subcultures, informal netw o rk s of power, relations with prison officers and the every d ay routines of life that constitu te the unique habitus of the institution. Thirdly are the structures w hich shape, and w hich are shaped by, action in prisons, and w h ich extend to the prison and probation authorities, to politicians, to the citizens w ho exercise political leverage on m atters of penal policy, and to the s y m b olic and structural divisions b rou ght about by capitalism and c o n su m e r culture. The fieldw ork was thus conducted with three broad research questions in m ind, each pertainin g to the three respectiv e realms: W h a t m e an in g s do specific m edia technologies and texts have for individual prisoners? To w h a t extent and in w h at w a y s are 86

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m e d i a i m p l i c a t e d in r e l a t i o n s h i p s b e t w e e n i n m a t e s a n d o t h e r i n m a t e s , a n d i n m a t e s a n d staff, w i t h i n the p r i s o n c u l t u r e ? To w h a t e x t e n t d o e s p r i s o n e r s ' a c c e s s to m e d i a a d d r e s s the r e q u i r e m e n t s of the i n st i tu t io n? M y i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s o f m y i n f o r m a n t s ' r e s p o n s e s to t h es e q u e s t i o n s are located

within m icro, m eso

punishment,

r e ha bi l it a ti o n ,

and

macro

d i s c o u r s e s of p o w e r , c o n t r o l ,

normalisation,

consumption,

subcultural

r e l a ti o n s a n d i d en t i t y f o r m a t i o n .

Notes 1 A term coined by Althusser, referring to the process by w hich ideology 'hails' individuals via familiar discursive, linguistic and sym bolic representations and thus 'positions' them as an audience (O 'S ullivan et al 1994). 2 P orridge, The G overn or, P risoner , W ithin T hese W alls, Jailbirds, Prison W eekly, Bad G irls, M axim um Security, Behind Bars and Oz are som e of the TV pro g ram m es about prisons and prisoners that have been aired on British television during the writing of this book. 3 The n u m b e r of non-uniform ed staff in prisons is quite high and the university researcher does not particularly stand out from

the prison psychologists, drugs counsellors,

probation officers, tutors, adm inistrativ e staff, m a n ag e m e n t, outside contract w orkers and countless other a n o n y m o u s personnel who are to be seen in prisons every day. 4 It is perhaps worth reiterating that although a study of the impact of media in w o m e n 's prisons would provide interesting com parisons, and allow for som e of the feminist critiques of Radway, Morley, Gray, L ivingstone et al to be developed , it was felt that such a com parative analysis w as beyond the scope of this project. Fem inist scholarship indicates that w o m en use media very differently from m en, and a study of media c onsu m ption in w o m e n 's prisons would have thrown up a w h ole range of textual, social and interpersonal issues that could not be adequately explored here. Furtherm ore, the context of reception is very different: 'E ven a cursory review of the subject reveals that there are major differences in the pace and processes of d ev elop m en t of w o m e n 's prisons . . . [as well asl noticeable differences in the organisation and functioning of w o m e n 's prisons, and the types of offences for which w o m e n are incarcerated' (M atthew s 1999: 13). 5 Prison D ialogue - in brief - is a charitable trust working in prisons in the UK and USA that brings together inm ates and staff and e ncou rages them to talk openly and reflexively on any subject of interest to the group in an atm osphere of non -ju d gm en tal participation (see Chapter 5). See also Jew k es, (2001) for a fuller discussion of Prison Dialogue. 6 A lthough aw are of their potential sym bolic significance (King 2000: 305), I encountered no resistance w h atsoever as a result of having keys. S om e officers expressed mild surprise that I had been entrusted with keys b ut inmates seem ed com pletely unbothered; a finding that conflicts with Sparks et al's (1996: 348) view that carrying keys is unprincipled and d isad vantag eo us and that those researchers w h o do it should be 'taken to task for it by p risoners'. My experience was that having keys caused no problem s at all, while not having them (at Gartree) presented nu m erou s difficulties in getting around the prison, relying on officers to escort me, being 'stu ck' in som e areas of the prison for long periods of time with little to do, and even in reducing the legitimacy of my presence in the eyes of inm ates and staff. 7 The reticence of the focus groups to discuss their media habits with anything other than

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the m o s t s u perficial level o f a n a ly sis may, in part, b e d u e to the g ro u p s b e in g so sm all. H a n s e n et al (1998) m a in ta in that the ideal g ro up size is b e t w e e n six and ten, a lth o u g h g r o u p s of tw elv e to tw e n ty p a rticip a n ts are n o t u n c o m m o n in a u d ic n c e s tu d ies . Certainly, in te rm s of stim u la tin g rich e r and m o re se n sitiv e d a ta on v ie w in g hab its and the m e a n in g s c o n stru cte d a ro u n d th e m , the g ro u p d is c u s s io n s I had w ith the D eb a tin g S ociety at G a rtree and the L ifer D is c u s sio n G ro u p at W h i t e m o o r - w h ich n u m b e re d fo urteen and tw en ty re sp ectiv ely - w e re m u c h m o re in fo r m a tiv e and w id e - r a n g in g , and w ill be d r a w n u p o n in the e m p iric a l a n aly sis w h ic h fo llow s. In g e n eral, th o u g h , my e x p e rie n c e m irrored that of Ja c o b s (1 977: 221), w h o n o tes that 'skilled i n fo r m a n ts w ere able to p ro v id e far m o re in fo r m a tio n p riv a tely w h e n less s o p h isticated in m a te s w ere not p re s e n t to m is in t e r p r e t w h a t w a s b e in g said. 8 It is, in a n y c a s e, m u c h m o re c o m m o n to find in te n siv e interview te c h n iq u e s used in stu d ies of p rison s. T h e p ractical difficu lties o f g a th e rin g to g eth e r a large n u m b e r of p ris o n e rs ,

the

secu rity

c o n s id e ra tio n s

w h ich

that

s c en a rio

raises

and

the

natu ral

in clination of p ris o n in m a te s to p re s e n t a c arefu lly con trolle d social identity w h e n a ro u n d oth er in m a te s m a k e in d iv id u a l in te rv ie w in g g e n e r a lly m o re a c ce ss ib le to the re sea rch er than g ro u p in te rv iew in g . 9 I a lw a y s d re sse d co m fo rt a b ly and ca su ally in c lo th e s I w o u ld n o r m a lly w e a r in e v e r y d a y c ir c u m s t a n c e s , n e ith er c o n s c io u s ly 'd re s sin g u p ' n o r 'd re s sin g d o w n '. A d a m s (2 000: 391) p ro v id e s an interesting a c c o u n t o f h e r p re s e n ta tio n o f s e lf th r o u g h cloth in g w h ile in te rv ie w in g offe n d e rs , po lice and so lic ito rs, c o n c lu d in g that 'd r e s s in g ' for in te rv ie w s (either 'u p ' or 'd o w n ') raised d o u b ts in h e r o w n m ind a b o u t her a u th en tic ity and integrity, a m o u n ti n g to the p re sen tatio n of an 'u n r e a l' or 'f a ls e ' self. Ja c o b s n o tes that p a rt o f his p re sen tatio n o f self as a s tu d e n t researcher, i n d e p e n d e n t o f any form al s tru ctu res of p o w e r, w a s to s p o r t a beard - a s tra te g y w h ic h is clearly only av ailable to m a le researchers! 10 F o r the sake of clarity, I am using the term 'r a p p o r t ' here in the s e n se that oth ers (e.g. S p ra d le y 1979; P a tto n 1990; L in d lo f 1995) u se it, to d e n o te a q u a lity o f c o m m u n ic a tio n that d is p e n s e s w ith the fear o f b ein g m i s u n d e r s to o d , and s ig n als to b o th partie s that, on this o c c a s io n , co n d itio n s are rig h t for d isc lo sin g th o u g h ts and fe e lin g s (L in d lo f 1995: 180). T h e e x is ten ce of ra p p o rt d o e s not im p ly an y sort o f b ond b e tw e e n p e o p le ; it usu ally in v o lv e s re sp ect for a person and for w h a t they are s a y in g , b u t it d o e s not n e cessarily im ply any d eg ree o f fo n d n e s s or affection (S p r a d le y 1979: 78). R a p p o r t is thu s a quality o f a c o m m u n i c a ti o n e v e n t, n o t of a rela tio n sh ip (L in d lo f 1995: 181). 11 O n e o f the few o b v io u s restrictio ns that m y g e n d e r p laced on m y fie ld w o rk w a s the reticence w ith w h ic h in te rv ie w e e s d is cu ss e d m a tte rs o f a s e x u a l n atu re. O cca sio n ally , p a rtic ip a n ts w o u ld talk o n ly in the m o st g e n e r a l te rm s a b o u t oth er p ris o n e rs ' sexuality, b u t n o n e s p o k e to m e o f their o w n s e x u a l e x p e rie n c e s in p ris o n . S p a rk s et al (1996: 348) n ote that this is a c o m m o n p ro b le m for fe m a le re sea rch ers c a rry in g o u t field w o rk in p r e d o m in a n tly m a le p risons. 12 C h a r le s w o r th (ibid.: 84) pu ts it thus: 's o c io lo g y ha s to o p era te s o m e w h e r e b e tw e e n o n to lo g y and p o e t r y ... fin d [in g j a m o d e o f w ritin g that can articu late b e in g -in -th e -w o rld and y e t w h ic h ha s the sen sitiv ity o f a p o e t's s en se o f the d e e p e r m e a n in g s lock e d a w a y in [speech].'

88

Chapter 4

T h e microsocial co nt ext s of media use

As Chapter 1 dem onstrated, the cumulative importance of emergent approaches to the study of media audiences is that they represent a significant shift in emphasis and methodology from what has gone before. Challenging the dominance of those w'ho studied television and other media as fundamentally textual phenom ena, these theoretical and methodological perspectives turned their attention to the social contexts and wider dynamics of cultural consumption (O'Sullivan 1991). Yet the contribution of media in shaping the cultural fabric of the twentieth century, and the ways in w'hich specific media resources and texts have been employed by 'ordinary' people as sources of individual identification, em pow erm ent and resistance, remain important but under­ researched areas. In particular, there is still little understanding of how personal and subcultural identities are shaped by primary, secondary and tertiary uses of media resources.1 The aim of this chapter is to address these issues and, specifically, to examine the media's role in relation to prisoners' adaptations to confinement and their constructions of a healthy, private, interior sense of self. As the sociological prison literature reviewed in Chapter 1 illustrates, the exclusion of individuals from the social order is, ultimately, an injury to the self; 'it is the self which absorbs the lessons of rejection, which feels the syntax of practices shifting out of its control' (Burman 1988: 187). Agency is thus not simply the ability to 'do', or to 'm ake a difference', but perhaps should more accurately be conceptualised in the way that DeNora (2000: 20) defines it, as 'feeling, perception, cognition and consciousness, identity, energy, perceived situation and scene, embodied conduct and com portment'. This chapter will explore further the suggestion that the primary resource required to survive a prison sentence relatively intact, and to be able to revert to one's pre-prison identity on re-entering the community, is a deep backstage area where 89

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one can 'be oneself', 'let off steam' and restore one's ontological reserves. Media resources can help in this respect: I get angry and lonely, but not bitter. I know I can only blame myself. Thank God we're allowed CD players in here. I get rid of frustration by listening to Black Sabbath or Led Zeppelin very, very loud. It gets rid of the frustration but the anger is still there (Dave). I'm in my element now with five weeks of cricket on the telly. I find it very calming. It takes me back to who I really am (Bill). These two quotations illustrate how individuals use media in highly reflexive ways to move through m oods and reconfigure themselves in terms of who they really are. Using media as a virtual means of expressing or constructing emotion ('anger', 'frustration', 'calm ' and so forth) is simultaneously to 'define the temporal and qualitative structure of that emotion, to play it out in real time and then move on' (DeNora 2000: 58). Furthermore, although media content changes its meaning according to the context of its reception, it can transport its audience out of their immediate confines, enabling them to transcend the mundanities of everyday life. This notion of individuals using media temporally and spatially intersects with sociological accounts that note the special characteristics and organisation of time and space in prisons. This chapter will argue that time and space are dramatically reconceptualised in the light of their particular meanings and applications in the context of imprisonment and, moreover, in the context of the introduction into prisons of electronic and print media. The seemingly paradoxical relationship betw een media as a means of regulation and control, and as a source of identification and personal agency, will be explored in its microsocial context through place, time and space in an attempt to uncover some of the w ays in which media culture (as well as specific media texts) produce material for identities, pleasures, resistance and em pow erm ent, and how the introduction of media into the prison society 'fits' alongside other domestic priorities and (re)constitutes everyday life (O'Shea 1989; O'Sullivan 1991).

Id e n tity a n d place

They could lock you up tw enty-four hours a day, I w ouldn't care. Everything's superficial compared to the loss of liberty (Ray). 90

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Loss of liberty and sequestration from the rest of society are the central features of im p riso n m e n t and for m any observers these 'p ain s ' are only aggravated by the deprivation of m aterial goo ds and services and the lack of recreational op portunities in prisons. It therefore seem s reasonable to suggest that m edia resources - and, in particular, television, being both a material sy m b ol of co n s u m e r c o n su m p tio n and the prim ary m eans of electronic com m u n ica tion in the developed world - are a rare pleasure that take on a level of im portance w h ich few of us in the outside world can fully appreciate. Yet it is arguable that a limited and regulated level of exposure to the outside world via the m edia of m ass co m m u n ication s paradoxically serves to intensify feelings of being rem oved from n orm al life. There is a story - perhaps apocryphal - that in the fam ou s prison at A lcatraz, the p u n is h m en t cell every prisoner m o st feared being placed in w as the one that had a barred w ind ow facing San Francisco Bay, w here people could be seen enjo ying them selv es on the beach and in restaurants on the seafront. To be exposed constantly to a place they could not go and w itness scenes of en jo y m en t in which they could not participate served only to heighten the inm ates' sense of separation, and was seen as the severest kind of p u nishm ent. A nd so it is with m any long-term and life-sentence prisoners in the UK , w h o reported they w atch little television sim ply becau se it is too painful to be re m inded of a world they are no longer part of: W h e n the ne w s com es on I flick over, I d o n 't w a n t to hear about it. It rem ind s me of w h at I'm missing . . . the outside world no longer exists. I d o n 't dwell on w h a t I could be doing. It's an utter sheer w aste of time, the futility of being in here. Seeing it all on TV would only m ak e it even w o rse (Neil). For som e, the sense of being segregated from the rest of society is reinforced by exposure to visual m edia im ages to the extent they resist opportunities to rent personal television sets. For others, it is audio media that causes distress, rem inding them of happier times in the past: 'it s om etim es gives m e a real d ow n er listening to m usic - it's the one thing that m a k e s me feel really separated from the w o rld.' O thers still seek co m fo rt in broad cast and print m ed ia, b u t feel frustrated that their sense of isolation ca n n o t be mitigated by their mediated access to the w id er environm ent. Pat, a life-sentence inm ate at Gartree, told me how he had had a life-long interest in Britain's industrial history, and was particularly fascinated by the transport system s of the industrial age. He avidly tuned into anything on television and radio that m et this interest, and was studying for qualifications in history and English in a further attem pt to 91

Capti ve audi ence

develop his u n d erstand ing of early industrial Britain. It was therefore with a degree of irony that he told m e about Foxton Locks, the longest flight of w o rk in g canal locks in the country, w hich is approxim ately half a mile from H M P Gartree. He said he had read about their im portance and had intended to visit from his h o m e in the north of E ngland for years. Now the locks (and associated pu b, shop and m u s eu m ) w ere a short distance away, and he was reduced to asking friends to go there and pick up leaflets a bout th em , on their w ay to visit him in the prison. How ever, despite evidence of am b iv ale n t or even hostile feelings tow ards the m ed ia, for m o st inm ates any d isad vantages associated with h av ing w id er access to m edia resources are generally offset by the fact that such m eans of com m u n ication m ay be the only w ay of k eeping in touch with events b ey on d the prison, a feature that is more im portant to som e inm ates than others. On the whole, you ng and short-term prisoners w ere m ost likely to appreciate the m edia and w ere especially keen on in ­ cell television. R egarding their sentence as an unfortunate interruption (or in som e cases a w e lco m e respite) in their lives and offending careers, they tended to w atch the m o st TV, relative to the prison population as a w hole, and particularly appreciated the role of m edia in keeping them in touch with local events in their h o m e regions, and with the story lines of their favourite television serials. Indicative of the general feeling was N ick, a you ng first-time prisoner serving three years, w ho said: 'it would be enou g h to drive people crazy if you d id n 't have m edia . . . you need to keep in touch.' John, serving ten m o n th s, took a more practical approach: 'it's im portant to keep in touch with outside. People in here have relatives serving in Bosnia, and they need to know . . . '. O ld er and long-term inm ates were more conservative in their view ing preferences, tending to w atch m ainly the n ational n e w s and perhaps one or two carefully selected p ro g ra m m e s each day. M an y older inmates said they w ould m u ch rath er have radio than television, a preference that may su p p ort A lasuu tari's (1999b) contention that radio is a stim ulant and that people often listen to radio as a w a y to stay a w ak e or to raise their activity level. Consistent with C o h e n and Tay lor's (1972) research, m any lo n g ­ term and life-sentence prisoners equated televisio n view ing with possible m ental and physical deterioratio n, and feared being reduced to a vegetative state, alm ost literally a 'couch potato', although one respond ent w h o w as m ore than halfw ay through a tw elve-y ear sentence said he watched m ore television in prison than he had outside: 'I like 25 To 1, 100% , all the quizzes. I like answ ering the questions ju st to m ake sure I'm n ot losing my m in d .2 A n o th e r interesting difference b etw een short-term and long-term prisoners (although one that I can only quantify in the m o st general terms 92

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b ecause it w as not a subject that arose in every discussion) w as that while m o st inm ates go to great lengths to 'co lo nise' their en v iron m en t (Goffm an 1961a, 1961b) by personalising their cells, a n u m b e r of very long-term ers and lifers said they had n ever done so. The finding that m o st inm ates try to m ak e their cells as individ ual as possible is hard ly surprising; it is, after all, one of the few w ays in w h ich prisoners can publicly display their identities. But more extraordinary w as that som e inmates w ho were in their second , third or fourth decade inside reported they had never personalised or decorated their cells in any way, although their prim ary reason - 'it w ould institu tionalise you to m a k e it like h o m e ' - is rational and un derstand ab le. In m o st cells, how ever, it was cu stom ary to see family p ho tog rap hs and other personal artefacts and, while rules gov erning the use of prisoners' ow n duvets, curtain s, carpets and other fu rnishin gs vary from prison to prison (an inconsistency in the regulations that m o st inm ates consid er grossly unfair), it is of som e com fort to those w h o are eligible that personal television sets can give their cells the am b ience of hom e: 'It's really nice to get in y ou r pad in the evening with your tea and biscuits and watch TV in bed . . . it's like a little b ed -sit' (Lloyd). In addition, cells often contain nu m e rou s sym bolic indications of personality and self, m a n y of which are assertio ns of masculinity and male (hetero)sexuality taken from the world of media and p o pular culture. 'P age three' style pictures of semi-clad w o m e n , pin ­ ups of y o u n g fe male celebrities, p ho tog rap hs and posters of racing cars or high -p e rfo rm a n ce sports cars, and pictures of m ascu line role m odels from the w orlds of acting, popular m usic and sport, are all co m m o n , as they are for the you ng adult w hite m ale population from w hich the prison population is p red om inantly d raw n. By w a y of com p a riso n, I saw som e indications that African Caribbean inm ates m ay have sou g ht more political affirm ations of their identities. In so m e of the cells occupied by black inm ates, I saw posters of Malcolm X, M artin Luther King and M u h a m m a d Ali. The con sp icu ou s display of pictures of black heroes supports the view that im ages from m edia and p o pular culture can provide private reassurance to prisoners seeking to co m e to terms with their identities in an en v iro n m en t w h ere those identities do not have m ajority public su p p ort (G auntlett and Hill 1999). In M o rle y 's (1986) 'Family Television and G ray 's (1992) Video P laytim e, private con su m p tion is m ost co m m o n ly associated with w o m e n , m any of w h o m take 'guilty pleasu re' from w atching a sentim ental video or rom antic television series on their own. T he pleasure gained from indu lging in a 'nice w e e p ie ' was little dim inished by the fact they were unable to w atch this kind of material in the fam ily context, b ecause the m ale 'h ead of the h o u s eh o ld ' had defined a hierarchy of m aterial in which »3

Capti ve audi ence

this kind of show cam e at the botto m . M a n y exam p les pertainin g to the prison aud ience could be used as sim ilar illustrations of this point, and are referred to e lsew here, b u t one e xam p le conc erns the gay man w ho said his sexu al preference w as k n ow n only to one other inmate. Since in­ cell television had privatised his leisure time, he had been able to view pro g ra m m e s that m ay have provoked derision or intim idation (or worse) had

he attem pted to w'atch them on co m m u n a l, association room television sets. He cited the C h a n n el 4 pro g ra m m e Q ueer as F olk (a dram a series about the lives and relatio nships of three h o m o se xu al you ng men) as being a m o n g his favourite show s. N ot only did this p ro gra m m e provide supp ort for a personal identity he kept largely hidden, but it challenged conv entio nal m edia representatio ns of m ascu line hegem ony, as well as the 'reality' of m ascu line heterosexuality in prison. Styles of personal m edia use em erge as a pro d u ct of both the inm ates' norm ative con su m p tion patterns in the outside world and the prisonadaptive m o d e s they a d op t inside. For som e inm ates access to m edia resources can remind them of their pre-prison identities. L indlof (1987: 186) describes this need as a 'ratification of the continuity of self': M a n y inm ates have a need to remind them selv es of the prim acy of their original, pre-institutional personal selves. This is, in a sense, a ratification of self that usually rem ains concealed in an environm ent of extraord inary distrust of others. This m a y be especially im portant d uring the early stages of incarceration, as new inm ates decide their social p ersonas . . . For m o st inmates, personal m ed ia represent a natu ral d im ension of their lives. T he m edia qua artefacts, with their familiarity and locus of control, b eco m e highlighted in the prison context. Two im portant poin ts are raised here. First, the fam iliarity of m edia content is highlighted as being im portant in relation to the ratification of self. Llo yd, a you ng m an with three small child ren, co m m e n ted : 'I still w atch kids TV b ecau se I know my ow n kids will be w atching at hom e, and I w a n t to see w h at they're seeing', a sen tim en t that w as reiterated by several other respondents. Secondly, personal m edia as a locus of control is em phasised . In an en v iron m en t in which the m o st innocu ous of negotiations can be fraught with possible m isu n d e rstan d in g s and conflicts, and w h ere personal agency is virtu ally non-existent, any elem ent of control is likely to be treated as sacred. As a conseq u ence, the opportunity in-cell television affords inmates to control their information

94

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flows by determ ining p ro g ra m m e selection, viewing schedu les and even w h en the o n / o f f switch is used, represents a rare kind of freedom for m a n y respondents: If you have a TV, it's as if th ere's a person in the cell with you, it's co m p a n y . . . for som e people television is im p ortan t b ecau se it gives them a feeling of being in control. Even ju st being able to switch it on y ou rself and k n ow in g that so m e o n e sitting in their house in O ak ha m is w atching the sa m e p ro g ram m e as you gives you a good feeling. With som e of them though you could say it's b ecau se they have no sense of self. W ithou t their televisio n they d o n 't feel like a w hole person (M r B). In addition to helping prisoners m aintain a sense of control of their e nvironm ent, and an appreciation of their pre-institutional selves, access to m edia can result in the ad option of different con su m p tion habits and in new identities being created in prison. Usually, this new persona is constructed around interest in, or loyalty to, a particular m ed iu m or text. For exa m p le , Sa m , w h o had e m barked on several educational courses since being in prison, spoke a bout how - on the advice of one of his tutors - he had 'd isco vered ' the G u ardian . He had since read it every day, and his strong allegiance to its style and political ethos had changed his view of his ow n identity and positioning in society, m ak ing him in his eyes 'literally a better person'. Similarly, Scott had started to read the D aily M ail regularly, w h ich he also took as an indication he was changing for the better: 'I'd only ever read the Sun befo re I cam e in here. Well, not even read it really, ju st looked at the pictures. N ow I read a proper paper and take much more of an interest in world events.' A n other notable exam p le w as Dave, w h o claim ed he had literally 'reinvented ' him self since being convicted: I tried to rein vent m y self w hen I got sent dow n. I w a s n 't happy with my identity before I cam e in, I felt a failure. N ow I need to prove I can do w h a t I'm doing. I'm doing an O p e n University degree . . . I read n e w sp ap e rs and w atch TV, b ut select things that arc a lot m ore intellectual than I w ould have before. It's all part of the rein vention of myself. I'v e matu red more in the past five years than in the thirty-four years before. I'm studying A n cie n t Greek and I read proper new sp a p ers. If I'd b een put inside w h en I was sixteen I m ig h t have tu rned out a better person. I w as a w im p w h en I cam e in; now I'm m uch m ore assertive.

95

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Even among readers of the tabloids (who, according to prison librarians and officers, constitute the biggest reading public in prisons), strategies of resistance and em pow erm ent are evident. Of relevance in this context is Fiske's (1992) analysis of why the tabloid press are so popular among the working classes. Arguing that the 'quality' press share the dominant ideology of the power bloc and are geared to producing belief rather than scepticism in their middle-class readers, Fiske suggests that the tabloids are more likely to take an oppositional stance to official sources of information, subversively blurring the distinction between facts and fiction, and thus actively engaging readers in the production of meaning. The polysemy of the popular press invites 'sceptical laughter', offering the 'pleasures of disbelief, the pleasures of not being taken in . . . of "seeing through" them (whoever constitutes the powerful them of the mom ent)' (ibid.: 49). Thus, while excluded from direct involvement in the power-sharing processes of democracy, the tabloids' generally lower-class readership can none the less be engaged in more micro forms of involvement in a 'semiotic dem ocracy' (Stevenson 1995: 93).3 This view was illustrated by Michael: I read everything in the Sun and the M irror - the gossip, the politics, you name it. I enjoy reading about the latest cock-ups the police have made, and when NATO messes up, that's good to see. You shouldn't get taken in by what the politicians say and do. Most of them are clueless. 1 never used to read the papers, but now I try to read them every day. That was the first thing I was told when I got to prison. Try and read a paper every single day. All these men might be said to fall into Irwin's (1970) classification of 'gleaners'; individuals who have rejected some of their previous subcultural values and undergone something of a 'conversio n' (Goffman 1959; Cohen and Taylor 1972). To find that their access to media has augmented this process is interesting, for viewed in this way, mass media can be characterised as an effective leveller of inequalities between people of different social and cultural origins, providing them with a facility for stepping outside their normal habitus. Many of the claims that media use was related to changing attitudes and behavio ur were accompanied by assertions that the individual in question had seen the error of his ways and would not be re-offending when released from prison.4 So, media can be used not only to reinforce their identities as prisoners or 'professional' criminals (as will be discussed in the next chapter), or to help them to keep a sense of their pre-prison selves, but it can also aid them in creating an entirely new identity independent of their past or 96

T h e m i c r o s o c i a l c o n t e x t s o f m e d i a us e

present circum stances.

In all these senses, m edia are providing an

ontological narrativ e. Structuring experience in narrativ e term s creates order out of chaos and gives m ea n in g to w h a t otherw ise w ould be experienced as fragm ented (M ackay 1997: 76). Specific m edia texts help to create and s u p p o rt the stories that people tell about them selv es within a physical en v iron m en t that sustains frequent attacks on the fragile self, and also have an im portant perform ative role. But, in addition, media texts, and the discourses they provide, also supp ly a te m poral continuity, a 'd ailiness' that fosters routine. And as has been established earlier in this book, routines, both spatial and tem poral are, crucial to the re production of social life, and to the w arding off of personal anxiety.

Id e n tit y and t im e

Time is experienced

differently in prison. As C h a p te r 1 suggested,

although im p riso n m e n t is in essence about time, it is experienced as a form of 'tim elessness', a state of suspend ed anim ation that led one of my interview ees to com m ent: 'it's as if so m e o n e has pressed the " p a u s e " button on my life for five y ears.' N u m erou s c o m m e n ta to rs have m ad e distinctions b etw een different 'ty p es' or conceptualisations of time, but one of the sim plest and m ost pertinent distinctions in the current context is that m ad e by Weigert (1981: 198), w ho suggests that all of us can conceive time in term s of its two m ajor facets: w h en we m ak e time either for personal uses or to conn ect our time with other p eople's - we are involved in 'tem p oral construction'. Yet we m u st also cope with external d em a n d s on our time, that is, 'te m p ora l im positio n' (ibid.). In prison the overlapping processes of te m poral construction and tem poral im positio n are arguably felt more acutely than in other spheres of life. E very aspect of prisoners' lives is governed by the institutional routine, from the m o m e n t that a klaxon rings out around the prison to signal the start of the day, to the d em an d for lights out in the evenin g. Yet within the externally im posed , rigidly structured time schedule, there m ay be an im m ense am o u n t of unstructured time that has to be filled by the individual.

A n u m b e r of sociological studies have found that a surfeit

of unstructured time can take its toll on people, resulting in disorientation and stress:5 of 'b eing caged in a boring, regressive present' (B u rm an 1988: 139). Research into w h eth er length of im p riso n m e n t is correlated with a reduction in intellectual faculties is contradictory and inconclusive. Psychological research using m etho d s such as structured questionnaires and psy chom etric tests has, on the w h ole, conclu ded that there is no »7

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causal

relationship

b etw een

length

of

time

spent

in

prison

and

deterioratio n of m ental faculties (Banister et al 1973). This, of course, is in direct contrast to the findings of Cohen and Taylor w h o were concerned with prisoners' deterioratio n in a m u ch w id er sense than could be measured by statistical tests of intellectual and cognitive ability (Jupp 1989). The key point is perhaps less to do with w h eth er deterioratio n actually occurs or w h eth er long-term ers are m ore at risk than short-term ers, and m ore to do with how prisoners fe e l ab ou t the possibility of their m ental and physical health eroding. I found that the tedium of everyd ay life in prison w as palpable, a m o n g both inm ates and staff. But the distinct regressive quality of a life of confinem ent was expressed eloquently by prisoners, both in terms of feeling in a p e rm a n e n t state of arrested d ev elo p m en t or adolescence: 'I som etim es look in the m irror and d o n 't recognise m y s e lf . . . your b od y changes, g row s older, b ut e m otionally you stay the sam e . . . you stay an a d olescent', and also in fears of grow ing old and, in so m e cases, of dying in prison: 'th at's my greatest fear - being carted out of this place in a box.' O ne inmate said he felt old before his time: 'I'm thirty-four but I feel fifty.' C o nfinem en t, then, presents the inm ate with great difficulties in using time and conceiving of future plans (Lindlof 1987). M any long-term prisoners deal with the 'u ninterruptible stream of 140) by view ing parts of the day, w eek or year as time w hich are then ju d ged to be either 'g o o d ' respondents, w h en asked to na m e the w orst time

tim e' (B u rm an 1988: distinct seg m en ts of or 'b a d ' time. M ost in prison, answered

'night-tim e'. W h e n in bed at night, introspection b eca m e a 'psychic q u icksa n d ' (ibid.: 189) that could no longer be a v o id e d .6 At one of the prisons I studied, there w as a curious anom a ly w h ereb y lights had to be switched off by 11 pm , but TV s could remain on. M a n y respondents w ould thus watch television until late into the night, for reasons Burm an (ibid.) illuminates: O ne can see the attraction of TV in this context. W hile television b rou ght in the im ages and voices o f the outer w orld, its 'co m p e tito r', introspection, gave a view of the inner world. The inner 'screening' (to continu e the analogy) replayed past hurts and rejections . . . It unearthed suppressed longings, and images of roads not taken. The w o rst time . . . w as lying in bed at night. For som e, the w eekend represents 'b ad ' time. With little structure and few pu rposefu l activities in w hich to engage, time can seem to drag interminably. For others, the desire to norm alise life as far as possible 98

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encou ra g es them to see w e e k en d s as they would on the outside, as special or 'self' time w h en the usual restrictions of im posed time are relaxed s o m e w h a t, and they can construct their ow n activities.7 In b etw ee n these polarised positions, several respond ents isolated w e e k en d s as being periods of conflicting em otions, containing both good times and bad. Like m any people in general life, one of the m ost salient features that determ ined w h eth er specific periods of the w eek end were enjo yable or n ot w as the m ass m ed ia, and stories about how w e e k en d s are spent in prison d em onstra te the extent to w h ich m edia arc integrated into prisoners' lives and routines. If inm ates subscribe to just one n e w sp a p e r a w eek, it is ov erw h e lm in g ly a w eek end title. T he pred om inant reason for this is that Saturday and Su n d a y n e w sp a p e rs contain TV listings for the w h ole w eek. T he m o st p o pular title in this respect was the M irror on Saturday, w h ich inclu des a glossy TV listings m a gazine containing 'b eh ind -th e scen es' stories, celebrity p h o tog rap h s and soap up dates, in addition to the actual schedules. For m ost respondents, though, it is the s chedu les alone w hich d eterm ine their decisio ns to buy the paper, and several described how studying the listings and circling the pro g ram m e s they m o st w anted to watch w as an im p orta n t routine that helped to structure not only the day on w hich they carried out this task, but also the rest of the w eek, w hich was m a p p ed out in ad vance around 'm u st-se e' TV view ing. A seco nd ary reason for b uying a w eekend n e w s p a p e r is that m o st contain several su p p lem ents, inclu ding colour m ag azines, cartoon pages, crossw ords and in-depth sports coverage. It often takes a great deal of time to read a w eek end paper ('it can take me the w h ole w eek to get through it') and it therefore represents good value for money, in addition to being a usefu l and absorbing w a y of passing time. Saturday m o rn in g s are typically relaxation times, and m any of those w ho have in-cell television reported it provides them with an excuse for staying in bed longer w h ich, in co m m o n with m any people in the wider society, w as seen as another private pleasure. In particular, the cartoons and m u s ic /c e le b r ity sh o w s aim ed at children and teenagers that fill the Saturday m o rnin g schedu les can be seen as escapist fantasy, and may su p p ort L in d lo f's (1987: 187) assertion that inm ates' psychological orientation to televisio n content is determ ined by those aspects of their selves requiring nurture. F urtherm ore, although there is evidence that these kinds of pro g ram m e s are enjoyed by adult view ers across the country (G auntlett and Hill 1999), it is arguable that w itho ut the obligations of family or dom estic chores to fulfil, people in prison can watch these show s with a great deal less guilt than the 'av era ge' adult viewer. Indeed, as indicated above, m a n y prisoners said they m ad e a 99

Ca p t i v e a u d i e n c e

point of watching programmes aimed at children in order to keep abreast of the media influences their own children were being exposed to. A further 'weekend time' that is the subject of mixed emotions is Friday evening, which, in line with the work ethic of post-industrial societies, is often designated as a time for socialising with friends or relaxing after a week's labour. In Ashwell and Stocken, there is apparently little to distinguish Friday evenings from any other nights of the week, although several long-term prisoners looked back nostalgically to when they were in Category B or Dispersal prisons and had their own kitchen facilities. Fridays were then special occasions when several inmates would get together and prepare a meal: Once Lifers come to terms with the fact that they've got a hefty sentence to do, they set about enjoying it as much as possible. At Wakefield we had cooking clubs . . . every Friday night, four of us got together and cooked a meal, usually a curry or something like that. We'd sometimes make an apple pie and have a teapot - not tea bags - and a tea strainer . . . We'd put the radio on - something classical - it was really civilised. It's a link with the outside as well, we'd try and make it as homely as possible, put a proper table cloth on the table. We were trying to replicate something from outside, and time passed bccause you were always looking forward to Friday and then gearing up for the next one, planning it . . . Then on the last Friday of the month we'd have a monthly survival party to celebrate another month gone. We'd have a meal and some hooch. I suppose it was the equivalent to a midnight feast in a girl's dormitory! (Ray). But despite the loss of this 'small extension of personal autonom y' (Sparks et al, 1996: 164), not everyone felt Fridays had been deprived of their special significance although, like many people in the wider society, Friday evening was a high point which was followed all too rapidly by Sunday evening: I always listen to Radio 7 on a Friday night, always have. Judge Jules, Pete Tong . . . it's part of the Friday night ritual. Believe it or not, I've come across guys in here who, on a Friday night, go through all the motions - shave, wash, dress up - it's like they're going out for a big night out. Then on Sunday night, it's early lock­ up and they come back dow n to earth. Nothing on telly except Songs o f Praise and The A ntiques R oadshow and they get the Sunday night blues. Ridiculous really, innit? (George). 100

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In general, 'good tim e' - w h eth er interacting with others or engaged in self-time - is that w hich is filled with activity. Good interaction time is thus usually spent in the c o m p a n y of others w h o share sim ilar interests, while good self-tim e is frequently spent in absorbing w ork, study or creative pursuits. A n u m b e r of prisoners spend a great deal of their spare time pursuing hobbies, and one of the m ost fascinating features of prison life is the skills to be found in a variety of arts, crafts and other creative pursuits, both legitimate and non -leg itim ate.8 For many, absorption in an artistic project is not only a prim ary m e an s of killing time b u t it also restores a sense of self-worth and m ay enhance one's social standin g am o n g the rest of the prisoners. Som e of m y respondents had learned new skills or uncovered previously hidden talents while inside. S o m e of these - like the b rew ing of hoo ch or the m anipu lation of telephone cards so they pe rm it m ore calls than their face value - are valuable skills in prison and can create co m m o d itie s to be traded freely in the prison econom y. O thers are m o re legitimate pastim es w h ich , although they m ay also involve the m anu factu re of goo ds w hich can be sold or exchang ed , are not alw ays primarily un dertak en for that purpose. M o st notable in this re spect w as the construction of m odels and artefacts out of m atch sticks, a hob b y w h ich is frequently regarded as the archetypal prisoner (or prisoner-of-w ar) pastim e. Lloyd, a life-sentence prisoner in his late fifties, show ed m e a carriage clock he had m ad e out of m atches, and described som e of the nu m erou s other models and artefacts he had constructed over the years. He said he had been taught by an 'old lag' during a previous prison sentence in the 1960s and, althou gh he used to sell som e of his m odels, more recently he has m ad e them solely to pass time in an absorbing and self-fulfilling activity. He w as now, in turn, passing on his skills to a new g eneration, and one inm ate in his m id ­ tw enties took great pride in sh ow in g me a m atchstick jew ellery box he had constructed under the tu telage of Lloyd. The passing on of such skills gives prison culture a certain sen se of tim elessness and nostalgia, which som e fear will be dim inished by the introduction of in-cell TV. In addition to crafts w h ich m ig h t be said to be virtu ally unique to (or at least epitom ise) the prison w orld, som e inm ates are keen to continue hobbies which were an im portant feature of their lives on the outside. A gain, the p rim ary gain of im porting into prison one's favourite p astim es from outside may be ontological: as B u rm a n (1988: 153) puts it, hobbies may give those w h o are marginalised 'sm all experiences of m astery in a familiar terrain'. A different, althou g h increasingly c o m m o n , response to the w eight of unstructured time with w hich inm ates are faced is the use of drugs. The essence of their appeal - hallucinogenics, in particular - is that they do 101

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more than sim ply tranquillise or anaesthetise the prisoner (M atthew s 1999: 41). T hey 'r e m o v e ' him from his physical e nvironm ent and they 'read ju st' the tem poral flow, releasing the user from the seem ingly endless m ass of fo rm less time. For M atthew s, these benefits can be weighed up in term s of more than ju st fantasy or m ental escape. The tangible, physical attractio ns of drug use are sum m arise d as follows: For those w h o were regular drug users befo re entering prison, drugs n orm alise time, in that its passing correspond s to those form s of social time w h ich were previously experienced on the outside. By the sam e token, the drug subculture that has been found to be p revalent in m any prisons also provides a w a y of organising daily life and giving m eaning to the prison routine that for som e approxim ates to the norm al ro utines of life outside the confines of the prison. Thu s by engaging in an activity w h ose objective is to create w'hat we m ight call 'fantasy tim e', prisoners can spend their days involved in activities - b uying, trading, hustling, scoring w hich correspond to familiar 'real tim e' activities cond u cted on the outside (ibid.). M edia con su m p tion is often equated to drugs use and, in the context of the prison, the com pariso n m ay a p pear particularly apposite for, like drugs, the presence o f televisio n can norm alise or readjust time so that the tem poral rhythm experienced in prison is akin to that w hich was experienced prior to confinem ent. This sense of tem po ral continuity, together with the familiar, sequ ential or ongo ing form of m u ch television content, brings com fort to the prisoner w h o, in the early stages of con fin e m e n t at least, is likely to experience som e degree of d isorientation. Like drugs, then, television can provide a refuge from the harsh realities of life, filling large a m o u n ts of self-time w hich otherw ise m igh t be given over to introspection. But like any hab it-form ing substance, it is the object of com plex and frequently conflicting em otions. O f those respondents w h o had in-cell television, m ost said they w atched m ore television inside prison than they did on the outside and m any clearly felt they were 'h o ok e d '. Som e resented w h at they saw as the 'i ntru sio n' of television and w ere trying to resist it for as long as possible, so that the relationship b e tw ee n respond ents and the m ed iu m had frequently b eco m e a struggle of wills, akin to going 'cold turkey'. A t A shw ell, w h ere in-cell TV was m and a to ry for those inm ates on 'E n h a n c e d ' or 'S u p e r-E n h a n ce d ' status, several inm ates had extrem ely am b iv a le n t feelings about it. O ne, Andrew, w as a life-sentence prisoner w ho had constructed his identity around his statu s as an O pen U niv ersity degree student. Fearful that television 102

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would interfere with his studies, he had resisted the offer to have a set installed in his cell for som e eight m onths. H ow ever, u n d er increasing pressure from the governor, he had relented and had had his TV for three w eeks w h en we met. In his case the battle of wills was being lost, and he talked about his w a n in g c o m m itm e n t to his univ ersity cou rsew ork with self-deprecating honesty. For him, su ccu m b in g to the lures of television - like those w ho give in to the tem ptation of drugs - was evidence of his all too hu m an frailty. O ther long-term ers and lifers, m e a n w h ile, placed a great deal of em p h a sis on selectivity of view ing. Those w h o w atched little television or w ho w ere extrem ely discrim inating in their choice of view ing saw this as a m atter of pride, a clear indication of their self-restraint in the face of o v erw h e lm in g pressure to conform to subcultural norm s. O f course, as uses and gratifications research has em p h asise d , the characterisation of televisio n con su m p tion as a n on -p u rp ose fu l activity m ay be a pro blem atic assum p tion. But m ost prisoners in m y study adhered to this view ; hence their unease at it cuttin g into time previously spent reading, studying, pursuing hobbies or writing letters (T've had in-cell TV for seven or eight m o nths now, b ut it's stopped m e reading. I have to fight to read now w hich really anno y s me. It's a vam pire that d ra w s you in'). W hen q uestioned, how ever, m ost were able to identify specific im portant m ea n in g s and m o tiv ations associated with TV view ing b eyond sim ply 'killing tim e' (see below). A final, related point is that m any respondents, while resenting television for distracting them from other activities, none the less expressed relief it could also fill time usually spent sleepin g or doing nothing at all, both o f w hich m ig h t otherw ise be spent in painfu l self-contem plation. This would a p pear to dem onstrate that for m any inmates, time spent w atching in-cell TV has replaced both action and inaction, and that, paradoxically, good 'self-tim e' can be both time which is spent on a jo u rn ey into the self, and time w hich prevents or distracts them from m aking that journey. The co m m o n features of good time, both self and interaction, and the main criteria by w h ich time is ju d g ed to be 'g o o d ', are that it passes quickly, or that the slo w ness of its passin g is m inim ised or transcended. In general, seasonal chang es are barely noticed by prisoners, although inmates at A shw ell, the m o st 'o p e n ' of the prisons I visited, com m ented that they enjoy the s u m m e r m o nths b ecau se they are perm itted to go outside during evening association time. The w orst time to spend in prison is alm ost univ ersally felt to be C h ristm as and New Year. It is during these traditional holiday periods that the reality of losing one's liberty and the distinction betw ee n prison life and 'n o rm a l' life is most sharply felt by the greatest n u m b e r of inmates. As with m any people in 103

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general life, television is rapidly b e co m in g a pro m in en t feature of the prisoners' en jo y m en t of C h ristm as, and the introductio n of in-cell television has aug m ented the centrality of the m ed iu m in the festive season. This d ev elop m en t was m ost noticeable at Gartree w h ere the im plem entation of in-cell TV w as accelerated so that it was installed ju st in time for Ch ristm as. Several inmates c o m m e n ted that having their own TV sets in their cells had m ad e the festive period m ore bearable in help ing to take their minds off w h at their friends and families were doing outside, or in uniting them in a co m m o n e xperien ce, and television un d o u b ted ly helped to norm alise the prison during this notoriously difficult time. With no restrictions im posed on how long they could watch television in their cells, som e inm ates adm itted to having view ed over fifty hours of p ro g ra m m e s in the first week. In part, this high viewing quota can be understood in terms of the novelty of having their ow n television set, b ut it can also be explained by reference to the traditional content of the C h ristm as TV schedu les w hich incorporate higher-thanaverage n u m b e rs of b lockbuster m o vies, specially com m issioned d ram as and light enterta in m e n t show s, b ut also rely on re peatin g C hristm as 'specials' of the past. Several prisoners m entioned the particular pleasure of w atching repeats of favourite TV s h o w s from long ago (T he M orecam be and W ise C hristm as Show being one exam p le) w h ich rem ind ed them of h a p pier times and places, while som e appreciated being able to watch repeated episodes of more recent p ro g ra m m e s (such as the special C h ristm as episodes of O ne Foot in the G rave and O nly F ools and H orses) that they had missed befo re in-cell television was im plem ented in prisons. N ew Year is a sim ilarly painful period for m any prison inmates which, like C h ristm as, m ak es them feel especially isolated. T he approach of the end of the m illennium served to intensify the em otions felt by som e inmates w h o w ould see in the new m illenniu m from behind prison walls, especially the y o u n g and those serving relatively short sentences: New Year is definitely the w o rst time, k n ow in g all your mates are out there, having a good time. The m ille n n iu m 's going to be even worse. I've already started p syching m y self up for that little gutting feeling I know I'm going to have. I can feel the little knot fo rming in the pit of my stom ach already, ju st thinking about it (Neil). Several m entioned that prison riots are co m m o n around C h ristm as and New Year, and I heard m any ru m ou rs (u n fo u n d e d , as it turned out) that disturbances would a cco m p an y the d aw ning of the new m illennium . O thers, how ever, were more philosophical, seeing the m illennium as no 104

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different from any other N ew Y ear's Eve; a night w here a degree of relaxation of the prison rules allow s them to 'c eleb rate' the occasion, thus m ak ing it significantly better than m ost evenings inside. A group of prisoners at Gartree described how m o st prison officers on duty would 'let their hair d o w n ' on New Y ear's Eve, not only tolerating the con su m p tion of hooch, but also frequently jo ining inm ates in a drink. The prisoners I spoke to greatly appreciated this a b atem en t of the form al prison rules and did not h av e a problem with officers returnin g to 'ty p e' the fo llow ing day. In an evocation of the story of the First World War encou nter b etw een British and G e rm a n soldiers w h o played football in N o M a n 's Land on C h ristm as Day before re sum ing norm al hostilities the follow ing day, the stories told a bout N ew Y ear's Eve in prison illustrate that it is regarded as a unique point in the year w h en b o und aries on both sides can be transgressed in the spirit of the occasion and then reverted to w itho ut repercussions the follow ing day.9 Ch ristm as and N ew Year, then, are times w h en prisoners - like m ost of us - are perhaps m ost likely to reflect on the past, often indulging in nostalgic fantasies about previous y e a rs' celebratio ns with family and friends. O f course, like m any lapses into nostalgia, the past is doctored to m eet the requirem ents of the present (Brittan 1977: 89) so that such m em orie s are frequently tinged with sentim entality or regret. But with an uncertain future ahead of them , and a barely to lerable present, m any inmates hold on to a sense of their pre-prison selves by re m e m b erin g the past. O f particular interest in this regard w as the potential of vario us media to evok e m em ories, w h ich w as a c o m m o n them e in interview s. Bill, a m iddle-aged inm ate serving five years, described the particular joys of w atch in g repeats of old TV pro g ra m m e s such as Dad's A rm y and S teptoe and Son, w hich allow him to reminisce about times gone by: I love those old p ro g ra m m e s b ecau se you get transported back in time. Radio is im portant too. I listen to Radio 2 for all the old tracks from the sixties and seventies. I h a v e n 't got anything to go back to w h en I get out of here, so I need my roots. Watching and listening to things from the past help s m e remember. In a sim ilar vein, Del, w h o is nearing the end of a life sentence, com m e n ted : D ad 's A rm y brings back a lot of m em ories. They're show ing all the old black and white ones at the m o m e n t - that really takes you back. I'd love to see Q ua te rm a ss and Z Cars show n again. I suppose that's w h at was on w hen I w as on the out. Blimey, I am in a time warp, aren't I! i os

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L ow enth al (1985: 197) explains that 'r e m e m b erin g the past is crucial for our sense of identity', a sen tim ent echoed by George, serving tw enty years, w ho said: 'y o u 'v e got nothing in prison w ith o u t m e m o ry . . . w itho ut m e m o ry y ou 'd b eco m e institutionalised, an au tom ato n.' David, although rather younger, appreciated the continuity that having media in prisons provides: 'I do get nostalgic w atching TV or listening to the radio . . . but at least I'v e got the luxury of enjo ying the sa m e things in here.' For Low enth al, recalling past experien ces links us with our earlier selves, h o w e v e r different we m ay since have b eco m e. How ever, as Del indicated above, and as has been described elsew here in this study, there is a m o n g prisoners a com m on te ndency to feel ca u gh t in a m o m e n t in time, so that differences in their identities over time are m u ch less m arked than they would be in other populations. This state, described by Del as a 'tim e w a rp ', w as graphically illustrated by Ray, a lifer w ho had spent m uch of his life in prison: M usic takes you back . . . silly d ances you used to do, half-cut at parties. I'd hate to lose my radio, that would be far worse than losing the TV. I used to go to the P rom s w h en I lived in London, out for d inner and then to the P rom s. I never miss the Prom s on the radio now. And I used to go to Victorian M u sic Hall nights. We'd toast Q u e e n Victoria, that kind of thing. I used to go to the O ld Tim e M u sic H all Show with Leonard Sachs and to S u n day N ight at the London P alladiu m . I w e n t a couple of times. M y m other got tickets through the R eader's D igest. I even saw the Beatles once. It was horrendous! For Spigel and Jenkins (1991) one of the m ost interesting aspects of their research on m em orie s of B atm an w as the w ay s in w h ich people constructed past events to m eet the requ irem ents of the present w hich caused the researchers to d ou bt that w h a t they are being told are pho tog rap h ic records of the events described. Past events were rem em b ered in such a w a y as to conform to conventionalised cultural u n d ersta nd ing s of th em , and m ad e into narratives which were familiar to people in the present. To recall a previous e xam p le from British television by way of illustration; it is co m m o n for people to 're m e m b e r ' w atching the science fiction series D octor W ho, as children, from behind their p arents' settee. In m o st cases, such descriptions are likely to be m yths; m e m o rie s recast to conform to a set of shared cu ltural conv entio ns, rather than actual recollections of a real individual experience. In this way, m e m o ry is used as a m echanism for binding 106

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together the individual with a larger c o m m u n ity of ideas. As Spigel and Jenkins (ibid.) note, m edia texts - especially those which, over time, take on a cult status - serve to evoke a collective past, rem em b ered according to shared, cu ltural narrativ e codes, rath er than sim ply individ uated codes of story-telling. Recalling m em orie s in d ay d ream s and eve ry d a y contexts can also be a usefu l m eans not only of escaping or tran scend in g everyday realities, b u t also of un derstand ing them. As one inmate poignantly said: 'I listen to a lot of Celine Dion . . . it rem inds me of the time I spent w’ith my exm issus, and I think about w h a t w e n t w rong, w h a t I did w rong, and that.' M e m o ry is thus a fu nction of context althou gh, in Freudian term s, it may be limited by defence m e ch a n ism s w h ich distort and frequently repress the past: 'm e m o ry can be upsetting. T hinking can be your w orst enem y in prison. I prefer not to do it, to be hon est with you.'

Place -tim e -sp a ce

Not only do time and place take on different d im en sion s in prison, but the relatio nship betw een

time and place does too. In m o d ern, po st­

industrial society, ou r personal horizons have e xpan ded to the degree w h ere terms such as 'global village' are co m m o n ly evoked to describe the international distribution of m edia technologies and cultural images. The prison has, until very recently, remained relatively im perviou s to the new com m u n ication technologies of the outside world and has prevailed as one of the m o st b ou nd ed of locales (Goffm an 1961a). Indeed, one of the characteristics that m ark s out a total institution as being 'total' is the com pression of spatial experience. In other w ords, while people in ordinary life act, and

are acted

upon, through a variety of social

d im ensions including hom e, neig h b ou rh oo d , suburb, city, region, n a tio n ­ state and world (B u rm an 1988: 123), the prison inm ate has traditionally found his world reduced to his im m e d iate physical environs. But with the introduction of m ass m ed ia, the world has to som e extent opened up again, and prison walls are no longer im penetrable barriers that wholly isolate the inm ate from the c o m m u n ity and society at large. For som e prisoners these d ev elop m en ts are best conceptualised as a process of illumination. Echoing S cannell's (1996) c o m m e n t that early radio op ened up a world that w as 'truly m agical', one respond ent re counting the introductio n into prisons of radio rem arked that 'it w as m arv ellous - like so m e o n e op ening up a w in d o w on the w o rld ', w hile another said it was like a 'light bulb being switched on - better than C hristm as'. In his analysis of the im pact of electronic m edia on social behaviour, 107

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Joshua Meyrowitz (1985) has provided an authoritative and wide-ranging theoretical analysis of the ways in which electronic media have altered conventional notions of place, time and space. In the Preface to No Sense o f Place, he sums up the declining significance of physically bounded spaces thus: [W Jhere one is has less and less to do with what one knows and experiences. Electronic media have altered the significance of time and space for social interaction. Certainly physical presence and direct sensory contact remain primary forms of experience. But the social spheres defined by walls and gates are now only one type of interactional environment. The walls of the mightiest fortress no longer define a truly segregated social setting if a camera, a microphone, or even a telephone is present (ibid.: viii). It is com m on to regard media technologies simply as material products introduced into a pre-existing environment, which rapidly become part of the fabric and furniture of their surroundings. But for critics like Meyrowitz, once widely used, electronic media can transform their surroundings into new social environments with different patterns of social action, feeling and belief, and these may in turn lead to modified or radically altered social conceptions of traditional identities such as 'childhood', 'adulthood', 'm asculinity' and 'femininity' (ibid.: 15). Furthermore, television, computers, telephones and radio 'democratise and homogenise places by allowing people to experience and interact with others in spite of physical isolation' (ibid.: 143). But while electronic media undoubtedly weaken the relationship betw een physical space and social place, it would be a mistake to follow Meyrowitz's argument entirely that being in prison affords the same kinds of com munications experiences that most of us in the broader com munity enjoy. For example, while it is theoretically possible to blur previously distinct group identities (for example, that of 'prisoners'), and allow inmates to 'escape' the immediate confines of their imprisonment via the media of mass communications, in practice it is not yet happening in prisons to anything like the extent experienced by the rest of the developed world. Communicatio n in this context almost always flows in one direction, inmates being forbidden to transmit information back to the world outside. Consequently there is a palpable sense of frustration that the outside world can, and does, impact upon them, but that they can do little to impact upon it. One way in which this was manifested was in the responses of those inmates who enjoy 'p hone-in' broadcasts which invite viewers and listeners to telephone presenters with their 108

T h e m i c r o s o c i a l c o n t e x t s o f m e d i a us e

op inions. M a n y inm ates told me they were devoted listeners of Talk Radio and Radio 5, both of w h ich are interactive channels w hich rely heavily on aud ience participation via electronic mail, fax and phone-ins. F orbidd en from partaking in their favourite p ro g ra m m e s in these ways, m any prisoners felt that they were experien cing a pale imitation of these show s, and were being denied som ething of the authenticity of the co m m o n experience. D ave co m m e n ted : 'I like listening to Talk, b u t I get frustrated b ecau se I like to have m y say ', while Brian voiced a sim ilar sentim ent: 'I get mad b ecau se I ca n 't ring in.' A second b u t related p o int is that b road cast m edia can act as a form of large-scale co m m u n ica tio n allow in g people in different parts of the country and even different areas of the world to 'p articipate' in a single event. In a recent study by the British Film Institute, in w hich five hundred participants wrote about their TV habits over a period of five years, one respond ent su m m ed up this facility in a reflection on how he w ould feel if he could no longer watch television news: I w ould feel cut off from the world . . . I feel part of hu m an ity by sharing a television experien ce with people all over the world. I rem e m b er w atching the first m o on landing and reflecting on the fact that people all over the world were sharing that m o m e n t with me. I feel a tingle of excitem ent that I w as at one with hu m anity at a m o m en to u s event in inclu de Live Aid and these pivotal events hu m anity would be cited in Gau ntlett and

hu m an history. Sim ilar events since then the Royal W edding (!). If I could not share with the rest of humanity, I feel that m y dim in ished (46-year-old un em p lo y ed man, Hill 1999: 57).

Yet despite apparently now being able to experience these global televisio n events, prisoners m ay again feel at a disad vantage. It is well d ocu m en ted that, for m a n y of us, events seem m ore 'real' if they are reported in the m edia than if we witness them with our ow n eyes (M eyrow itz 1985; G id d e n s 1991a; Scannell 1996).10 In this way, representation b eco m es a kind of reality w h ich, in turn, frequently serves to give individuals a sense of keeping in touch with other people as well as with w h a t is 'h a p p en in g ' (M eyrow itz 1985: 91). But for prisoners, such events may act further to e nhance their feelings of isolation from 'n o rm a l' life. Far from experiencing h om ogeneity or 'h u m a n ity ' with the w id er society, several inm ates reported their incarceration in a total institution caused them to feel decidedly rem oved from the public forum that unites people in a c o m m o n experience. O ne event that occurred during my fieldwork, which crystallised this feeling of being sequestered from 109

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normality, w as the m u rd er of the w ell-kn ow n television presenter, Jill D and o, in April 1999. The un expected ness and violence with w hich this story was m arked stunned m any people in the U K and was felt strongly by a n u m b e r of prisoners w ho raised the subject with me and talked about their shock and grief on hearing or reading about the event for the first time. The d isbelief with w hich m an y people received the ne w s was seem ing ly intensified by the circum stances of im prisonm ent: Seeing som e th in g like that is different s om eho w w h en you 're in here. It's unreal. You feel com pletely help less. You ju st can't bring you rself to believe it. It's alm o st as though you 're alw ays looking out on life through a thick pane of glass. E verything seem s a bit fuzzy, you k now ? (Bill). In the course of the sam e conversation, Bill said that w h en he had first heard the new s of D a n d o 's m u rd er on the radio, he found him self flicking through all the other channels, partly in a q uest for m ore detailed inform ation, but partly also as if to authenticate the original story: 'it was alm ost as if - if I found another channel, it would be alright, it w o u ld n 't have h a p p e n e d .' A n oth e r respond ent, S am , found that the event took him back to the death of another m edia icon - Diana, Prin cess of Wales - two years earlier. He talked with great clarity and insight a bout the tendency of m any people to see such high-profile public figures as little more than soap-opera characters w h o se lives are stag e-m anag ed to the degree where unforeseen events - like the violent and prem atu re nature of her dem ise - are bey on d the public's c o m prehen sion: 'h er death, well, it w a s n 't part of the script, was it?' These exam p les are prim e illustrations of the p h e n o m e n o n k n o w n as 'p ara-social interaction' (H orton and Wohl 1956). Put simply, it is suggested that even w hen the com m u n ication is unidirectional, broa d ca st m edia allow a special relationship to develop betw een m edia personalities, or characters, and their audiences. Unlike print m ed ia, new electronic m edia offer the illusion of face-to-face interaction so that, paradoxically the para-social pe rfo rm e r is able to establish 'in tim a cy' with m illions (M ey row itz 1985: 119). N ot confined to television, several respond ents com m e n ted they get annoyed when their favourite radio presenters are dropped un cerem o nio usly by stations. This was a particular source of frustration to fans of the interactive talk-based station, Talk Radio, w hich had experienced m ajor chang es of direction and personnel in the m o nths preceding the period of m y research. Listeners can build up unusually close relations with presenters of talk show s, so that w h en they disappear w ith o u t w arning , their loss can be taken very personally, alm ost as if it were a b ereavem ent. As one

T h e m i c r o s o c i a l c o n t e x t s o f m e d i a us e

respond ent put it: 'I was gutted w h en they got rid of Tom m y Boyd, and " C a e s a r the G e e z e r " befo re him. It was like losing a friend. If they axe Jam es W h ale I'll be done for.' This p h e n o m en o n is well k now n to au d ien ce researchers and has been used as partial explanation for the deeply personal sense of grief felt by so m e individ uals w h en confronted with n e w s of the deaths of public figures w h o they have n ever actually met. It is difficult to be precise a bout the particular nature of para-social interaction experienced within a total institution; after all, the extent and form of public and private m o u rn in g follow ing the deaths of both the Prin cess of Wales and Jill D and o surprised m any in this country and elsewhere. But Horton and Wohl (1956: 223) m ay well be right w h en they sug gest that the para-social relationship has its greatest im pact on the 'socially isolated, the socially inept, the aged and invalid, the timid and rejected'. A third difference b etw ee n experien cing c o m m u n icativ e interaction inside prison and in the w id er context, w h ich M ey ro w itz overlooks, is the 'm obility rate' at w hich we m o v e through space and time (Burman 1988: 123). Prisoners to day m ig ht enjo y unprecedented access to technologies of the m ass m ed ia, b u t the rate at w hich they are permitted to m ove through space and time is limited by their spatial horizons and by their restricted m e a n s of mobility. A n u m b e r of prisoners spoke of the claustrophobic atm osphere of their s u rrou ndings and talked of feeling 'trapped ' or being 'like a caged anim al'. For many, the prim ary coping strategy w as to 'take them selv es o u t' of their im m ed iate surroundings, and a bsorbing hobbies, edu cation and the gym were all used to this end. But all these activities, while they m ay provide so m e degree of 'e scape' from the im m ediate, pressing confines, are still wholly structured by the d e m a n d s of the prison regim e and take place according to the institutional timetable. In other w ords, spatial experience, h o w e v e r it is in dividually constructed, will alw ays be tem pered by the institutional imposition of time and, as n u m e ro u s respond ents pointed out, time passes very slo wly in prison. This perception of time m o ving at different speed s inside prison and outside it w as a co m m o n them e in my conversations with inmates. Interestingly, M a tth ew s (1999) extend s von H irsch's (1992) arg u m ent that there is a problem with uncritically linking im p riso n m e n t to the principle of proportionality. For M atthew s, the fact that the mobility rates at which w e physically m ove through the world have speeded up m eans that time taken from a person can appear to be slowed d ow n (hence the m etapho rs of im p riso n m e n t being akin to experien cing a state of 'cold storag e' or 'deep freeze'). Th a t a five-year sentence given in 1950 m ig ht be experienced as a significantly longer sentence in 2000 m eans that the

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overall increase in the average length of sentence in recent years may have an even greater significance than might at first be apparent (Matthews 1999: 40). For most of us, the primary means of expanding spatial experience through time is via the mass media while, equally, it is new forms of electronic com munication that have had the effect of accelerating time in physical space. This time-space compression is a central feature of late modernity, but as has been established earlier and throughout this book, time and space are experienced differently in prison. These differences are especially germ ane in the context of how media reorganises the tim e-space relation. First, although prisoners may have experience of the time-space compression facilitated by established technologies such as television and radio, they are largely immune from the further transformations of time and space that have arisen from new com munications technologies. While most of us are aculturised to a world where time is speeded up, slowed down, suspended, repackaged, re-ordered and re-experienced through the mediums of film, video, television and, most dramatically, com puter technologies (ibid.: 256) - a set of processes known collectively as 'timeshifting' - most prison inmates (certainly those who are serving long sentences) experience time in a more traditional, chronological sense. Thus, time becomes conceived in spatial terms, with prisoners existing through time in a much more linear fashion, as if in a pre-media age (ibid.; see also Adam 1995). This sense of linearity of time may further enhance the impression of isolation of physical place. Detachment from the outside world is particularly keenly felt by long-serving prisoners, and many reported that no amount of watching television or reading newspapers can fully prepare the long-term inmate for release back into an ever-changing social environment. One respondent said that after serving eleven years of a previous sentence in prison, it took him four months to pluck up courage to catch a bus, because he simply no longer knew how to: 'I knew they didn't have conductors any more, because I've seen it on telly, but I didn't know what to do, how you were supposed to pay. I felt like a Martian.' He added: 'the world moves at a million miles an hour. It's terrifying and anyone who tells you different is lying.' Numerous respondents com mented on the vast difference in the pace of life in prison compared to the world beyond, but perhaps the most striking observations were those of Herbie who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1966. His descriptions of leaving court in a Black Maria, with police motorcycle escorts in tin helmets and garters, making a slow procession through crowds of football fans leisurely walking to the local ground, evoked impressions of a gentler and less hurried time, and contrasted strongly with his perceptions of a frenetic and impersonal

T h e m i c r o s o c i a l c o n t e x t s o f m e d i a us e

society thirty-three years later, w hich have been partly inform ed by im ag es from the m ass m ed ia, and only very recently by experien cing it for h im self on escorted day visits to nearby towns. A fourth point worth notin g in relation to how m edia m ay be experienced differently in prison as a co nseq u ence of the physical, structural cond itions of the en v iron m en t concerns the ability of new m edia to m ak e people feel d isem po w ered as well as e m p ow ered . A ltho ugh usually thought of as a source of liberation, m edia resources can in fact inclu de an d exclud e participants (M eyrow itz 1985: 7). O ne way in w hich m edia reinforce a feeling of exclusion and isolation is in their ability to create a notio n of 'them vs. us' (ibid.), a sen tim en t that is played out in a n u m b e r of different w ays in the prison setting. The characterisation of prisoners as an 'u n d e s e rv in g ' underclass is prevalent in our culture, and is a ju d g e m e n t regularly articulated in relation to inm ates' view ing of in-cell television by som e prison officers ('W h y should they get TV s w h en my auntie ca n 't even afford one?' is how one officer at Gartree put it). But the implication behind M e y ro w itz 's arg u m e n t is that new m ed ia blur traditional distinctions b etw een authorities and those w h o are m arginalised, isolated or disenfranchised. W hile this m a y be true for those w ho have unhindered access to em erging m ed ia, it is not the case for the m ajority of prison inmates w ho still face limited access to telephones and televisio ns, and w h o are rarely perm itted to use c o m p u te r te chnologies. Indeed, so m e inm ates believe the restricted access they have to new co m m u n ic atio n technologies and, in particular, the ban that has been im posed on them using the Internet, is a form of censure that renders them second-class citizens in the inform ation age. Far from sharing with the w id er society the privileges of the ad vancing co m m u n ic atio n s ne tw o rks as M eyro w itz suggests, prisoners are im poverished by both their lack of technological hard w are and by their con c om ita n t inability to exchang e inform ation in w ay s that are beco m ing increasingly co m m o n p lac e . Furtherm ore, m any feel they are being placed at an additional d isad vantag e w h en they com e to re-enter the com m u n ity and

seek

e m p lo y m e n t

becau se

they

do

not

have

the

information

technology skills m an y jo bs now require. In short, while M ey ro w itz has provided an ad m irable (indeed, awardw inning ) treatise on the p o w e r of electronic m edia radically to alter notio ns of 'here' and 'there', and dism antle traditional concepts such as gender, p o w e r and authority, his theories are valuable only in so far as they are hypothetically valid. At this point in time, m any of his ob servations on the im pact of electronic m ed ia in everyd ay life are sim ply not applicable to prisons and prisoners. For exam p le, he states that those aspects of identity, socialisation and hierarchy that were once d ep end ent

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upon their physical location have been altered by electronic m ed ia, so that previously disparate e nvironm ents now share a strong sense of group identity, and a prison cell is now essentially no different from any other m ed ia context (M eyrow itz 1985: 125, H 3 ff). 1 w ould argue, how ever, that the p ris o n e r's cell is fu nd am entally and sym bolically the sam e as it has alw ay s been. A lthough cosm etically different now that posters and p h o tog rap h s are allow ed on the walls, in-cell television has been installed

(in

som e

institutions)

and

integral

sanitation

has

been

introduced to replace the previously u nhygienic and deg rading practice of 'slopping out', it still bears little relation to other e nvironm ents in 'n o rm a l' life. Perhaps, then, it w ould be wise to address these issues according to notions of 'relative' rath er than 'ab solute' deprivation, and to that extent I believe that M e y ro w itz's thesis has to be refined. The underlying a ssum p tio n o f his w o rk is that structure is now an illusion; prisoners may be incarcerated behind walls and bars, b ut electronic m edia can blur or dissolve the structural shackles and barriers that hold them. Inm ates can reconstruct their identities at will, and physical confinem ent is no longer a key co m p o n e n t of p u n is h m en t b ecau se electronic m edia can m ove people inform ationally to a different place (ibid.: 145). W hile there is certainly som e validity in this arg u m e n t (it is undeniable that prisons are m ore norm alised than they once were), it is not the case that the benefits o f new m edia are experienced un iform ly in con tem p orary society. P risoners are arguably prim e cand id ates for the label 'u nd erclass' b ecause they are exiled from the new inform ation era. But more fu n d a m e n ta l than that, and a facto r w hich M ey ro w itz again underplays, is how physically isolated from the rest of society prisons actu ally fe e l. 11

R e la t io n sh ip b e t w e e n different m e d ia

The introduction of in-cell sets at the time of my research resulted in an inevitable focus on television: it is arguably the m o st significant m edium to be introduced into prisons in terms of both the prolonged debate w hich preceded its instalm ent and the im pact it has had on the norm alisation, and day-to-day experience, of im prisonm ent. Q uite simply, it was the m ed iu m that m o st people I spoke to - inm ates an d staff - w anted to share their view s on. O ther m edia had b eco m e relatively taken for granted since the ad vent of personal television sets, with the result (as highlighted earlier) that som e individuals resented w h a t they view ed as the intrusive or soporific qualities of the m e d iu m . M a n y inm ates w h o had in-cell television felt it had usu rped other m ed ia and were now m ore inclined

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to switch on their TV w h en they returned to their cell than listen to the radio or read: It's ju st there, 1 suppose. I'm paying for it, as well - 1 d o n 't know w h eth er that's a factor. But, yeah, I a lw ay s switch the telly on as soon as I get back. It's ju st a utom atic (Craig). I used to listen to the radio all the time, it w as m y lifeline. N ow I'm m u ch m ore likely to put the TV on. God k now s why, but I do. 1 wish I d id n 't to be h o n est with you. I used to listen to all the plays on Radio 4, but I h a v en 't done that for m o nths now. Television d o e s n 't transport you the w a y that radio does, b u t it's ju st more im m ediate, more there. It's habit, I supp ose (Ron). O ther m edia evidently took precedence over television for som e inmates (especially those w h o had been in prison for m a n y years), as described elsew here in this book. But for m an y individuals - especially those who w ere y o u n g a n d / o r w ho w ere serving short sentences - other m edia sim ply

served

a supporting

role, with

m ag azines

and

n ew spapers

s om etim es only being consulted in order to check out the TV view ing schedule, and personal radios being rendered more or less redundant. Music was of great im portance to m o st of m y respondents, with som e keen to use it as a m e an s of conn ecting them with their past, and others more concerned that they should keep up to date with current trends and not lose touch with the vagaries of the m usic and culture industries. But m any respond ents in their late teens or tw enties still felt that experiencing m u sic via television w as a m ore com plete experien ce than listening to it via non-visual media: T h e y 'v e started sh ow in g concerts late night on BBC 1, and I really like m usic sh o w s like that one that Jools H olland presents. I even w atch Top o f the P ops and all them kids show s. I love m y m usic. D o n 't listen to it m u ch though. We're only allowed tw elve C D s in here and m y radio's bust. Besides which, it's better with pictures isn't it? (Carl). I like listening to m usic, but I prefer television now. 1 only wish we could get M TV installed in here (Richard).

I is

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M e a n i n g s a n d m o t i v a t i o n s s o u g h t in s p e c ifi c m e d i a c o n t e n t

Researching the exact nature of the relationship betw een television and identity formation is not at all straightforward. Consistent with other media studies (Silverstone 1994; Herm es 1995; Gauntlett and Hill 1999), I found that empirical support for the theoretical premise that prisoners use specific media content to shape their identities in everyday life was difficult to trace. As Chapter 3 highlighted, there are inherent methodological difficulties in eliciting any information in conversation about how people interpret, accom modate and negotiate media content, let alone how they might consciously or subconsciously structure their identities around it. M ost people do not consciously think about, far less articulate, how they use media content in their daily lives. Television viewing, more than any other media-based activity, is most frequently regarded as a trivial or mindless pursuit, and whatever effects it might have on an individual's identity are, of course, but one strand within a much wider nexus of influences. However, throughout this study, a case has been constructed for the merits of a developed and refined version of the uses and gratifications approach, the central theoretical premise of which - that audiences actively choose, use, resist or ignore media influences - and revised empirical methodology - which involves talking at length with respondents about the mediation and formation of their attitudes, behavio ur and identities - provided me with a constructive means of exploring the 'internal' gratifications that media fulfil. It was therefore satisfying to find that a number of inmates were able to articulate the ways in which they use specific media texts as frames of reference in everyday life. This reflexive awareness was most evident in those people who were cognisant of the ways in which media had shaped their political views, their language and their understanding of current affairs. But more strikingly, several inmates described how strong allegiances to particular media genres helped to structure their worldview. At issue here is not the belief that media creates people's identities in a crude, deterministic fashion. In casual conversation many people make conscious references to popular culture, repeating jokes, stories or script lines they have heard, or mimicking TV personalities or advertising jingles. But more interesting to explore are the ways that representations from media and popular culture provide the signifying practices and symbolic systems which position us as subjects and through which we produce meanings (Woodward 1997: 14). As already indicated, the primary concern of this research is not to com pile a list of prisoners' favourite media. But the specific texts mentioned by individuals as being of particular importance to them

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yielded some surprising and potentially illuminating findings with which to analyse the impact of media on the lived experience of imprisonment and the identities of prisoners. Of particular interest were respondents who reflected on how the)' had been exposed to media texts in prison that were previously not only outside their normal consumption patterns, but were beyond - even at odds with - their usual habitus. The social psychologist, Sonia Livingstone (1990: 21), notes that: 'there is now ample evidence . . . that people construct various and often unexpected interpretations of programmes, reading with or against the grain, depending on their own contribution and the knowledge resources available to them.' It would be extremely speculative to suggest what kinds of media content might constitute the normal habitus of inmates, or to make generalisations about their tastes and preferences. However, given that surveys of what men in the general population of Britain watch yield few surprises (for example, of the top-twenty TV programmes watched by men in 1996, nine were football matches, unlike the w om en's top twenty which featured no sport at all12), the general observation that televised football matches were regarded with an almost ritualistic reverence in prisons was not unexpected. Similarly, the fact that prison officers in every establishment reported that the most popular daily newspaper was the Sun in part reflects its status as the best-selling title among the wider reading public. But as Livingstone (1990) intimates, it is those tastes that would be widely interpreted as going 'against the grain' which are potentially of most interest and, in general, the examples which most graphically illustrate this are those tastes and preferences that appear to be outside the boundaries of popular culture. As Bourdieu's (1984) work indicates, hierarchies of taste are largely to do with the length of histories of the art form, which operate independently of subjective factors, although it must be said that those cultural forms that are deemed to be 'high' culture are invariably of ¿litist and therefore minority appeal. In most societies, greater value is placed on 'culture' (w'hich is deemed of high artistic merit) than entertainment (which is popular, and sometimes populist), even though these may themselves be largely subjective judgements. Consequently, while it is arguable that critical, subversive and emancipatory m oments can be found equally in high culture and low culture (Kellner 1995), most people in our society would none the less concur that reading Shakespeare is more worth while than reading Stephen King, and that classical music is higher up the music hierarchy than reggae, 'whatever their personal tastes, or indeed their opinions about this ranking' (Brunsdon 1990: 75). These deeply entrenched cultural hierarchies result in some taste formations appearing more eccentric than

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others, as when a w o rking-class prisoner articulates patterns of media con su m p tion m ore typically associated with the u p per or up per-m id dle classes. The u n usualness of tastes w hich go a gainst the grain was graphically illustrated by Bill w h o said he w o u ld love to listen to Radio 3 or Classic FM in his cell, b ut 'w ou ld get lynched by the other residents of D -W ing ' if he were to do so. O ther inmates were less worried by w hat their peers w ould m ak e of their m edia habits, although tastes w hich confou nd stereotypical expectations frequently involved elaborate self­ justification: 'I k now it's rubbish b ut . . . ' and 'you m igh t not think it to look at m e b u t I'm a big fan of . . . ' were typical prefaces to statem ents of taste. O ne of the m o st interesting findings of this research was that several inm ates had created new identities and w h ole new outlooks on life as a result of being exposed to previously u n k n o w n m edia texts while in prison. E x a m p le s h av e been offered in relation to in m ate s' relations to the press, and in general it w as broa d sh ee t n e w sp ap e rs with w h a t m ight be described as a mission to educate, like the G u ardian , that were m o st frequently m entioned in relation to 'im p ro v in g ' respond ents' sen se of them selv es and d eveloping a 'b roa d er frame of reference within w hich to evaluate life choices' (Gaes et al, 1999: 163). H ow ever, television and radio m aterial could also fulfil this role. D enzel put it as follows: 'I watch new s, P an oram a, docu m en taries. I never used to on the outside. In-cell T V 's m ad e me m ore aw are of new s, and everyone in here talks about stuff.' A n other striking e xam p le involved Paul, an inm ate at W hitem oor, w h o talked a b ou t his radio listening. It is tem pting to m ake assum p tio ns about the m edia preferences of a y ou ng, black, m ax im u m -se cu rity prisoner in one of the co u n try 's m ost notoriou s dispersal jails. But that this would expose this study to accusations of perpetu ating stereotypes w as illustrated w h en Paul revealed he w as a devoted fan of Radio 4 and particularly enjo yed The M oral M aze, a 'talking h e a d s' style of p ro g ram m e that involves acad em ics and other pro m in en t intellectuals attem pting to unravel and resolve som e of the m ost com plex ethical d ilem m as facing m o d e rn society. The characterisation of The M oral M aze as a p ro g ra m m e that challenges som e of the greatest m ind s in the cou ntry is not to m ake a ju d g e m e n t that it is intrinsically m ore w orthy than, say, E astE n d ers, or that Paul was in som e w ay 'o d d ' for listening to it. Indeed, the fact he d em onstra ted a high level of critical e n g a g e m e n t in the discussions of the m ost recent broad cast illustrates that the div ide b etw een 'high culture' and 'l o w / p o p u l a r culture' is gradually b e co m in g obsolete. Yet at the sam e time, peer-related notio ns of w h at is 'h ig h b ro w ' or 'elitist' and w hat is 'm ain stre am ' or 'cool' still persist, and I was im pressed that Paul told his story - albeit so m e w h a t self-consciously - in the public forum of

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W h ite m o o r 's Lifer Discussion Group. A n other case of tastes that go against the grain, and a striking exam p le of how m edia have, to a great extent, su p p lem ented or even replaced the 'significant others' w h o m ed iate to the individual the cu ltural values and m ea n in g s of the world he or she inhabits w as Tim, w h o described him self as a 'Christian heavy m etal b ik e r'. Dressed in a leather jacket over his prison uniform , and sporting n u m e ro u s facial and b od y tattoos and piercings, I w as s o m e w h a t surprised w h en he described his en jo y m en t of the BBC1 p ro g ra m m e , C han gin g R oom s: 1 love that C han gin g R oom s. I get loads of ideas from it - 1 c a n 't wait to get out of here and decorate my ow n place. I definitely w an t deep red, textured walls. I'v e learn t a lot, like how to mix coarse buildin g sand in with paint. Gives it a fantastic texture. I like Laurence L le w e llyn -B o w e n . I'd like to be L aurence L lew ellyn-B o w en. I know he's a bit cam p, but I'd m o d e l m yself on him. H e's cultured, he's stylish. Classy w ithout being boring. T h a t's how I w an t to be. Thro ug h a process of sy m bolic interactio nism Tim w as projecting him self into another person's cu ltural identity and, at the sam e time, internalising the m ean in g s and values w h ich are culturally available, and m aking them part of his own aspirational identity. Any sense of irony in his choice of role m o del - a clean-cut, foppish interior d esigner k n ow n for w earing velvet suits, brocad e w aistcoats and frilled shirt cuffs - w as not apparent in Tim 's account. O f all television genres, two em erged as m ost p o pular a m o n g my sam ple. The first, new s and current affairs, is consistent with the findings of research analysing the view ing preferences of 'g endered individuals': while w o m e n are m ore likely to prefer fictional p ro g ram m e s with a high com ic or ro m antic content, m en are m ore likely to express preferences for new s, current affairs, d ocu m en taries and p ro g ra m m e s with a high factual or 'a ction ' content (M orley 1986; Fiske 1987). These findings are in them selves pro blem atic (Philo 1990; Gau ntlett and Hill 1999), but that m ale prisoners watch television p ro g ram m e s (and for that matter, listen to radio and read new sp ap ers) in order to keep abreast of national and international events is not especially rem arkable, w h eth er it is gender related or not. For individuals w ho have been stripped of m any rights it is, as H e rm e s (1999: 83) notes, 'a safe bet that w atching the ne w s has to do with strengthening one's sense of citizenship'. W h a t is arguably more interesting is the degree of k no w le d g e that som e inm ates d em onstrated about national and world events that they could play no part in, a p h e n o m en o n that w as particularly evident am o n g so m e of the inmates

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w ho attended the dialogue group at W hitem oor. With very limited opportunities to watch television (in-cell television had not been installed at the time of my research), prisoners at W h ite m o o r relied greatly upon n e w sp a p e rs and radio broadcasts, both of w h ich m ay contain a greater degree of editorials, opinion and in-depth analysis than television. C o nseq u ently they had a breadth and depth of k now led g e about current affairs w h ich, I reflected at the time, w as probably greater than that of m o st univ ersity students. Local new s w as of extrem e im portance to the few prisoners w ho originated from the local area, and of little or no im portance at all to the majority, w h o were draw n from other parts of the country. S o m e inmates had n e w sp ap e rs from their ow n locality sent in by m e m b er s of their families. The familiarity of layout and content of regio nal titles not only helped to soften the blow of being rem oved from norm al life, b u t was also perceiv ed to aid rein tegration into the c o m m u n ity on release. A part from new s, the other genre that w as identified as being alm ost univ ersally popular, and one that cut across all d em o g rap h ic distinctions, was n a tu re /w ild life p ro g ra m m e s on television. R easo ns given for love of such material w ere varied, although for m o st respond ents there w as a sug g estio n of their e du cational value. M r B observed that nature p ro g ram m e s presen t e du cational m aterial in a w ay that is palatable to the prison audience. Aware of the po or literacy and n u m e ra cy levels of m any inmates, he said that m an y of his fellow prisoners w ould never take up the education facilities in prisons: 'ed ucation is often not seen as "fo r m e " ' (M r B). Television content therefore provides an accessible alternative w h ich, as Carl put it, 'keeps the brain ticking o v er'. M r B's ow n reason for w atching wildlife pro g ra m m e s betrayed som ething of his ow n feelings ab ou t his current situation: 'I watch them b ecau se animals d o n 't m ake ju d g em en ts .' O thers expressed different reasons: 'It's freedom isn't it. It's soo thin g'; 'W h e n y ou 're behind bars, it's w o nd erful to see an im als roam ing free'; and 'I love to see the colours of tropical birds and beautiful flow ers; all you see round here is varying shad es of grey, so it really w akes up your senses to see a fantastic kingfisher or am azingly coloured fish', w ere typical co m m e n ts , suggestin g these view ers find space for contem plation or revitalisation in depictions of nature. The inm ates' idealised vision of the natu ral world echoed the oftenrom anticised re presentatio n mediated to television viewers. The co m m e n ts quoted above recall S im p s o n 's (1984: 1 6 -1 7 ) description of the appeal of the now d efunct BBC 2 p ro g ra m m e , O n e M an an d his Dog: A g ain st the assault by the m anu factu red noises of w o rk or play, which is constan t in m o st lives, the sou nd s of the p ro g ra m m e are 120

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beautifully definite and assertively 'n atural': wind and water, ab rupt c o m m a n d s , occasional thunder, all captu red and relayed to us with a transparent sim plicity and directness m ad e possible by ad vanced technology and sophisticated production skills . . . Actual sh e ep d og trials are often carried out over terrain w hich can be rugged and dull, but here . . . the cam era can sw eep in the classic elem ents of rural im agery - nearby fields, distant hills, a patterned sky and reflecting water. H ow ever, Mai,

a senior officer at Gartree, had

a more pragm atic

explanation for the popularity of wildlife show s: i t ' s about power, and killing, and hierarchies, isn't it. Law of the ju ng le, survival of the to ughest, the natural pecking order where the ones at the bottom perish . . . Tha t's w h y I've alw ays assum ed they all watch th e m '.13 In a sim ilar vein, another very popular pro g ram m e type w as gardening show s. Rarely a reflection of an actual hobby, gard ening pro g ram m e s seemed generally liked becau se of their depiction of natu ral surrou ndings; an im portant feature to residents of w h a t was frequently described as a 'sensory -d e p rivation ' environm ent. For s om e, an interest in nature and wildlife pro g ram m e s extended to real life. At Stocken, there was a small aviary attached to G-W ing, and m any inm ates described how they spent hou rs w atching the b u d g erig ars and other small birds in there. Bill, m ea nw h ile, w ho spoke of natu re show s w a k in g up the senses, described the pleasure gained from having a small p o t of lemon thym e on his cell w ind ow sill: 'the sm ell w h e n you rub the leaves is unbelievable, I tell you. O u t of this w o rld .' Paul talked about the birds w hich m igrate to a nearby reservoir: 'From m y cell w ind ow I can so m e tim e s see herons and corm oran ts . . . I love w atching the birds . . . I watch all the wildlife s h ow s.' In its capacity to act as an im m ediate, dem ocratic and visual 'springboard for the im ag in atio n ' (G auntlett and Hill 1999: 131), television consu m ption is of particular interest in relation to the fo rming of subject positions and, in line with other m edia studies, I found that 'cult' T V sh o w s opened up distinct possibilities of u n d erstand ing the relationship b etw ee n television and identity. M o st notable in this respect w as science fiction; the genre m o st explicitly related to by prisoners for the construction of personal identities. O f all the science fiction texts m entioned , the vario us S tar Trek series stood out as being those that m ost co m m o n ly facilitated the playing ou t of those identities.14 For exam ple, M r B's appreciation of the Star Trek series w as far m ore than mere superficial en jo y m en t; it was an integral part of his identity formation from an early age: 'A s an adolescent, you use TV show s w h en you are 121

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trying to find your identity. So m eth in g resonates.' Like B atm an, Star Trek is a text open to multiple interpretations, and appeals to both adults and children on different levels. But M r B's co m m e n t ab ou t som ething resonating in adolescence is telling. Star Trek is typically characterised as a p ro g ram m e that appeals to ad olescent m ales, b ut the fact that m any older m en (and w o m e n ) continu e to follow b oth the m o st recent series and its previous incarnations may, as Spigel and Jenk ins (1991) suggest, be evidence of a desire to celebrate youthful fantasy and turn the present into the past. It also purports to be a show that is aim ed at an intelligent and d iscrim inating audience. A lthough keen to deny that the pro g ram m e formed any kind of fixation, M r B nevertheless adm itted that aspects of it were an integral part of his fantasy life and provided relief from d epression, anxiety and feelings of inadequacy, even joking that his allegiance to the show m u st be pro of of his 'arrested d ev elo p m en t'. But he also used the show to explore the relationship b etw een em otion and intellect in his ow n life, to the extent w h ere S tar Trek form ed a m ajor part of his correspo nd ence with his wife w h o, as his co-accused, was serving a prison sentence in a w o m e n 's prison in another part of the country. Spigel and Jenk ins (1991) and Tulloch and Jenkins (1995) suggest that m em orie s of popular culture can assum e a Utopian quality, offering a fantasy that denies the reality of present circum stances and allow s us to rein vent our present selves as w e evoke pow erfu l and poignant m o m en ts from the past. And so it seem ed with M r B and his wife, w h ose personal histories w ere intertw ined with the m any series of the show spanning ov er thirty years. In their correspo nd ence to each other, they used Star Trek to ward off the difficult realities of their current lives, and to construct a ro m antic vision of a better past w h en they had been together. Additionally, although a self-confessed loner w h o had little time for other inmates, M r B adm itted that those prisoners w ho he did socialise with were a c o m m u n ity with mixed class, nationality and ethnic alignm ents w h o were loosely organised around their shared fanship of Star Trek. This in itself was interesting in so far as m o st of the staff w h o knew that I had in terview ed M r B described him as p o m p o u s , aloof and 'full of him self'. I found him to be so m e o n e w ho had a very strong public identity; he presented him self as a cultured, sensitive, highly educated and erudite m an, well aw are - and keen to e m phasise - his differences from the rest of the prison population (as a black A m erica n, his nationality and ethnicity were obviou s aspects of his difference). He knew that som e of the staff and other inmates felt him to be snobbish and cond escend ing , and with som e justification. Yet w h en it cam e to sharing inform ation and view s a b ou t Star Trek with other inm ates, social and cultural differences appeared to be transcended. 122

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A n o th e r science fiction p ro g ram m e that inspired a particularly potent form of fandom w as D octor W ho. Like Star Trek it m ig h t be said to constitu te a so m e w h a t extrem e form of escapist fantasy, b u t its appeal is also potentially grounded in more m u n d a n e interests. G auntlett and Hill (1999: 137) quote a writer of D octor W ho novels w h o claim s that the core appeal of the e p o n y m o u s hero is that he 'd o e s n 't take up g un s or w e a p o n s . . . [but] defeats the bad guys by being m ore intelligent and w ittier and wilier than they a re ',15 a s en tim ent that was expressed by a n u m b e r of respond ents w h o likened the Time Lord to a criminal m asterm ind . D u nn (1979: 3 5 1 -5 2 ) surm ises that the appeal of sci-fi p ro g ra m m e s is they represent a 'r e lig io u s / m a g ic a l belief in technical m astery over evil forces'; again an attractive elem ent in a context w h ere religious and superstitious beliefs exist in roughly equal measure. Moreover, in the prison environm ent, w h ere time is so fu nd am entally linked to relations of power, there may even be som e attraction in the idea that time can be possessed, travelled through and re-ordered. There certainly seem ed to be evidence of e n jo y m en t in being part of a discrete fan culture associated with all these show s, and in the cases of D octor W ho and the early Star Trek series, part of their attraction w as being able to deco de the subtle - and s om etim es rath er cam p - humour. But for other respond ents, there was a m ore serious pu rpose to view ing them. Joe, a life-sentence prisoner, view ed Star Trek in relation to his ow n position as so m e o n e w h ose sense of agency has been dim inished since going to prison. His statem ent that: 'you have no control over a nything in prison . . . I'm a Trekkie and I believe that there's got to be som ething bigger and better than us o u t there - I believe that g ov ern m e n ts are holding out on us', led to a lengthy discussion about conspiracy theories, and was an indication of his ow n feelings of paranoia in the face of o v erw h e lm in g authoritarian, and frequently faceless, bureaucratic structures. In addition, the idealistic social vision offered by science fiction show s, and their special em p h a sis on values such as com munity, m orality and equality, are th em es that have been described as 'an ideal prescription for view ers routinely suffering from feelings of alienation, p o w erlessness and con fu sion ' (D unn, 1979: 352). A n y form of fandom offers a place of acceptance and tolerance, but the particular enthusiasm and loyalty generated by science fiction texts indicate that m an y viewers use them as a m ajor point of reference in their lives. In particular, there is evidence that view ers w ho m ig ht be classed as minorities (of racial or ethnic origin, sexual orientation and so on) or w h o sim ply have a sense of dislocation from the 'real w o rld ' and w h o desire, b ut perhaps also fear, change, are attracted to the representation of a future not yet form ed. 123

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Texts like Star Trek and Doctor Who may interpellate prisoners because they frequently highlight injustice or discrimination and open up new possibilities for the formation of a Utopian future. Apart from responses identifying science fiction programmes, which might be said to promote an extreme version of fandom and - at the other extreme - news, current affairs, documentaries and wildlife or natureorientated shows, which had a very broad appeal, the question, 'what is your favourite television programme?' yielded disappointingly vague or bland replies. Most respondents had difficulty singling out one specific show and, even if they could, their reasons for identifying it as their favourite programme proved intangible. I therefore experimented with the format of the question and found that 'who is your favourite television presenter?' provoked much more explicit and discursive responses, while still providing me with the information I sought. The most common responses to my inquiry about favourite presenters involved naming young women who are as famous for posing as glamour models as they are for their broadcasting skills. In this context, Gail Porter, Denise van Outen, Melinda Messenger and Kelly Brook were all mentioned several times, although it was not necessarily their more obvious attributes that were dwelt upon: in fact many inmates offered quite detailed critiques of the shows with which these women are associated. The search for an acceptable masculinity was none the less strongly evident in the number of responses that explicitly mentioned female nudity or female sexuality as a primary requirement of film, TV and magazine content. This imperative ranged from the mild (the infamously bra-less TV gardener, Charlie Dim mock, a presenter on several BBC shows, was named by no less than fourteen respondents in answer to the question, 'W ho is your favourite TV presenter?') to the extreme, with several respondents complaining about the restrictions on hard-core pornography in prisons. Rules governing the importation into prison of soft-core pornography vary from institution to institution, although in most establishments it is tolerated in the interests of normalising the prison environment. Interestingly, an inmate at Gartree who was blind complained vociferously about the unfairness of the governor's decision not to allow him to have pornography on audiocassette. His argument was that sighted inmates are permitted to subscribe to 'top-shelf' magazines, so why should he not enjoy the same kind of benefit? Other common responses to the request to name a favourite presenter were Angus Deayton and Nick Hancock, specifically in relation to their roles presenting the BBC2 news quiz H ave I Got Neivs For You and the BBC1 sports quiz They Think It's All Over, respectively. A number of respondents talked at length about their enjoyment of these programmes and about 124

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their appreciation of other, regular guests on each show (Paul Merton and Jonathan Ross in particular). In the case of Have I Got News For You, two respondents mentioned they used it as an alternative to watching the news, believing it kept them up to date with all the week's important events or at least those that were likely to be of most interest to them. In the case of both programmes, the inmates who highlighted them seemed particularly to like the anarchic, satirical and irreverent style of them, and they used these elements as ways of reflecting the differences between their own attitudes and values and those proposed to them by the dominant social norms. Both shows are characterised by a candid disrespect for figures of authority (politicians, celebrities and members of the royal family in the case of Have I Got Neivs For You and well-known and loved sports personalities on They Think It's A ll Over). Indeed good-humoured banter can quickly degenerate into something much crueller and many guests are invited on to the programmes only to face humiliation at the hands of the presenters and panel regulars. Not only is the mocking repartee of these shows reminiscent of much social interaction in prison, but the offensiveness of much of the humour, and the fact that it is largely directed at those with authority or high cultural status, marks it out as something which is not 'officially' approved of. In other words, in their derisive, devilmay-care attitude, these programmes challenge conventional top-down power relations and provide prisoners with support for those social identities they make for themselves which are based on resistance and their disdain for officialdom. The mostly male domination of the programmes, combined with what might be termed their ia d d ish ' humour, is also of appeal to many respondents who reinforce the relaxed, rebellious and macho tone of the programmes in their choice of viewing mode ('feet up on the bed', 'bit of puff', some hooch, etc).16 For others, the search for identity reinforcement is not so fruitful. Three respondents who originated from London reported they had tuned in to the soap EastEnders only to be disappointed by its inaccuracies and failure to represent 'th eir' East End: 'I miss London, London accents. EastEnders is hopeless - it's nothing like the East End.' Soap operas generally provoked mixed reactions. Widely accorded relatively low status, few inmates confessed to watching soaps, although several commented that 'everyone else in here watches them all the time'. Ray, a lifer, mocked: 'some of them in here watch all the soaps and then they watch all the repeats of all the soaps as well. I sometimes w onder if they're expecting the plots to change in the om nibus!' Giddens (1991a: 199) suggests that their repetitive, formulaic nature is precisely what makes soaps so attractive:

I 25

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Soap operas mix predictability and contingency by m eans of fo rm ulae which, becau se they are well know n to the audience, are slightly disturbing b u t at the sam e time reassuring. They offer mixtures of contingency, reflexivity and fate. The form is w hat matters rath er than the content; in these stories one gains a sense of reflexive control over life circum stances, a feeling of coherent narrative w hich is a reassuring b alance to difficulties in sustaining the narrativ e of the self in actual social situations. Th a t soaps give a sense of reflexive control over, and coherence and continuity in, otherw ise fragm ented lives would sug g est they are potentially of profound im portance to those w ho live in unpredictable and disrupted circum stances, so the un w illingn ess of m y prisoner respond ents to ad m it to w atching them is puzzling. H ow ever, the scornful attitu de tow ards soaps, voiced by m any of m y respondents, is held to be typical of men (M orley 1986; G ray 1987; Liv ingstone 1990), and often seem s to constitu te w h at they regard as expected behaviour. But with a little probing som e respond ents w ho b eg an by m ocking 'soap ad dicts' eventually admitted to being regular view ers them selves, although usually with a proviso such as 'm y cellm ate w atches th em , so I have to' or 'I only w atch them if there's nothing else on'. This reluctance to a ck n ow le d g e their en jo y m en t of w h at are usually thought of as 'w o m e n 's p ro g ra m m e s ' may be a reflection of the requ irem ents of the environm ent publicly to m aintain an overtly m ascu line facade. However, given the capacity of soap opera to allow escapism (in its positive sense as a rational and pu rposefu l strategy for rem ov al from an oppressive present reality) m en in prison m ay find them selves using m edia in ways more co m m o n ly found a m o n g w o m en. For those inmates who are vulnerable to unw anted attention from other prisoners (sexual advances, physical assault, bullying or w h atev er), and w ho m ig h t thus be said to represent the feminised 'o th e r', m edia m ay provide a sanctuary in w hich to escape from a routine consistin g largely of d om estic drudgery and m u n d a n e , repetitive w ork. Like the w o m e n w ho read rom antic novels (R ad w ay 1984) and the fe male d evotees of soap operas (H o bson 1982), those m ale prisoners w ho are d eem ed w e ak or subordinate in the eyes of other inmates m ay use m edia texts in conv entionally 'f em in in e' ways in order to subvert, opt out of, or sim ply take a break from the conv entional site of h e gem on ic, m ascu line pow er.17 There were two notable e xceptions to the general public disdain for soaps. The first, T he B ill, was generally classed by respond ents as a dram a rather than a soap, thus avoiding the characterisation of it as a 'w o m e n 's pro g ra m m e '. It also contains a relatively high level of violence for a pre­ 126

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w atershed series, w h ich w as noted as an attraction to so m e respondents, and w h ich again could be interpreted as evidence of m asculine hegem ony. Also pertinent in the context of this study is the fact that The B ill is a dram atic portrayal of the police, in w hich the story lines inevitably and invariably revolve around their dealings with criminals. Several respond ents said that The B ill w as better view ed in association with other prisoners, w h ere co m m o n d ecoding strategies could be e m ployed: 'We like taking the piss out of it' and 'w e enjo y seeing the police being portrayed as the idiots they are . . . w e can have a good laugh w h en they cock things up' were typical com m ents. The other show that seem ing ly transcends the generally patronising view s tow ard s soap opera was Em m erdale, w hich was p o pular with inmates right across the spectrum of age, class and sentence length. So wid espread is its popularity that it seem s to constitu te s om ething of an institution in prisons and, together with The Bill and sports fixtures, was the only p ro g ram m e explicitly m entioned as being m ore enjo yable w atched with other inmates. Few, how ever, were able to articulate w hat it is about the pro g ra m m e that they like so m u ch, and co m m e n ts along the lines of 'It's ju st the best, isn 't it? I d o n 't know why, b u t it is' were frequently made. It m ay be p o pular for sim ilar reasons to those Tulloch and M o ran (1986) uncovered in their study of the A ustralian serial, A C ou n try P ractice, a soap which succeeded in attracting audiences from teenagers to over-sixty-fives by using age-focused subplots and characterisation. Equally likely, given the reasons stated for the wid espread popularity of nature and wildlife p ro g ram m e s, E m m erdale m ay appeal to the desire for freedom and escap ism . Tulloch and M o ra n 's (ibid.) co m m e n t that A C ou n try P ractice incorporated a pasto ral m yth of A ustralian space, and appealed to a sub consciou s yearning for the country, may be mirrored a m o n g the prisoners I met, m any of whom hailed from urban spaces and had spent a significant proportio n of their lives behind bars. M o st of E m m erdale's devotees had only started to watch it w'hen they first entered prison, w hich m ay indicate that the soap - set in a rural location and contextualised by farm ing and cou ntryside issues - is p o pular b ecau se it evokes that sa m e myth . T he fact that m any respond ents m entioned E m m erdale's title seq u ence w h ic h is a s w eeping cam era shot over verdant, rolling cou ntryside, m ay su p p ort this theory. In conclusion to this chapter, I hope that the exploratio n of the m icro ­ context of prison societies has d em onstrated how the m any assaults that are inflicted on one's identity by the experience of im p riso n m e n t are m itigated by private, localised m edia con su m p tion . The discussion of the m ean in g s and m o tiv ations sou gh t from specific m edia texts has revealed som e particularly interesting findings relating to m edia con su m p tion and 127

Ca p t i v e a u d i e n c e

personal identity. As indicated, it was the unusual, idiosyncratic and genuinely perception-changing examples of media content that proved most enlightening. Som e commentators have criticised ethnographic accounts for failing to provide quantification of their findings (Schroder 1999), and concomitantly losing sight of any patterns of media reception Murdock 1997; Mackay 1997). However, the limiting of context to a particular environment, and the concentration on one particular social grouping, in part avoids allegations of diversity over consistency. The fact that I did not set out to quantify respondents' individual media preferences, or to seek their interpretations of pre-identified texts, was a significant feature of this study and an important departure from recent audience studies. In rejecting the assumption that there are as many meanings or gratifications available in a text as there are viewers (Morley 1980), this study is less concerned with how audiences relate to, make sense of and use a preselected media text, and more interested in how viewing activities are organised by individuals within specific and unique private settings that are arguably more subject to material and structural forms of power than most. Furthermore, those examples that were discussed were mentioned more or less spontaneously by interviewees, and can therefore be presumed to be genuinely important. Other researchers have reflected with hindsight that participants 'produced' responses to a programme which they otherwise would not have watched (Morley 1992), sometimes simply to have something to say, or to please the researcher. In any case, the quantification of data could not have shed any light on the ways in which media use nurtures the self or facilitates social affiliation within the highly structured and regulated world of the prison. It perhaps goes without saying that hobby or special interest magazines can help to maintain sense of self inside; or that among a population where many individuals have reading difficulties and short attention spans, the Sun is the most widely read newspaper. Given the extreme displays of masculinity and physical toughness that one finds in prisons, it was also of little surprise that the film genre m ost favoured by young prisoners was the masculinist hero movie in which actors like Arnold Schw arzenneger and Jean-C laude Van D am m e use excessive, if often cartoon-like, violence to resolve conflicts. But the advantage of conducting lengthy and intensive interviews was that it was possible to explore beyond the expected or taken for granted, and investigate the complex ways in which media resources - and specific media texts - are consumed, enjoyed and used as a primary site of meaning and identityconstruction in the reflexive project of the self. The chapter has highlighted some of the ways in which media are used as material for 128

T h e m ic r o s o c ia l c o n t e x t s o f m e d ia use

p r e s e n t i n g o n e s e l f to o n e s e l f in o r d e r to h o ld o n to a c o h e r e n t i m a g e of " w h o o n e k n o w s o n e i s " ( D e N o r a 2 0 0 0 : 6 2 ). B u t in tro je c tio n is n o t the o n l y b a s is fo r th e c o n s t r u c t i o n of self-id e n tity . A l s o s ig n if ic a n t is the m e d i a ' s ro le in p r o v i d i n g th e m a t e r i a l for 'p r o j e c t i n g ' id e n titie s ; d e v i c e s fo r 's p i n n i n g th e a p p a r e n t l y c o n t i n u o u s tale o f wrh o o n e is' to o t h e r s w h o in h a b it th e s a m e s o c ia l m ilie u (ibid.). It is to th e s o c i a l m ilie u o f th e p r is o n -

w h e r e s t r u c t u r a l d e m a n d s from ' a b o v e ' m e r g e w ith so c ia l a n d 's e lf'

i m p e r a t i v e s from 'b e l o w ' - th a t w e n o w tu rn . 1 These distinctions denote the different levels of eng ag em en t with media texts. Primary involvem ent occurs when the m edium is the exclusive and focused activity. Secondary involvem ent occurs w h en media c onsu m ption is accom panied by other activities; for instance, listening to the radio while driving the car or listening to music while working. Tertiary

involvem ent is the least intensive, where one

might glance briefly at a

newspaper, perhaps opening it at the TV schedule or the sports page, or have the television switched on but with the sound turned d ow n w hile awaiting the next pro g ra m m e (Tunstall 1983; O 'S u llivan et al 1994). 2 Alasuutari (1999b: 100) states that, while radio could be equated to coffee - a stimulant - television is more like an alcoholic drink or narcotic, used as a m eans of relaxation and escapism . These m etaphors seem apt in the prison context where m any older and lo n g ­ term inmates favoured radio to keep up to date with new s and cultural events, and felt com pelled to offer elaborate justifications to explain or justify their television viewing choices, yet m ost you n g e r or short-term

inmates praised the soporific qualities of

television, and admitted their TV viewing was som etim es accom panied by hooch or drugs use. 3 H erm es (1995: 142) describes a sim ilar process am ong the lower-class female readers of gossip m agazines who describe the 'g a m e ' of 'ferreting out a truth' from betw een the lines of salacious text as m ak ing them 'feel m ore aliv e'. In relation to the reading strategies of the tabloid audience, P ursehou se's (1991) study is also of interest. 4 Any connection betw een media use and recidivism is beyond the scope of this project, although evidence suggests a link betw een education opportu nities in prison (with which media resources are often associated) and a decreased proclivity to reoffend (Gaes et al 1999). 5 In addition to the m any prison sociologists who have found this, and w h ose work was reviewed in Ch apter 1, there are, once again, striking sim ilarities to be found in studies of un em ploy m en t. 6 The term s 'introjection' and 'introspection' have been used interchangeably in this book, although their m eaning is slightly different. The former is a psychoanalytic term referring to the 'u nconsciou s incorporation of external ideas into one's own m in d ', while the latter is a more general description of the 'e xam ination of one's th oughts and feelings' (O ED). 7 Sparks et al (1996: 233) report that recorded disciplinary offences reach their lowest point on Saturday, and that prisoners (like m ost of us) view the w eekend as being qualitatively different from the rem ainder of the week, with greater opportu nities for leisure pursuits. Staff, too, are likely to adopt a more relaxed approach at w eek end s, imposing sanctions only as a last resort. 8 The collections of h o m e-m ad e weapons, com m u n ication s devices and other assorted artefacts that many prison security offices house bear testim ony to the resourcefulness of people w h o have time to develop and hone their already considerable skills of

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in v e n tio n . S o m e o f the m o s t inte restin g item s I saw inclu d ed a h o m e - m a d e tattooing m a c h i n e and a tele visio n co n s tru cte d insid e a c a r w in g mirror. 9 A rg u ab ly , it is only in those p ris o n s w h ere there is a stro n g s en se of leg itim a cy that such b o u n d a r ie s can be b ro k e n d o w n , alb e it te m po rarily . F o r G o ffm a n and o th e r situ a tion ists, the roles of p ris o n e r and prison officer w o u ld h av e to b e b oth clearly d efined and in h eren tly stable (in d e p e n d e n tly and in relation to ea ch other) for such in co n s iste n t b e h a v io u r to be reversed and p re v io u s d efin itio n s reasserted the fo llo w in g day. 10 F o r e x a m p le , S c a n n e ll (1996: 95ff) n o te s that if by c h a n c e w e w itn e s s an a c c id e n t or d is a s te r - for e x a m p le , a car crash - m a n y of us will later ch e ck it ou t on the te levision or rad io s im p ly to confirm that it w a s the d is a s te r w e th o u g h t it to b e and to valid ate ou r p e rs o n a l a s s e s s m e n t of the e xp e rie n ce . 11 P riso ns p ro v id e only a p e rip h e ra l e x a m p le in M e y r o w i tz 's w o r k and there is no e v id e n c e his d is c u s s io n s of the im p a c t o f e le ctro n ic m e d ia in prison s h av e any b a sis in e m p irica l in v e s tig a tio n . In m y view, w h ile his o b s e r v a tio n s c o n c e rn in g the p o te n tia l o f n ew m e d ia are p e rce p tiv e , his estim a tio n of their cu rre n t ap p lica tio n is s p e c u la tiv e and o v ersta ted . H e d o e s at o n e p o int, h o w e v e r, a c k n o w le d g e that the freed om p ro vided b y in fo rm a tio n a cce ss a lo n e is a lim ited o n e (M e y ro w itz 1985: 180). 12 F ig u re s taken from rating s o r g a n is a tio n , B A R B , s u r v e y o f 1996 (in G a u n tle tt and Hill 1999: 218). 13 Interestingly, th o u g h , the w a lls o f the s e n io r o ffice rs ' room in w h ic h I in te rv ie w e d M a i w ere b e d e c k e d w ith pictu res of w ild a n im a ls , w h ic h , w e reflected h u m o ro u s ly , m ig h t be an ind ication that p ris o n e rs and officers are m o re alike than e ith e r party w o u ld like to think. 14 G a u n tle tt and Hill (19 99 ) also n ote the s p e cial sig n ifican c e o f S tar Trek in their stu d y of the v ie w in g h ab its of five h u n d red British TV vie w e rs. T h e re h av e b ee n s ev eral d ifferent v e rs io n s o f S ta r Trek o v e r the y e a rs, w ith v a r io u s c h a n g e s in cast, p ro d u c tio n te a m s and so on. S e v e r a l p ris o n e rs e n g a g e d in l e n g th y d is c u ss io n s a b o u t the relativ e m e rits o f e ach , a lth o u g h m o st c o m m e n t s co n c e rn e d the version o f the sh o w b e in g tran sm itted on B B C 2 at the tim e o f the stu d y : S ta r Trek: T h e N ex t G en era tio n . 15 C o rn e ll, P. (19 98 ) We are tim e 's c h a m p io n s . In te rv ie w w ith D a v e O w e n . D o c to r W ho M a g a z in e 2 6 7 (July): 4 6 - 5 1 . 16 F iske (1994) n o te s s o m e th i n g sim ilar in his a n a ly sis o f the cu ltu ra l p ra ctice s o f A m e r ic a n te en a g ers and y o u n g a d u lts w a t c h in g the show M a rried . . . W ith C h ild ren , a lth o u g h in this case resistance is to the to p -d o w n p o w e r relatio n sh ip b e tw e e n the y o u n g s te r s and their m o s t i m m e d ia te figures o f a u th o rity - their parents. 17 Interestingly, a lth o u g h n u m e r o u s r e s p o n d e n ts read ily a d m itte d to re a d in g tab lo id s, and e sp ecia lly liked the m a g a z in e s that c o m e w ith the w e e k e n d ve rs io n s , n o n e m e n tio n e d the high c o n t e n t o f celebrity g ossip that d o m in a te s th e se p u b lic a tio n s. G iv e n the reasons that w o m e n read 'g o ss ip m a g a z i n e s ' - to feel c o n n e c te d to a w i d e r c o m m u n ity , to feel in v olv e d in an 'e x te n d e d fa m ily ' o f ce le b ritie s, to e x p e rie n c e the fr iss o n of m e lo d r a m a w h en s o m e th i n g s h o c k in g o ccu rs to a w e ll-k n o w n p e rs o n a lity and 'e n jo y it w h en things go b a d ly for rich and fa m o u s p e o p le ', to v alid a te their o w n p e rs o n a l k n o w le d g e or e x p e rie n c e etc. (H e r m e s 1 99 5; 1999) - it s e e m s s tra n g e that n o n e of m y i n te rv ie w e e s m e n tio n e d this featu re o f the m a g a z in e s they ro u tin e ly read , e sp e cia lly as g ossip is an in teg ral featu re o f the prison c o m m u n ity . T h e only reason I can s u g g e s t for the o m issio n is that, like s o ap s, 'g o s s i p ' is c o n s id ere d a fe m in in e activity, to be e n g a g e d in, b u t not a d m itte d to, b y m en.

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C h apter 5

T h e m e s o - s p h e r e o f culture, interaction and hyper-m asculinity

In adopting the term 'm eso' to describe the sphere of culture and social interaction where inmates suspend their pre-prison identities and construct social identities that will conform to the expectations and dem ands of the fratriarchal, hegemonic prison culture, the aim is to avoid some of the tensions found in studies which privilege either the micro or the macro in their analyses of power, identity and accountability in prisons.1 In general, these studies have developed largely independently of one another, the former resulting in mostly small-scale qualitative studies which have neglected to give sufficient weight to the structural constraints placed on action, and the latter failing to explain differential responses at the level of the individual (Jupp 1989: 123). Within these polarised positions, little attention has been paid to the relationship between private troubles, impersonal and inaccessible structures, and the 'middle ground' of com munity experience or com m on struggle. Even Sykes' classic prison sociology The Society o f C aptives (1958), which might be described as a 'm eso' study in that it establishes the importance of the inmate culture as compensation for the pains of imprisonment, fails adequately to account for the interface betw een prisons and society, and also - much like Foucault - neglects to recognise diversity among the inmate population, assuming that all prisoners are fundamentally alike. Furthermore, most of the studies that refer to inmate subcultures resort to reductive typologies of inmate and many assume unproblematically that all a prisoner has to do to adapt successfully to a life of confinement is to obey the unwritten rules of the inmate culture, which are usually broadly characterised as 'never back dow n from a fight, do not grass on other inmates and never rat to the authorities'. While we should recognise the importance of these values, it should be apparent by now that the prison society is more complex than this rather negative code of conduct I3I

Capti ve audi ence

suggests, and that the m ass m edia and w id er sphere of p o pular culture have an intrinsic role to play in shaping both positive and negative constituents of the inm ate com munity. In essence, this returns us to the view that the prison world is a microcosm of the w id er society and that media con su m p tion is profou nd ly implicated in social relations and the unfolding of eve ry d ay life. In this respect, m u c h of w h at mainstream aud ience research has to say about m edia use has as m u ch b earing on the prison culture as on any other environm ent. Cu ltural m ean in g s are produced in the 'd iscursive layer b etw een individuals and their su rrou n d in g s' (H erm es 1999: 70) and in the interpersonal relations of c o m m u n ities and subcultu res. As before, how ever, it will be argued that the prison is an unusually insular and in w ard -loo k ing en v iro n m en t and that the social uses associated with m ed ia in the w id er co m m u n ity are likely to be magnified in this setting. As L ind lof (1987: 175) argues, in circum stances where personal a u to n o m y is contin ually constrained and norm a l relations with the world b eco m e tenuo us, access to m edia

m ay take on unusual

im portance. Three specific aspects of the role of m edia in the prison culture will be exam ined accordingly: how m edia help with the initial entrance into prison and the d em a n d s of socialisation; the im pact of media on the general inm ate culture and its vario us subcultures; and how media aid the m a n a g e m e n t of social netw o rk s and, in particular, the fo rm ing of friendships and partnerships.

R e c e p t io n a n d soc ialisation

As the review of the prison literature revealed, for the majority of inmates there is no more stressful time than the point at w h ich they first enter prison. Unlike m o st spheres of life, w h ere socialisation is a relatively slow process, the transition that occurs during the processes of reception and induction to a prison is sud d en and often m arked by a brutal lack of preparation. But once the 'entry -shock ' of reception has been endured, three features of life d om inate in total institutions: uniformity, conform ity and contingency. Stripped of individuality, their un iqueness disregarded and living a life that is m arked by a level of fe ar not found in m o st other areas of existence, inm ates m u s t strive to conform to the prison service's rules and regulations and to ad a p t to the pains and d ep rivations inherent in the experience of incarceration. These structural im peratives com bine to give prisoners a feeling of being d eh u m a n is ed , and m any of my research participants said they had little sense of individuality or autonom y. They claim ed that m o st aspects of prison life fu nction to 132

T h e m e s o - s p h e r e o f c u l t u r e , i n t e r a c t i o n and hyper - ma s c ul i ni t y

render them indistinguishable from their fellow inm ates so that, to the prison staff, gov ernors and to m o st of the world b eyon d , they are a faceless body of m en only discernible by the degrees of negative traits that can be assigned to them: The prison officers see us as nu m bers. We're ju st a w a ge packet to them . T h e y 'v e lost sight of us as people. As for the public, I guess w e're ju st all a b unch of anim als as far as they're concerned (Herbie). You h a v en 't got an identity in prison - I'm a number. I think w h en I get h o m e I w o n 't be able to a n sw e r to my first n a m e , I'll ju st a n sw e r to my su rn am e and number. W h e n I'v e had to go out to a funeral or to the hospital, y ou 're handcuffed all the time. They treat you like scum - you d o n 't have any d ignity (Del). The im m ediate and dram atic loss of personal identity that im p rison m e n t afflicts on inm ates can inhibit their ability to b eco m e aculturised to their new e n v iro n m en t and can m ake them w ary of social interaction: I d o n 't take any on e at face value. I'm distant with e v ery one, even m y ow n family. I've built a wall that w a s n 't there before. There are no light m o m en ts in prison . . . they take aw ay your personality. T h e y 'v e killed me. C rippled me (Jim). I fight to keep my individuality. I put forw ard my personality but I d o n 't draw people in. It's a fragile form of reality in here, it's not reality at all. Prison destroys part of your soul (Tom). It is of little surprise, then, that m any inmates report that the m ass media substantially am eliorate the passage from the outside world to the world of confinem ent. In particular, the provision of in-cell television allows inmates to continue past routines, and provides them with a familiar te m poral structure: 'You m ig h t be stuck in here and missing your family like m ad and feeling really d esperate, but E asten ders is still on at seven thirty and that's som e kind of com fort' (Bill). R outines, both spatial and tem poral, are crucial to the reproduction of social life, and to the d eflec­ tion of personal anxiety and insecurity (Giddens 1984; Bottom s et al 1990). H ow ever, ro utines are also b orn e out of patterns of interaction, and media in prisons can therefore b oth aid ontological security (by providing a familiar tem poral rhythm) and u n d erm ine it (by replacing face-toface contact). In other w ords, although carefully controlled stages of I 33

Capti ve audi ence

socialisation are perhaps the best m eans of facilitating a slow and gradual acclim atisation to the prison environm ent, for poor copers in-cell televi­ sion has provided an excuse for avoid ing socialisatio n, and w ith d ra w in g alm ost entirely from the social sphere. This point w as not lost on inmates or staff, several of w h o m observed that vulnerable, fragile or 'anti-social' inm ates had b eco m e invisible as they stayed behind their cell doors w atching television. At one of the Gartree D ebating Society m eetings, a prolonged discussion took place on this subject, with m any participants reflecting that crim inal activity itself is often the result of poor socialisa­ tion skills, and that it w as often those inm ates w h o w ere least able to engage in social intercourse w ho were m o st likely to turn on their TV sets and 'tu ne ou t' of the prison culture. An im portant, and related, point that was evident in this discussion and borne out in later interview s, is that not all prisoners feel able to cope with prison life, or even see w hy they shou ld cope. A n ne Worrall (2000) has criticised w h at she sees as the 'o utw ard b ound m entality' of the prisoner copin g literature, arguing that, in w o m e n 's prisons, the over-riding expectation that prisoners should find w ays of cop ing is incom patible with inm ates' ow n expectations: som e sim ply do n ot w a n t to cope. And so it w as for som e of the men I inter­ view ed w h o talked m o ving ly of their suffering and losses, and w ho had experienced periods of deep d epression that were only exacerbated by the d em an d s of the p e rfo rm ative m ascu line culture. The facility of in-cell tele­ vision to provide an excuse for d isengagin g from prison routine, as well as facilitating inm ate conviviality, thus m akes it central to patterns of both pro-social and anti-social adaptive strategies. But for other inm ates, the desire for self-insulation from the stark realities of incarceration is supersed ed by the need for hum an com m u n ica tion . W hile the m ajority of prisoners m ig h t feel am bivalent to w ards their fellow inm ates (expressions of differentiation from others w ere co m m o n am o n g m y research participants) they spend too m uch time in the presence of others to avoid all interaction (Schmid and Jones 1991). Furtherm ore, for new ly adm itted inm ates, there is a need to learn from others the rules of the prison (both fo rm al and informal) and assim ilate the culture as quickly as possible. A ccord ing to Schm id and Jones (ibid.: 415), w h o conducted a study of identity transform ation in an A m erican m a x im u m security prison, this assim ilatio n primarily involves the suspension of pre-institution identities and the tem porary construction of 'inauthen tic prison identities' to m ask the true self. The presentation of a public persona enables inm ates to thw art m ore radical identity chang e and to m aintain a more or less consistent sense of identity throug hout m o st of their prison careers (ibid.) Like C o hen and Taylor, they refute Irw in's assertio n that prisoners enter prison with a com m on 134

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'criminal' identity and are therefore all essentially alike, but claim that the degradations and deprivations that confront them inside constitute a com m on experience and provoke collective responses. Broadly speaking, these amount to the internalisation of feelings of vulnerability and emotional fragility. It is arguable, however, that prisoners are not quite as adept at roleplaying and impression m anagem ent as is sometimes assumed, particu­ larly when they enter prison for the first time. For some, the projection of a 'false' identity will be beyond their impression m anagem ent skills, and they will be forced to withdraw - literally and emotionally - into their private self. For others, far from being a 'false' identity as Schmid and Jones suggest, the presentation of self will be a familiar, if exaggerated, version of the social identity developed prior to entering prison. Indeed, for one of my respondents who, by his own admission was 'living a cosy life' at Ashwell, the real mask was worn outside prison: People in here aren't as hard as they make out. It's on the outside that you have to be a hard man. I'm in here for dealing, right. On the outside you have to put up a front, defend yourself. You're on the front line. But in here you don't have to be like that. I'm not nearly as aggressive as I used to be. To be honest it's a relief to be in here and to be able to let the mask drop (T). T's experience was relatively unusual, however, and most of my respondents were aware of the need to be able to interchange between private and public personas: I hate prison bccause I have to pretend to be someone I'm not. In my cell I can be myself but as soon as I come out I have to stand differently, present myself differently. W hen I'm on the phone I have to remember to swap over to m y s e l f . . . People can't spend enough time being their private selves in Ashwell. I did an HN D at Stafford in Business Studies. It gave me confidence and self-esteem. I achieved something. But generally in prison I have a sense of not having my responsibilities, not being a man. I feel less of a father, less of a man while I'm in here. I can't let them know that though. I feel like I've got a split personality, I have real mood swings (Craig). Som e inmates feel compelled to present a 'front' even with their loved ones:

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You have to put on a m a sk to your family. S o m etim e s it would be easier not to have visits. You have to get in a right good m o od , w h eth er you feel like it or n ot (Dave). People w e a r a m ask w h en they're with their family, b ut it's false. E very one need s their ow n time. We all shed a tear inside, but only behind our doors. You can 't offload on to y ou r family - I m ean it's not their fault y ou 're in here, is it? (Joe). One of the few spheres of prison life w here inmates w ere apparently able to 'drop the m a s k ' w as at the (sem i-)inform al m eeting s of Prison Dialogue where approxim ately tw enty prisoners (and s om etim es invited staff or outside guests) gathered to discuss subjects of interest, often prom pted by an issue from the w e e k 's new s (see Je w k e s 2001). O n the occasions wh en these forum s w orked well, the breadth and depth of discussions permitted participants to present aspects of their self publicly w hich were n orm ally kept private, and this seem ed to be the facto r that ensured that m ost participants retu rned. N ot only did this allow for a tem po rary denial of the prim ary identity 'p ris o n er', but it also served to dim inish the stigma of their convictions and convict-status (although on the rare occasions w h en so m e o n e alluded to their violent past or said som ething like i know I'v e killed so m e o n e but. . .' it caused the kind of frisso n that Cohen and Taylor (1972) describe w h e n one of their inform ants on D u rh a m 's E -w ing casually said 'o f course, I'm a m u rd erer'). The lo n g ­ term benefit of Prison D ialogu e is hard to m easure, although I had no dou bt that it has the capacity - at least in the short term - to restore the beleaguered self and provide a rare op portu nity in prison for individuals to reclaim a sense of their personal identity and stand out as 'figure' against 'g ro u n d ' (Burm an 1988). It also has a slightly paradoxical social benefit in that, while addressing the need s of the self, it precludes indu lgent self-interest. A lthough personal reflectiveness is encou ra g ed , the op portu nity to identify with and learn from the experiences of other inmates prohibits over-introspection and self-regard, both of w hich can afflict the self under 'n o rm a l' prison conditions. In B u rm a n 's accou nt of un em p lo y m en t, he describes the social effects of the 'U n e m p lo y m e n t Working C entre', a loose coalition of vario us interested parties w hich provides a range of services to un em p lo y ed people, including an op portu nity for them to get together and share their experiences. His assessm ent of the success of this group in bridging the gap betw ee n self and social world exactly mirrors the experien ces of m any of those w ho attended Prison D ialogue:

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In these forum s for the telling and hand ling of personal accounts, o n e 's experiences were seen to occur on a more general plane, w here they w ere elem ents and ou tcom es of com plex practices and discrim inations. The social findings learned so vividly with experienced others b ecam e conc eptual tools of escape from self­ blam e. No longer a solitary sufferer, one was taking part in a slow, collective a w akening to the social conditions from w h ich m any suffer. O u t of these g a t h e r i n g s . . . was born a basis for new solidarities and un derstand ings . . . In these groups, practices changed from pure self-interest to the synergistic com bin in g of self and others (ibid.: 105-106). The dialogue group also gave participants the op portu nity to exhibit quite separate and multifarious identities (for e xam p le, at vario us times Sim on constructed his identity around his roles as a black m an, a 'B ru m m ie ', a m u sician, a father, a son and an O p e n University student), or quite subtle and inseparable identities, as in the m any d iscussions that took place concerning aspects of black peop le's histories, cultures and ethnicities. As W estw ood (1990: 570) observes: 'o ne can be, at one and the sam e time A fro-C aribbean and Ja m aica n and vario us religious identities and a "b la c k m a n " and m any other things.' N ow h e re w as this potential more evident in the constrained and limiting world of the prison than in the relatively d em ocratic and mentally stim ulating space which constitu ted the m eeting s organised by Prison Dialogue. Schm id and Jones (1991) argue that the typical inm ate sees the prison world as an artificial construction, and that he believes he will revert c o m ­ pletely 'b ack to his old self' upon release. This w a s not, how ever, borne out by every one in my study, especially those inm ates serving very long sentences: 'prison chang es you for ever, th ere's no d ou bt a bout that.' O thers, how ever, supported Schm id and Jo n es' finding that the authentic self can be recovered upon release: 'I left m y identity at reception and I'll pick it up on m y w ay out.' But w h a tev er degree of authenticity one pre ­ supp oses in the presentation of self or in the prison w orld, there is little doubting Schm id and Jo n es' view that the new inm ate arrives at prison with a fairly consistent im age of w h a t prison is like (often informed by m ed ia-generated im ag es of violence and intim idation) and then proceeds to adju st his perceptions as he observes and interacts with other prisoners: Thro ug h w atching others, th rough e avesd ro pping , through cautio us conversation and selective interaction, a new inm ate refines his un d ersta nd ing of w h a t . . . prisoners look like, how they m o ve, how they act. Despite his belief that he is different from these other 137

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prisoners, he k n o w s that he ca n n o t ap p ear to be too different from th em , if he is to hide his vulnerability. His initial im age of other prisoners, his early observations, and his concern over how he appears to others thus provide a foundation for the identity he gradually creates through im pression m a n a g e m e n t (ibid.: 422). You definitely have to w e a r a m ask in prison - if you d o n 't you're going to get eaten away. W h e n I cam e in I w as green. I tho ught I w as quite streetwise on the outside, but no. You have to act tough, there's a lw ay s the threat of violence. I rem e m b er for the first six m o nths I w as here, stand in g in the q ueue for m eals, trying not to m ak e eye contact with anyone in case they took it the w rong way. I'm a bit m ore relaxed now , b u t you still have to be on y ou r guard the w h ole time (Simon). S im o n 's co m m e n t illustrates how, in addition to adapting to a life of confinem ent, the new inmate starts to absorb, and then acts back on and shapes, the inform al culture of the prison. To be accepted by other inm ates as 'o ne of them ', the new prisoner m u st pay close attention to rules of presentation concerning such details as eye contact and posture, and it is through such observations that acceptable social beh a v io u rs are replicated and m ascu line h e g em o n y is preserved.

C u ltu re and subculture

Having mastered how he should present h im self in the co m p a n y of others, the new inm ate m u st then learn to recognise and respect the com p le x patterns of group netw o rk s and hierarchies that characterise inm ate societies. Variously based on age, c o m m u n ities of origin, gangs, drug trafficking or previous crim inal and prison experiences, these hierarchies form the basis for a w h ole style of co n d u ct and, in m any respects, resem ble an 'o ccu p a tion al culture' w hich is cem ented by jokes, gestures, the exchang e of favours and the recurrence of certain topics of conv ersatio n (Tolson 1977). They m ay be pro-social or anti-social in attitude, and the prim ary task of the new inm ate is to decide w h eth er he is going to ad op t a prison-adaptive strategy of integration into, or a vo id ance of, one or m ore of these subgroups. U n d erp inning m any features of the prison culture is the illegal socioe­ con o m ic system that allow s inm ates to buy drugs or other com m od ities, but frequently leads to them b eco m in g victim s of debt, bullying and p ro­ tection rackets. Those w h o are involved in contraband econ om ie s are 138

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arguably deflecting attempts to socialise them through fo rmal channels and instead constructing their identities around notions of resistance and counterculture, d em onstrating that there m ay be an inverse correlation b etw ee n prisonisation and socialisatio n.2 The conclusion that has to be d raw n is that, in spite of the prison service's ow n attem pts to shape social­ isation processes, prison inm ates assert a strong degree of a gency in decidin g exactly how far they are prepared to be socialised. M a n y partic­ ipants in m y research w ere a lm o st continu ou sly involved in the business of m a k ing plans, trading g oo ds with other inm ates, devising w ays of 'getting one o v e r ' on a fellow prisoner or m e m b e r of staff, or k eeping abreast of new legislation w'hich m ight affect them. D efying the co n v e n ­ tional, form al cod es of socialisatio n, they were non e the less engaged in constan t tho ug ht and interactio n, once more suggestin g that the a s s u m p ­ tion that prisoners' beh a v io u r - both pro-social and anti-social - can be controlled by a d m inistrators as long as they have control over the reward system of the prison is highly questionable. M a thiesen (1965) suggests that one of the m o st striking features of all inm ate cu ltures is the frequency with which prisoners com pare their ow n fate w ith that of others, both inside prison and outside it. So m e inmates may feel them selv es to be outcasts from the w id er c o m m u n ity and, indeed, m o st research participants spoke a bout 'society ' in a rather detached way, as if they w ere not part of it. For these individuals, the feeling of stigmatisation and of b eing part of an underclass, with all its conn otations of su b h u m a n n e ss and sub terranean invisibility, is the forem ost aspect of their identity. They m ight feel them selv es to be a h u sb an d , partner, father, son, builder, L o n d o n e r or any n u m b e r of other identities, but it is their physical location that inevitably bestow s upon them their prim ary identity: I am a professional prisoner I supp ose - after sixteen years in here, w h at else could I be? The ju d g e said I was ruthless, b ut I'm not ruthless. T h e y say w e're ham sters, not gangsters in here - that's how ruthless w e are. But yes, I am a prisoner, nothing m ore (Dave). A ccord ing to M athiesen, a co m m o n response for such an individual is to perceive his lot as d ep lorably deprived in relation to the pleasures of the ou tside, althou gh - in an anom ic tw ist to this view - 1 encountered several inm ates w h o b lam ed the m edia for instilling in them needs and desires which, they claim ed , are not gratifiable by m e an s other than criminal. As a m eans of protection against the d am ag ing self-im age that such reference points can instil, the prisoner m ay turn to the institution, using other inm ates for self-com parison. He m ay also devote him self to 139

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m a k ing the prison a h om e, a strategy of colonisation w hich is perhaps m ost evident in those prisoners w ho feel a particular degree of attach m en t to their w ing or a cco m m o d a tio n unit: i ' m fussy about hygiene, cleanlin ess, personal space . . . I'm lucky to be here [in the "S u p e r -E n h a n c e d " unit] becau se I've got my ow n TV and t o i l e t . . . it's got to be better than over there' (T). O f all the prisons in w h ich I cond u cted fieldw ork, Stocken was the one in which different accom m od ation units had the m o st distinct identities. The individual histories and characteristics of each unit create a unique habitus and result in m any of them feeling like a prison within a prison (or w h at S park s et al 1996 term 'm icro-clim ates'). O n e resident of G-W ing, the Scand in avian m obile unit, talked ab ou t 'that jail' in reference to the other w ings, as if it were an entirely separate establishm ent. In addition to G-W ing, there are two w in gs at S tocken that have waiting-lists: F-W ing, w hich w as one of the first prison units in the cou ntry to have in-cell television (including satellite channels, although there were plans for their w ithd ra w a l in April 2000; a m o ve w hich no inmate m entioned to me, leading me to believe they did not know about it), and H-W ing, w hich had been open for less than two years, a fact that accounted for its popularity: i t ' s new. That's the only reason I'm on here . . . at least I know my cell's not been contam inated . . . it's had n ob od y die in it. In fact n ob od y had even slept in the bed before m e ' (Ralph). A -W ing , the 'lifer w in g ', also had a distinctive feel ab ou t it, althou gh one of its residents expressed mixed feelings: Lifers and staff com e to a nice un derstand ing. If som e on e gets a pasting they w o u ld n 't grass, but in all probability the staff would probably turn a blind eye anyway. I like being on an all-lifer wing b ecause it's m ore peaceful and becau se the staff understand that we w a n t to be left alone. But I supp ose on b alance I'd prefer a mixed w ing b ecau se it stops it getting stale, you get to see fresh faces and they bring in new s from the outside (Ray). U n p op u la r a m o n g som e inm ates on other w ing s b ecau se of the perceived perks that lifers are afforded, one of D -W ing's inhabitants, serving five years, w as scornful of the preferential treatm ent given to lifers: 'Lifers alw ays get more. In som e prisons I'v e been in, only the lifers can w ear their ow n clothes. Here they can go and sit out on the grass in the sum m er. It's like you have to kill s om eon e to get privileges' (Bill). 140

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S om e inm ates extend their life-sphere b eyond their accom m od ation unit to the prison as a w h ole, and ad opt a strategy of ad aptation that involves m aking them selves seen or heard as m uch as possible. In som e cases, such noisiness and visibility can ap pear to be a deliberately aggressive stance, although Tolson's (1977: 43) interpretation of aggression as 'the basis of "s ty l e " , of feeling physical, of sh ow in g feelings and protecting on e se lf' see m s relevant here. As one respond ent put it to me: 'You have to s h o u t to get any on e to take any notice of you in here. Besides which, it's about the only w ay you can feel alive' (Billy). Virtually any act of co m m u n ica tio n can be regarded as a kind of p erfo rm ance, and p e rfo rm ance in prison is often intrinsically b ound with concepts of m asculinity and challenges to power. A m o n g the m o st 's tag ed ' p e rfo rm ances I w itnessed w ere the interactio ns betw ee n inm ates and prison officers w here the m a n a g e m e n t of a m ascu line 'p rese n ce ' was p a ra m o u n t for both parties. On occasions te m pers were lost, but there is an implicit consensus that masculinity is, as Tolson (1977: 43) says, 'm ore im pressive played cool', and 'p o int-scoring ' on both sides w as achieved by choice gestures and witty p u t-d o w n s rath er than by resorting to violence. The apparent arbitrarin ess of prison officers' decision-m ak ing is a constant source of frustration for inmates and has been described as the 'hallm ark of the English prison exp e rien ce' (Vagg 1994: 85), b u t one of the m o st c o m m o n provocations I observed w as w h en prisoners had mad e a re quest, either directly to an officer or in writing to the prison governor, and a reply was not fo rthcom ing. In so m e cases a 'stand-off' would em erg e, w h ereb y an inm ate relentlessly pursued a particular officer in search of an answ er to his inquiry and the officer w ould use various tactics to avoid addressing his com plaint. O ften, an inm ate's frustration at b eing denied information on a previous occasion was used by officers as an excuse for later avo id a nce tactics, a chain of reactions that G offm an (1961b) refers to as 'loo ping'. Such 'm ind g a m e s ' are a co m m o n elem ent of every d a y relations b etw een inmates and staff and recall de C e rte au 's (1984: 18) conceptualisation of everyday life as a conflict b etw een the po w erfu l and the pow erless, w h ere there is a 'certain art in placin g o n e 's b low s, a pleasure in getting around the ru les': 'You're always playing a g a m e - with the staff, with the other prisoners, the governor, solicitors . . . you have to try and stay one step ahead all the time. Every w e e k a new rule is introduced here. T hey're ju st going round and ro und in circles (Brian). O ne research participant described it as being like a ritualised d ance in which the inm ate is locked with his tormentor, taking one step forward, b ut then c o n d e m n e d to taking several steps back. This dram atised m o tif see m s appropriate for there were several occasions w h en staff m e m b ers appeared to be 'p e rfo rm in g ' and 141

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the prisoners' interpretations of these perform ances were that they were directed at me, an interested audience. With some notable exceptions, inmates' presentation of self in front of staff was usually one of quiet acquiescence or exchanging non-threatening banter, although many respondents pointed out this too was just an act. In particular, some of the older inmates had trouble maintaining the veneer of mutual respect with officers who were significantly younger than them. As one longtermer put it: i ' v e got kids older than him.' The inevitable violations of privacy that come from having one's criminal and prison histories (together with personal details of family relations, illnesses and so on) on file and accessible to anyone with authorisation to look at them was also a problem made especially sharp by differences in age between offender and officer, although one inmate reported he took great pride in amassing details about individual officers' lives in an attempt to redress the balance. That public presentation was of param ount importance to prisoners was dem onstrated in many different ways, although perhaps most incontrovertibly at the meetings of Prison Dialogue w'here participants attached a great deal of kudos to winning the argument and not losing face. Dominance of the group was based on different factors: at Blakenhurst, the local prison containing a wide range of offenders awaiting classification, discussions were led by a small num ber of individuals who had clearly developed a repertoire of stories, jokes, routines and gestures, which had the primary purpose of entertaining the audience. One individual in particular, Mikey, had constructed his identity around his skills as a performer, a persona that was itself reinforced by the fact that his brother is a well-known musician and actor. In an extreme version of the tendency noted by Tolson (1977) in his analysis of working-class masculinity, this individual's every action and utterance was aimed at reproducing the expectations of his public. Even his clothing, which was expensive, yet flashily so, constituted an integral part of his performance which almost literally involved 'putting on a show'. His interpretation of the requisite masculinity dem anded by the prison culture was to act the clown, and he created an atmosphere of jovial camaraderie and bonhomie. A further point of interest in relation to Mikey was that he assigned nicknames based on television characters ('Dirty Den', 'Betty Boo', 'H o m er Simpson', 'M r Bean', etc.) to all the participants at the dialogue meeting. This use of media content in defining individuals paralleled the experiences of Lindlof (1987: 194), who tells of the inmate named 'Benny Hill' by his fellow prisoners because of his resemblance to the comedian, and the inseparable duo known as the 'S m urfs' after the animated characters of the 1970s. 142

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Similarly, prison researchers Richard Sparks and Will Hay recount how they became know n by their respondents as 'Pinky and Perky', 'Bill and Ben' or 'The Dynamic Duo' after Batman and Robin (in Sparks et al, 1996: 350), while Roy King and Kathleen M cD erm ott became 'Dempsey and Makepeace' during their prison research (in King 2000). Like these examples, Mikey's nicknames were meant - and taken - goodhumouredly but, as Lindlof (1987: 194) suggests, such ascriptions that are at once familiar and amusing to an audience may be primarily designed to deflect seriousness from what are, in fact, serious circumstances. Mikey also sought to gain maxim um credibility from his relation to his highprofile brother and, indeed, throughout my fieldwork, many respondents emphasised their knowledge of, or friendships with, stars of the media who had spent time in prison. Prisoners who had becom e media figures as a result of their notoriety, or the infamy of their crimes, were also evoked in this way. At Whitemoor, by contrast, the dem ands of a 'tough jail', together with the serious or violent criminal histories of many of the inmates, meant that the dialogue group was an altogether more unpredictable affair, and the Prison Dialogue facilitators frequently had skilfully to prevent dialogue from degenerating into monologue. Here, the forum was dominated by those who could assert themselves most forcefully. Often, it was the strength of an individual's intellect or the breadth of his knowledge that gave him a platform, but it could also be a person's ability to shout louder than anyone else that determined his precedence! Examples of such perform ance styles have been given elsewhere in this book, but suffice to say here that among a few participants, their outward presentation of aggression and physical strength had become, as Tolson (1877: 8) predicts, part of their internal self-image. Indeed, the conventional characteristics associated with masculinity - authority, competitiveness, physical presence, aggression and so on - were always conspicuously displayed at these meetings. Across all the prisons I studied, it was noticeable that mass media texts were exploited to enhance individuals' identities as aggressive criminals, 'hard m en', prisoners or 'experts' in law and the criminal justice system. Many respondents counted among their favourite television shows such as Crim ew atch UK and other programmes that use either covert filming techniques or dramatic reconstructions to dem onstrate types of criminal activity. Neil, serving three years, admitted: 'I watch programmes like Police, C am era, A ction! and Crim eivatch to see if there's anyone on I know . . . it makes me feel a sense of reality3. For Jon, serving life, media texts served to legitimate his persona as a violent criminal:

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R eading is b etter than TV. You read a b ook and it takes you s o m e w h ere else and then you see it on TV and they 'v e ruined it. Take M isery. T he b ook is so m u ch better b ecau se it's more violent. In the film she only cripples him, but in the book she actu ally cuts his legs right off. Earlier m edia researchers m ay have interpreted this as cathartic, suggesting that m edia act as a h arm less vehicle for the relieving of one's ow n feelings of aggression. But as stated previously, w h atev er gratifications w e seek from m edia content are not divorced from our e nvironm ent, and m ed iated identity construction should be understood as a process of m e an in g -m a k in g borne out of social interactions and available cu ltural resources (H erm es 1999). The creation of identities has to be m e an in g fu l not only to the individual concerned , but also to his peer group. In this case, the ind ivid ual's cultural repertoire is dom inated by the im peratives of an enforced and s o m e w h a t extrem e m ascu line code. It is therefore un su rprisin g that it is very often violent or criminal m edia figures that provide identification for prisoners. C onsistent with uses and gratifications research, m any others exploited the dem ocratising nature of media, using it as a m eans of surveillance of any new d ev elopm en ts in the prison service or in law w hich m ig ht affect their sentences. G ary said: 'w h en you watch som ething, you identify with it emotionally. I watched Scum the other night . . . I do watch things about prison becau se I relate to them .' M o st notable in this respect, though, were the two inmates at H M P Stocken w ho were k n ow n by staff as the 'p rofes­ sional litigators'. Like Cohen and Taylor's (1972: 140) 'professional com plainers' w h o pursue their grievances with such dedication and persistence that it 'virtually b eco m es a style of doing one's time,' these two men had constructed their identities and formed a bond with each other largely on the basis of their m u tual interest in the political and social rights of prisoners. A lthough they had refused in-cell television, they read a wide range of sp e­ cialist publications, including law books, criminological jo urnals and n e w s ­ papers such as In side Tim e,4 as well as gleaning information from television (in association rooms) and radio. They then used this information to try to hold the prison service accountable for any perceived w rongd oing. The g rowth in access to channels of com m u nica tion and information exchange m ay partially explain why the law is increasingly b eco m in g involved in m any institutions that once handled their ow n internal problem s privately, and certainly during the course of my research I heard several stories co n ­ cerning the prison service being sued by prisoners w ho were un happy with their treatm ent (see also Jacobs 1977 on the role of law in shaping prisons). 144

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The use of m edia in these w ay s un d o u b ted ly help ed individuals to construct an appropriately tough facade to present to their peers. M asculinity w as also a key factor in the co m parative reference points of those inm ates w h o - rath er than m easuring their status against other specific individuals - chose to gauge their status in relation to other types of offenders. It is co m m o n to find in prison literature e x ­ pressio ns of prisons being the 'garb ag e ca n s' of society or 'h u m an zoos' but it seem s that a key feature of the prison hierarchy is the need for convicted criminals to feel m orally superior to som eon e, a ju d g e m e n t m o st clearly shaped by the cod es of the inform al m ascu line h e g em o n y (hence the position of 'fem in is ed ' sex offenders near the bottom of the pile, and child sex offenders even low er than them). Aside from these ju d g em en ts , w h ich are c o m m o n to m ost prisons, hierarchies m ay be constructed around m ore m u n d an e crimes. For exa m p le , m any re spond ents expressed disdain for burglars, while com m ercial burglars mad e a distinction b etw ee n their ow n crim es and those of dom estic or 'h o u se ' burglars. Several respond ents, w h en asked w h o were at the bottom of the inform al hierarchy of power, replied 'b a g -hea d s', the heroin addicts w ho were w id ely felt to have no scruples and to be responsible for the lack of solidarity a m o n g prisoners today. Yet s o m e w h a t ironically, the inm ates m ost frequently held to be at the top of the peckin g order were the drugs dealers, w h o - with startling self-delusio n - were them selves quick to justify their ow n activities com pared to those of other inmates: 'n o bo d y died from w h a t I did and that c a n 't be said of everyone in here.' The distinction b etw een these low -status and high-status crim es was illustrated by two respond ents, w ho echoed Sykes (1958) classification of 'real m en': At the top of the pile y o u 'v e got the drugs dealers, the real m en. If y o u 'v e got drugs in prison y o u 'v e got friends. I'd say burglars are the m o st despised here (Simon). I ca m e in with a view of prison from A m erican m o vies . . . thought I w as going to be raped and everything. But m u ch of the violence is ju st b ra vad o, skirmishes. There is a hierarchy . . . those at the top are the quieter people, they have som ething ab ou t them selv es, 'old schoo l', you m ight say. At the bottom are the dum b os. I'd say it's the intelligence factor [that separates high-status from low-status inmates], A lot of people in here can barely write their ow n nam es. It used to be heroin users that were at the botto m , b ut not anym ore. W h e n it was a dirty drug outside it w as in here too, b u t now it's MS

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considered chic, or som ething. D rug dealing is hip. They'll em p h asise that. Violence too. H ou se burglary is looked d o w n on with the m edia p u m p in g it out all the time. I'm not bad though. I'm com m e rcia l (Tom). W h a t both these quotations reiterate is the link b etw een 'high-status' crimes and m achism o. D rugs dealers were frequently characterised as 'real m e n ' (one said he liked the fact he was considered a 'M ister Big' both inside and outside prison) and, in this respect, dealers ranked alongsid e 'g an g ste rs' and arm ed robbers in the he g em o n ic m asculine structure. D eserving little respect and near the b ottom of the inform al po w er structure are the 'w a n n a b e s ' or 'plastic gang sters' w h o contriv e to be like the 'real thing', but are, in truth, 'b a g -h e ad s', 'p h o n e y s' or petty thieves. M ascu line credentials m a y be further enhanced by the brutality that one has survived: I w as proud ente ring W orm w o od Scrubs at fifteen. Before that, I w as in a rem and h o m e at the age of twelve. It gave me status going to the Scrubs . . . we'd g one thievin g and had look-outs and everything. We thought w e were the real thing, w e felt like big men. O nce inside you had to go through 'r e ce p o-bash in g ' - a kind of initiation w'here you were beaten by your 'friend s' to within an inch of your life. I w on the fight . . . b eat up three out of the four [assailants]. That m ad e me 'The C h a p ' (Jim). As Sykes (1958: 98) rem ind s us, the definition of m ascu line beh av io u r in a society com posed exclusively of m en is 'a p t to m ove to an extrem e position' and such initiation rites are a co m m o n feature of m e n 's prisons. Such brutality see m s to confirm B o w k e r 's (1977: xi) assertion that w hat prisoners do to each other is often far worse than anything staff have ever done to them but, as Jim 's quotation indicates, it is often only those w ho pass such barbaric tests of m anliness that gain the ad vantag e of solidarity. M ale b ond ing in prison, as in other pred om inately male spheres, reaffirm s m asculine he g em o n y not only by e xclud ing w o m en, b u t also by preying on w e ak e r m en (N ew ton 1994). Jim 's pride at being sent to W orm w o od Scrubs also indicates that m asculine credentials extend to entire prisons, and of those inm ates who com pare their fate to that of prisoners in other establishm ents, the 'hardness' of a prison regim e (in term s of both the w eig ht of deprivations encou ntered , and the extent of tough, m ascu line qualities needed to survive them) can be a prim ary reference point. At both A shw ell and Stocken, com p a riso n s with local, dispersal and C ategory B establishm ents 146

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w ere frequently made. Gartree was generally held to be a 'p roper m a n 's jail' although that status seem ed to be largely based on its past reputation as a dispersal prison w here riots and d aring escapes occurred. At Gartree com p a riso n s were m ad e with W hitem oor, w h ich was usually described as a 'd u m p in g g ro u n d '; an assessm e n t that, again, is likely to be based on the prison's history. At A sh w ell and Stocken reactions to being in a 'C at C ' jail varied greatly. The follow ing co m m e n ts all concern Stocken: Sto cken's brilliant . . . I'm a reformed character [since com ing here]. I used to be difficult . . . I just d o n 't like being treated as a number. But it's ok here. Treat them [the staff] with respect and you get loads back. I hate to say it b ut I've enjo yed my stay here. It's pleasant com pared to other jails I'v e been to (George). I'v e been here before so I'm used to it - I ju st see it as a break . . . 1 w as in Glen Parva first and I tu rned tw enty-one so 1 had to com e to an ad ult jail. I had all the usual fears of violence and rape, and so on, b u t then I got here and found I knew half the people in here, so I was alright (M ichael). 1 hate it here. This prison is a d u m p in g ground for lifers. If so m e o n e m esses up in another Category C prison they get shipped here. It's useless . . . no facilities . . . no w ork. We're d ow n to one association room b ecau se they're using the other one as a storeroom for TV s. It's crap, I tell you (Billy). A shw ell generally com pared favourably with local prisons Leicester and N o ttin g h am , and 'h ard ' prisons such as A lbany and W orm w o od Scrubs, or F ran kla n d , which was disliked b ecau se it contains a high proportion of sex offenders. Yet A shw ell w a s view ed less fav ou rably by som e b ecau se of the high n u m be rs of you ng inm ates, w hich mitigate against it being a 'm a n 's jail': 'it's like a child ren's h o m e ' and 'it's a M ickey M ouse jail - full of y ou ng scallies and ina d eq u a tes' were typical c om m ents. O ne long-term inm ate c o m m e n ted : 'A sh w e ll could be the best prison in the country for long -term ers to finish off their sentences, but it's spoilt by the short-term ers on heroin.' The sa m e m an was one of m a n y inm ates who com plained they had com e from 'B ' jails w h ere they had been allowed to w e ar their ow n clothes and cook their ow n meals, and where other perks, such as family visiting days, had been introduced. Indeed for ju st over half the inm ates I interview ed at A shw ell, the relative freedom w h ich the prison offered w as either a problem , b ecau se of the long periods of unstructured time that has to be filled, or it w as illusory, 147

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b ecau se the relatively relaxed level of security offered m ore opportunities for drug-takin g, d ebt-collecting and bullying. In com paratively 'o p en ' prisons such as A shw ell, a great deal of em p h a sis is placed on d y nam ic security. H ow ever, in-cell television has resulted in m an y inm ates w ho would previously have been involved in c o m m u n a l w o rk or association activities u n d er the w atchful eyes of staff now confining them selv es to their cells to watch television: You only see som e people at m eal times now . . . those w ho lack social skills are going to lose o u t . . . if they're not out on the corridors, they're not socialising. There's also a d anger that they think that w h a t they're seeing on TV is real life, and they lose their grip on reality. S ta ff-p ris o n e r relations are fragile now and they'll only get w orse. Interaction is m inim al (Ray). The invisibility of m any inmates has increased levels of drugs use and bullying to the extent w h ere m an y interview ees said they preferred the tw enty-three hou r lock-up re gim es of local jails to the relaxed and relatively open cond itions of A shw ell. Indeed, for som e inmates, the freedom of A shw ell paradoxically induced feelings of paranoia. A n dy said: 'you have to develop a sixth sense for trouble b ecau se it's more h idd en in a jail like this' while Paul su m m ed up the suspicions of m any when he said: 'this prison seem s lax, b ut there's a lot of m ental psy cholog y being used in the b a ck g ro u n d .' A n other interesting point in relation to different categories and regim es of prisons is that the w o rse the circum stances of con fin e m e n t are, the less m ay be required to be considered im p ortan t (M athiesen 1965). Put simply, I cam e across m any inm ates w h o told stories of being in solitary con fin e m e n t or in hospital and w ho, after a period with no m edia, were given a radio or a new spaper. A ssertions that it stopped them from going mad or that it even staved off thoughts of suicide were not u n com m o n . Similarly, I found that although in-cell TV was generally eagerly anticip ated, several inm ates at Gartree and W h ite m o o r favoured a radio or stereo system over televisio n w hile, at the other end of the spectrum , m any inm ates on Sto cken's F-w ing, not content with h av ing satellite television available in their cells, com plained ab ou t having only four satellite channels. H ow ever, it m ay be that the in m a te 's fram es of reference are built around w hat is presen t rath er than w h a t is absent (Goffm an 1961b; Cohen and Taylor 1972). P risoners at Gartree and W h ite m o o r may feel they can afford to be blasé about television before it is installed in their ow n cell, b u t had I retu rned so m e m o nths later and asked which they would be m o st prepared to relinquish - their radio or 148

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television - m an y m ay find them selves m ore relu ctant to part with their TV. A m o n g those w h o do w a n t television, there is - aside from the obvious attractions of its p ro g ram m e s - a desire for in-cell TV as 'g o o d s' (Liebling et al 1997); a m otivation that m ay be un derstood as a further indication of m ascu line w orth. Sy m b ols of con sp icu ou s con su m p tion are intrinsic to rituals of display, courtship and m anliness: 'they reflect the proper order of things and are clung to' (Finem an 1987: 238). A ltho u gh prisoners earn an average of £7 a w eek it is none the less im portant to be visibly co n s u m in g if their ad eq uacy as a m an is to be upheld (Bostyn and W ight 1987), and in m any prisons the influences of com m od ification can be seen in a variety of prisoners' p o ssessions, from the m edia 'h a rd w are ' he ow ns to the brand of trainers he w e a rs on his feet. 'Lifestyle' thus has a place in the prison culture; indeed, m aterial aspirations arguably b eco m e increasingly salient un d er cond itions of severe material constraint. The notio n

that

lifestyle

d o m in a n t group

patterns

can

indicate

both

conform ity

to

the

or, conversely, deliberate rejection of more widely

diffused form s of consu m ption was illustrated in a n u m b e r of w ays by my

research

participants.

O ne

notable

indicato r

of

both

lifestyle

aspirations and the need to signal to the group som ething of one's pre ­ prison identity, w as footwear. At the W h ite m o o r dialogue group, m o st participants were young and street-w ise, and they literally wore their m asculine credentials on their feet. Their new and expensive designerlabei trainers indicated a desire to fit in with the d o m in a n t norm s, and yet also suggested a degree of com petitiveness; for so m e inm ates it seem ed im portant not to get left behind in the rapidly m o ving w orlds of fashion and fo otw ea r technology. By contrast, a Dutch prisoner w h om I m et at Stocken, w hile resigned to w earing his shabby and threadbare prison u n ifo rm , had on his feet a pair of elegant, highly polished, brow n leather brogues. N ot only aesthetic, but clearly expensive, this man adm itted it w as im portant for him to be allow ed to w ear his shoes, not only to m aintain a sense of him self as a m a n of taste and culture, but also to signal to the other inm ates and, importantly, to the prison officers, that he w as 'different, more refined, than they are'.

M a n a g in g social n e t w o r k s

O ne of the m o st co m m o n cop ing strategies a m o n g those w ho are incarcerated is to be found in the choice of reference group com m itm e n ts, and a typical response by prisoners to the institu tional requirem ents of uniformity, conform ity and com p lia nce is to draw strong distinctions 149

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betw een 'likeness' and 'otherness'. Any com m on experience, information or role that separates two or more people from others will give them a sense of com m on identity (Meyrowitz 1985: 54). Consequently, while there is little evidence of the universal inmate solidarity that Sykes (1958) describes, there now exist social networks consisting of many and varied subcultures, whose affiliations may be based upon shared nationality or regional identity; religion or faith; the culture of the gymnasium; drugs use; gambling; contraband trading; shared music or education interests; or any num ber of other com m on concerns. My research also uncovered evidence of bonds being formed betw een some of the younger, short-term prisoners on the basis of shared constructed identities of deviance and delinquency. A great deal of macho posturing was evident in these groups, and boasts about violent histories and deviant activities were com m on, although given that it was these men who were the 'plastic gangsters' according to the older inmates, the incidents they presented as daring and dangerous might in fact be rather spasmodic and tame (Little 1990). Little's view is that the justice system can be counter productive in that it not only brings together young people with similar criminal pasts, but it does little to discourage them from constructing their disappointing and limited life experiences as positive, necessary com ponents for their chosen 'career' (ibid.).5 It is arguable (and it was argued by several prison officers and inmates) that the implementation of in-cell television reinforces deviant self-images, leading to statements of the sort that Little (ibid.:7) describes in his study of criminal identities among young offenders: 'Oh it [prison! was easy, you just do your bird and get on with it; no problem really.' Such sentiments were com m on at Ashwell and Stocken, and frequently expressed in relation to the impact that in-cell TV has made to the quality of prison life. But for a group to be an 'us', there must also be a 'them' and antagonisms between different factions are com mon. Moreover, because inmate experience and roles are situation-bound, and the patterns of stratification (of power, influence, access to scarce resources) are com plex and unstable, any significant change in the structure of the situation will affect group identities and may change people's sense of who are 'us' and who are 'them ' (Sparks et al, 1996). This not only results in shifting dynamics of power, but it may also be a partial explanation for the fact that very few prisoners claim to have friends in jail; it is simply rarely possible to put your trust in another individual in a society as unpredictable and volatile as the prison: There's no solidarity any more. No 'fellow feeling'. Especially in a prison like this, full of kids and short-termers (Jim). 150

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I relate to one person I knew on the outside. 1 know his com pany is safe to keep. My co-accused was in here - I'd have taken any problem to him. We all need so m e o n e to lean on but you have to w atch out. This is a very dangerou s place and if y o u 'v e got any sense, you w o n 't get too close to anyon e. T h e y 'v e blagged their w ay th rough life, and they do exactly the sam e in here. You can't trust no one (Tim). The exception to the general rule of 'no friends' is the groups of tw o or, more rarely, three inmates w ho form an especially close bond. Cohen and Taylor (1972: 75) note the im portance for long-term inm ates of seeking a com panio n or intim ate, and the difficulties posed by such end eav ours, but they fail to elaborate on the particular significance of close dyadic friendships, other than to note they develop as a result of not having a w id e netw o rk of potential friends available, each of w h o m m ig h t serve a different need. In such circum stances a single personal relationship may be required to sustain the vario us functions which would be distributed across several individuals in norm al life. In the course of my research I encountered m any inm ates w ho were 'paired off' in partnerships which m ay have b een, although by no m eans necessarily were, of a sexual nature. M o st interesting from my point of view w ere the inm ates w h o had chosen to share a cell with a fellow prisoner: I share a cell, yes. Would I describe us as friends? Well, I'm hop ing with this g eezer I'm with, yes, b u t befo re now w h at I'v e thought were friends have let m e dow n. But it's im p ortan t to have s om e b od y to talk to. I have quite deep conv ersatio ns with m y cellmate. He's a M u slim , and he's travelled a lot, so w e talk a b ou t religion and w h ere w e 'v e been and that (Simon). M y only real friends are my co-defend ants, b ut you ca n 't m ake friends in prison. M y only friend is m y cellmate, Mark. I used to get on really well with an older guy at my last prison - we did w eights training together. I supp ose you could say he w as a bit of a father figure, looked after m e and that. But now I'm very selfsufficient. I d o n 't borrow and I do everything for myself. I'm selfcontained I supp ose (Ralph). I share a cell - that's my choice. It's som e on e I met in prison. We both enjo y being tw oed-up. I enjoy his com pany, it's c o m p a n y that I choose. I d o n 't like crow d s, I never go in the television room. But 151

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he's a friend . . . You do get large n u m be rs of pairs in prison. If you have a nything to do with one, you know y o u 'v e got to deal with the other one as well. You c a n 't survive in prison at either of the two e xtrem es - m ak ing friends with every one or keeping yourself entirely to you rself . . . The m ain attraction of tw oing-up is having som e on e to talk to. It's like therapy. I'd done a year on m y ow n but to share with som eon e was quite attractive. I'd not really spoken to anyon e for a year, only very shallow conversations. S a m e with Theo, the D utch guy. A n other D utch m an cam e in and it really opened up his w orld. He used to be in his cell all the time before (David). N egotiations over in-cell television created friction, how ever: I watch more television than I would natu rally wish b ecause my cellm ate w atches m ore than me. He relies on the TV more for his stim ulation - to be honest, he'd struggle w ith o u t television. He's spent a lot of time in prison. A lthough w e get on, I think I'll be glad wh en he's gone. O u r cell's no bigger despite being d ou bled -u p, and it's a bit cram p ed especially now the w e a th e r's getting warmer. . . We used to have two TV s on som etim es! But now w e 'v e got just one, so w e have to agree on w h at to watch. There's no point in falling out. I used to watch N ew sn ig h t, b u t my friend, he likes soaps because it fills the time. He'll watch them twice som etim es. H e's not a re ader and he d o e s n 't like radio, both of w hich I enjoy . . . On my previous sentence I read tw enty years w o rth of books in eighteen months. I'm doing this English 'A' Level now, but it's m u ch harder to read in this en v iro n m en t with the TV on (David). M y cellmate and me get on well but he's m o ving out and I'm quite glad b ecause it's starting to do my head in. I fancy a change. We're alw ay s arguing about w h a t to watch on television. [How do you resolve these conflicts?] We turn it off and play M o n o p o ly or Scrabble (M ichael). R alp h's co m m e n t about doing everything for h im self was s o m e w h a t contradicted w h en his cellm ate, M ark, b rou g ht in a cup of coffee for him (at w hich point Ralp h said cheerily, 'H ere he is - m y other half!'), but his m ention of an older inm ate being a father figure w as one of several references to partnerships that w ere constructed as m e n to r -s tu d e n t or fa th e r-s o n relatio nships. David, the drugs-dealer w h o enjoyed his 'Big M a n ' reputation, said that he had alw ays sou ght out role m odels who were older than him , and enjo yed talking and listening to som e of the

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lifers. His m ento r was an older prisoner, a b oxer w h o had encouraged him to use the gym and build up his physical strength. It w as with som e pride that he described his special friend as the 'hardest man in the prison' and s o m e o n e w ho every one respected and feared. O ther prisoners described their role as the senior figure in the partnership: I've got one friend here w ho I m e t in m y last prison. I can be m y self with him. H e 's got a few pro blem s though at the m o m en t, he's being bullied and that. I call him 'C a la m ity '! I try and look after him th ough, give him a shou ld er to lean on (Matt). For som e prisoners, the role of paternalistic m e n to r is passed dow n through a chain of relationships. For exam p le, it was im portant to Harry both to have and to be a fath er figure. H e described his role m o d e l w ho, in teaching him to play the guitar, had opened up new possibilities for him in terms of how he view ed him self, how he adapted to prison and how he saw his future. In turn, Harry was trying to help the you ng man in the cell next door to his, w h o m he described as a po or coper. He related how he had 'p u s h e d ' this m an into doing a City & G u ilds course, and how he w ould spend m any hours talking to him and trying to m ak e him view his life more positively. So attentive was he tow ards his friend that he had turned d ow n the op portu nity to m o ve to the Sup er-E nhanced 'Rutland U n it' b ecause he believed this you ng m an could not cope w itho ut him. Others, how ever, are not so lucky in their choice of friends. C o h e n and Taylor (1972: 76) observe that even the closest relationship can be perilous in so far as it is inevitably cut short w h en one individ ual is m oved on to another prison or com es to the end of his sentence, and that it is pointless to try to m aintain contact. This sen tim ent was b orn e out by several inmates: I thought I had a good friend in my last jail, tho ug ht we were really close. We used to spend Friday nights together having a drink and a sm ok e. I th o u g h t w e had a bond to tell you the truth. He w as released, and he said 'send me a visiting order, I'll com e and see y o u ', so 1 did, but he n ever cam e. So, I think it's impossible to have real friends in prison (T). You get a lot of prison talk - 'O h w e'll com e and see you, send a V O and w e i l be o v er'. You never see them again. You can 't blam e them though. The last thing you w a n t w h en you get out of this d u m p is to com e back on a visit (Del).

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You have w h at I call 'prison er friends', people y o u 'v e com e up the ranks with, if that's the right w ay of putting it . . . O n the outside, th ough, we'll go our separate w ays - well, I certainly d o n 't intend to keep in touch! Friendship is fake becau se it's forged through the sy stem , it's part of the survival g am e . . . I have one real friend. We share the sam e religion. H e's going to Kirkham for his C at D and I'm hoping to follow him there, but that's it. It'll be the third prison w e 'v e been in together. We play b a d m in to n and use the gym together, but I w o u ld n 't seek him out on the outside. H e 's from the North and I'm from the Sou th and w e'r e from different circles. Besides w h ich, on a life licence you can 't associate with know n crim inals (Ron). In an en v iron m en t w here so m u ch effort goes into the construction of social identities, these kinds of experiences can be potentially d am ag ing to the self, only serving to d em onstrate the artifice of prison relationships. But for those w h o succeed in finding a 'p a r tn e r' in prison, such relatio nship s - even though they are constrained in time and place - can to so m e extent replicate or replace m ore conventional relatio nship s with loved ones on the outside, w hich can prove too difficult to sustain during a prison sentence. For those w h o w o rk hard to m aintain relatio nships with partners and spou ses, how ever, their efforts can be d ou ble-ed ged. In som e instances visits from family and close friends not only reassure them they h av e their love and support, b ut can also provide them with a touchstone for their previous lives. Several respondents m entioned the im portance of m edia in this context: one father spoke of how im portant it w as for him to follow the fortu nes of his favourite football team while inside, and to be able to discuss their pro gress with his you ng son on visits, while m a n y other respondents talked of how specific m edia texts gave them som ething to talk a b ou t with their visitors, frequently acting as an 'i ce -brea k e r' in tense situations. Conversely, visits from loved ones can cause trem end ou s strain. Telephone interaction with family can also be highly stressful, and the pent-up fru strations felt by both parties are frequently exacerbated by the particular characteristics and properties of the m ed iu m and by the often-public context in which inm ates have to negotiate their m o st private relationships. In m y interview s, talk a bout family and relatio nships was m arked by profound contrasts. S o m e respondents described the im m u table strength of their relatio nships with partners, children and parents, and saw them as the main su p p ort w itho ut w h ich they could not endure the pains of im p riso n m e n t ('S he's my rock. I w o u ld n 't be able to get through it w ithout her to be honest'). Moreover, for so m e inm ates, relationships 154

T h e m e s o - s p h e r e o f c u l t u r e , i n t e r a c t i o n and hyper - ma s c ul i ni t y

with w ives and girlfriends appeared to have intensified as a result of the enforced separation. This was m o st obviously the case a m o n g those prisoners w ho wrote detailed letters or diaries for their partners: I write letters b etw ee n 9.30 and 10 every night. People know not to distu rb m e then. I write tw o sides of A 4 every evenin g. I keep two diaries as well, one for my m issus and one for me. Tha t's good an outlet. I'm terrified of losing Sharon. I'm lucky, I sh o u ld n 't be in here b u t she's stood by me. S h e 's m y wife, m y lover, my best friend, everything to me really. But I get this little . . . 'belly feeling', I call it. Anxiety I suppose. Th a t's w h y it's so im portant for me to keep writing to her, to let her know how m u ch she m eans to m e (Craig). Letter writing is very im portant. M y wife and I have gone right back to our earliest m em orie s in our letters, right b ack befo re we knew each other to w h en w e were very young children. We know things a b ou t each other now that we n ever did when we were with each other every day (John). I write to m y wife w h o is m y co-d efend a nt, at Foston Hall [w o m e n 's prison]. 1 write to her every day and she w rites to me every day. We write very rom antic letters - proper old-fashioned love letters, you could say. I have got to know her so m u ch m ore intimately through her letters (M r B). O ther respondents, how ever, spoke of once close relatio nships solely in terms of their frustrations and difficulties. The fragility and fragm entatio n of contact with loved ones on the outside arc one of the m ost profound sources of stress, particularly to long-term ers (C ohen and Taylor 1972; Flanagan 1982) and the fear these relatio nships will be irrevocably lost or im m u tably altered e ngen ders a unique and harrow ing set of concerns. O ne interview ee, D on, spok e m o vingly a b ou t how , after sixteen years apart, he and his partner were m ore like brother and sister than husband and wife. So physically and em otionally disconnected were they that he viewed his applicatio n for early release with extrem e am b iv alence, saying he feared retu rning hom e to a stranger. This sen tim ent w as all the more p o ig na nt b ecau se his wife had been d iagnosed with a te rm inal illness and had a predicted life expectancy of six weeks. Yet m ore pathos was added w h en, on the day before I interview ed him , D o n 's applicatio n for parole w as turned dow n. For som e prison sociologists it is the patterns of social interaction that are established a m o n g inm ates that m ost effectively mitigate against the I 55

Capti ve audi ence

pain of situations like D o n 's (Sykes, 1958). Unfortunately, how ever, the reduction in associatio n time that has a ccom panied the introduction of in-cell television in m o st prisons has dim in ished opportunities for social interaction and although small groups of inm ates s om etim es congregate in one individ ual's cell to watch TV together during association time, one of the prim ary m eans of group interaction - w atching television on the c o m m u n a l TV sets in wing association room s - has now been lost in m any establishm ents. For som e prisoners, this loss is a source of regret, particularly w h e n it com es to w atching m ajor sports events w h ich, m any ag reed, were m o st satisfying w h en viewed as part of a group. F or general view ing, how ever, m o st respond ents greatly preferred the privacy and safety that in-cell TV affords them, and held co m m u n al view ing in very low regard. W hen in-cell television was first introduced at Stocken, prisoners had to purchase their ow n sets from retail catalogu es or via their families. This instigated a view that associatio n television w as only for 'low er class' inm ates with few outside resources. C o m m u n a l view ing thus exem plified institu tional d ep en d e n cy in its starkest form (Lindlof 1987), a belief that was reinforced by the fact that, on m a n y occasions, inm ates would have to leave the TV room for lock-u p befo re the end of the p ro g ram m e or sports event they w ere w atching. Now, inm ates have to rent prison-issue sets and, although there was m u ch disquiet about the unfairness of this initiative, the standardisation of television sets did at least ensure that m o st people w h o w ere eligible could have one, and that com petitiveness over w h o w atched w hich television was reduced. N ot all prisoners have in-cell television though and, although m ost prisons provide m ultiple sets on each w ing (usually at least three: one for BBC 1, one for ITV and one for B BC 2, C h a n n el 4 and C h a n n el 5), I heard several accou nts suggestin g that if a television set b eco m es d am ag ed or broken, it m ay take an extrem ely long time to repair, leaving inm ates with a dim in ished range of viewing choices. Furtherm ore, at Stocken, not every eligible prisoner w an ted to subscribe to in-cell TV. R eliant on the TV association room s, they w ere angered to find they were reduced to only one TV per w ing, as the only other televisio n room was being used as a locked storeroom for the p ersonal sets that had been confiscated. Unsurprisin gly, this caused friction and, like family view ing, d ep en d e n ce on one c o m m u n a l television presented an op portu nity for som e individuals to im pose their will on others. In all prisons with associatio n televisions, so m e prisoners find them selv es either conform ing to the m edia patterns of the d o m in a n t group (or a d o m in a n t individual) in order to 'fit in' or otherw ise w ith d ra w in g from the inm ate culture as a m eans of avoid ing potential conflict:

156

T h e m e s o - s p h e r e o f cu lture , in te r a ctio n and hyper-masculinity

I was in Highpoint in the seventies in a dormitory of about sixty people. Television rooms w^ere real problems then - lots of scuffles - so you had to be very selective about what you went in to watch. Everyone used to go in to watch Top of the Pops, but that was about it (David). I don't like the TV room. I never go in there. Too noisy, too rowdy, too smoky. Dangerous too. The thing that happened last night when someone got a pool cue in their face and ended up in the hospital - that originally started in the association room. Probably a row about w'hich side the TV should be on (Kelly). As these quotations illustrate, those inmates w'ho do use association rooms m ay need to re-learn subcultural rules for the situation of media use. Several prisoners confirmed Cohen and Taylor's (1972) finding that association rooms are one of the few' areas of the prison w'here inmates can withdraw temporarily from the structural dem ands that incarceration places upon them and obtain some degree of protection from official surveillance. However, this inevitably means that weaker or more vulnerable inmates will fall prey to aggressive or more dominant individuals. Not only does the open group aspect of it offer no protection against noise or undesired interactions (I heard many accounts of how terrified inmates would watch television at the back of the room, literally with their backs to the wall), but the potential for violent conflict in the TV rooms led one ex-prison governor to describe them as one of the greatest 'flashpoints' in the prison system.6 In a reminder of the findings of the media reception studies, several inmates mentioned that some prisoners watch television from their 'own' chair in association rooms. Of course, the marking out of personal territory and the jealous guarding of informal privileges are entirely understandable in the status-deprived world of the prison. But such unilateral decisions can be a further source of conflict, and at Ashwell the removal of armchairs and the installation of metal benches that were bolted to the floor w'ere evidence of the inherent tensions that can develop in such situations. None of the association rooms I saw had the kinds of comforts one usually associates with recreational television use, but Ashwell's TV rooms (with the exception of those in the 'Super-Enhanced' unit) were arguably the worst: I hate the seats they have in there. I never go in there for that reason. They're like the seats you get in bus stations. Can you imagine being able to sit comfortably on one of those things for the duration of a 157

Capti ve audi ence

film? N o way. But I suppose it's another way they get people to cou gh up for in-cell television (Steve). One final point of interest in relation to the w ays in which prisoners use media as a m eans of organising their social affiliations and dise n g a gem en ts is that personal m ed ia, especially in-cell television, often provide closure on an inm ate career as release date approaches. This ph e n o m en o n was noted by L indlof (1987: 1 9 0 -9 1 ) in his study of an Am erican correctional institution and was m o st em phatically illustrated to m e by Matt, w h o w as nearing the end of a four-year sen tence: I ju st w a n t to keep my head dow n and stay out of trouble. I'v e been in bother before and had days added. In fact in the old days I'd have been prepared to lose a year of my life not to play their game. But now I can see m y release day ahead of m e, so I'm ju st seeing out the last few w eeks, not getting into any bother. It's quite hard b ecau se th ere's alw ays som eon e ready to wind you up, b ut I just stay in m y pad, w atch TV all day and sleep as m u ch as possible. Television view ing thus not only c o n su m e s large blo cks of time for the im patien t prisoner anticip ating his release, but it also provides a means of d isengagin g from the inm ate culture and keeping aw ay from potential trouble. The use of m edia in this w ay m ay be linked to the finding that typical patterns of beh a v io u r change over the course of a prison career. Like other inte ractionist studies (Adler and A d ler 1983; S h o v er 1983) my research uncovered evidence of shifts in perceptions of self - resulting in different identities and cop ing strategies being adopted - at different points over the duration of a sentence. M o st com m only, these chang es of perception were b rou g ht ab ou t by tem poral contingencies: an aw areness of the passing of time and of time being an exhaustive resource (Shover 1983), and a general alertness to the processes of ageing and maturing, often ac com panied by a grow ing im patien ce tow ards the activities and attitu des of y o u n g e r inmates. It is possible, then, that the usefulness of personal m ed ia resources to inm ates form s a U -shaped curve sim ilar to W h e e le r's (1961) characterisation of prisonisatio n, with radio, television, and other personal m edia being m o st need ed at the point of entry into the institution as a source of continuity with the inm ate's pre-prison life, and as a facilitator of the socialisation skills necessary to adapt to the inmate culture, and then at the end, as a m e an s of closing out the sentence and anticip ating life on the outside. 158

T h e m e s o - s p h e r e o f cu lt u r e , i n t e r a c t i o n and hyp er -masculinity

In c o n c lu s io n to this c h ap te r, I h o p e th at the d iscu ssio n of m e s o levels of

social

p ra c tice s

h as

h igh ligh ted

som e

of

the

m ost

significant

d im e n s io n s of m e d i a use as it p e rta in s to the d e m a n d s on in m a te s ' identities inflicted by the social an d cu ltu ral m ilieu of the p rison . M y research u n c o v e re d

a varie ty of w a y s in w hich m e d ia

re s o u rc e s are

in te rp rete d , u sed an d s h a p e d in o rd e r to satisfy the n e e d s of in d ivid u als and g r o u p s in this m o s t h ig h ly re g u la te d and b o u n d e d of e n v ir o n m e n ts . A

p iv o tal

re s o u rc e

co n fin e m e n t, identities,

m e d ia

social

in are

a id in g

in m a te s '

in s tr u m e n ta l

n etw ork s

and

in

dyadic

re s p o n s e s the

to

fo r m a tio n

frien d sh ip s

in

the

p ain s

of

of collective the

m eso,

or

in te rm e d ia te , rea lm s of s u b c u ltu r e s, socia l n e t w o r k s , a s so c ia tio n activities and s e m i-s tru c tu ra l a re n a s such as P rison D ia lo g u e , d eb atin g societies and

discu ssion

g ro u p s . M e d ia c o n te n t p r o v id e s p a tte rn s of th o u g h t,

activity an d talk. It p ro v id e s m a te ria l for learn in g and e n a c tin g roles, and can inspire p e r f o r m a n c e . It is assim ilated into d is c o u rs e and p ro v id e s the basis

for

defining

relationsh ips.

It

m ay

e ase

the

p ro c e s s e s

of

a c c lim a tisa tio n , socialisation an d colo n isa tio n , and can giv e tw o or m o re i n m a te s a sense of c o m m o n identity. It e n c o u r a g e s affiliation and p erm its d is e n g a g e m e n t . It p ro v id e s co n tin u ity w ith o n e 's fo r m e r life an d gives a sense of co n tro l o v e r o n e 's e n v ir o n m e n t. Little w'onder, th en , th at Lin dlof (1 987 : 195) c o n c lu d e s that 'few social settin gs offer m o r e c o m p e llin g e v id e n c e of the p r a g m a t i c s of m e d ia e x p o s u r e than the total in stitution'.

Notes 1 The tensions between micro-macro and structure-agency relations are arguably best resolved in the studies of subcultures conducted in the 1970s (e.g. Willis 1977) and in more recent studies that have applied Giddens' theory of structuration to conditions such as unemployment (e.g. Burman 1988). Both successfully address the tensions between structural constraints and microsocial politics within the realms of community and culture. 2 The argument that the more prisonised an inmate becomes, the less conventionally socialised he will be, supports W heeler's (1961) argument that socialisation takes the form of a 'U-shaped curve'. Schmid and Jones (1991) come to a similar conclusion, arguing that the inmate enters prison with an outsider's perception of what it will be like. By the middle of his sentence, he comes to adopt an insider's perspective on the prison world, only to revert to the outsider's view in the final months of his sentence. 3 A similar finding was noted in an American study which reported that nine out of ten prisoners had 'learned new tricks and improved their criminal expertise by watching crime programs (sic]' (Hendrick, G.H. (1977) When television is a school for criminals. TV G uide 29 January, quoted in Meyrowitz, 1985: 118). Hagell and Newburn (1994) note that young offenders also report watching The Bill for this reason, and Daniels (1997) makes a similar discovery in her study of media use at HMP Sudbury. 4 A quarterly newspaper for prisoners that carries reports of changes in prison rules and legislation affecting them. 159

Captive audience

1 O n c e m o r e , p a r a l l e l s c a n b e f o u n d in W i l l i s ' ( 1 9 7 7 ) s t u d y o f t h e w a y s in w h i c h l o w e r w o r k i n g - c l a s s b o y s p r e p a r e f o r t h e d u l l r e p e t i t i o n o f u n s k i l l e d l a b o u r in a d u l t life. 6 The

emphasis

numerous

t ha t w a s p l a c e d

prison

o ff icers,

on

television r o o m s being

governors,

governor

grades

and

pot ent ia l trou ble-s po ts by Home

Office

personnel,

t o g e t h e r wi t h t h e p r e v a i l i n g v i e w t ha t i n- c e l l t e l e v i s i o n e n c o u r a g e s p a s s i v i t y r a t h e r t h a n d i s c o n t e n t , m a k e s it al l t he m o r e s u r p r i s i n g t ha t s o m a n y p r i s o n r e s e a r c h e r s w h o h a v e p u r p o r t e d to b e i n v e s t i g a t i n g m a t t e r s o f o r d e r a nd c o n t r o l in p r i s o n s h a v e m a r g i n a l i s e d or ignored

the pres enc e

of media, seeing

it a s i n c i d e n t a l

rather than central

to t he

m a i n t e n a n c e o r d i s r u p t i o n o f o r d e r . V e r y b r i e f r e f e r e n c e s to i n c i d e n t s t h a t h a v e o c c u r r e d in a s s o c i a t i o n T V r o o m s c a n b e f o u n d in T o c h ( 1 9 9 2 : 2 8 3 ) a n d S p a r k s et a l ( 1 9 9 6 : 24 0 ) .

160

C h apter 6

T h e m a c r os o ci a l institutional sphere

It is rare to find an environment where media proliferate yet are as highly regulated as in prisons. This chapter will explore this dichotomy further, examining the extent to which - despite the differential levels of freedom and constraint that media consumption can facilitate at individual and social levels - media resources act as a locus of power for the prison authorities. In most studies of media reception, the structure - agency dynamic features only in terms of either the interplay between media industries and their audiences (in other words, the relationship between production and consumption), or the micropolitical dynamics that shape media use within private domains (text and context). But in this analysis, it is another dim ension of power - the macro levels of government, Home Office, prison service, governors, officers and other staff who use media to regulate and control inmates' behavio ur - that is of interest.1 Giddens' theory of structuration, which has been used critically throughout this study, has been censured for understating the extent to which hierarchically organised social structures limit the agency of individuals (Vaughan 2001). Mindful of this criticism, this chapter will discuss the extent to which, in the prison society, identity is shaped and autonomy constrained by structural imperatives, and w heth er the issue of media availability in prisons is determined by the requirements of the institution or the needs of inmates. In their efforts to regulate the actions of those under their supervision, prison authorities employ a range of techniques which m ight appear to be beneficial to inmates, but may in fact be primarily or solely designed to serve the interests of the prison and prison service. At the core of such decision-making lies the crucial distinction between what prisons are for, and how prisons should be run. Before considering the specific reasons behind the implementation of media into prisons it is first necessary to consider what purposes prisons serve, and then explore how policies regarding media fit into the overall 161

Capti ve audi ence

rationale. Adler and L ong hu rst (1994) argue that the history of British prisons hinges on three key m o m en ts of transform ation constructed around justifications for im p riso n m e n t fo llow ing the decline of principles o f reform. They are rehabilitation, norm alisation and control, and w hat follow s is a b rief historical outline of each approach, ac com panied by an attem pt to u n cover the d iscursive strategies behind the im plem entation of m edia resources, and their c onseq u ences, intended and un intend ed, for these three 'p u rp o se s ' (or 'end s', as A d ler and L on g h u rst term them) of im prisonm ent.

R e f o r m a n d re h a b ilita tio n

O ne of the found ations of public concern a b ou t m ed ia in prisons, w hich has been crystallised in the debate about w h eth er in-cell television should be allow ed, is that w a tch in g television appears to un d e rm in e one of the fu n d am e n tal principles on w hich the m o d e rn prison system was established: that prisons should be places of reform. In the early nineteenth century prisons b eca m e places of m oral edu cation, social im p ro v e m en t and religious piety, all of which were designed to allow the criminal to contem plate his w ron g d oin g , and repent. The prison w as thus transformed from sim ply a place of pretrial detention into one where crim inals could be exclud ed, differentiated, m ad e self-conscious of their m is d e m e a n o u rs and rationally controlled (M uncie 2001). In short, prisons b ec am e the pu n ish m en t for crime. The nineteenth-century zeal for reform w as tem pered in the tw entieth century w h en the e m ergenc e of D arw inism and the d ev elo p m en t of disciplines such as criminology, psycholog y and psychiatry resulted in reformism being superseded by rehabilitation, at least within official, he g em o n ic discourses. No longer w as there an over-riding belief in the crim inal as so m e o n e w ho actively chooses to co m m it crime, and can similarly exert his or her a u ton om y in decidin g to re pent and reform. Rather, a m o d e l of criminality was developed which stressed the d eviance of the offender. Far from being seen as rational traits to be reversed by the individual concerned , crime and d eviance w ere conceived as p athological m alfu nctions to be treated by skilled practitioners (Adler and L on gh u rst 1994; M u ncie 2001). A s a broad ideal d eterm ining penal policy, the rehabilitation or 'treatm en t' m o d e l fell out of favour to be replaced by a conclusion that 'n othing w o rk s ' (Lipton et al 1975) and that the central pillar of the crim inal justice system should be justice rather than crime control. H ow ever, a modified rehabilitative approach re m ains central to m uch prison policy and practice, and efforts to devise effective treatm ent

T h e m a cr o s o c i a l institutional s ph er e

p ro g ram m e s targeted at specific types of offender are prevalent in today's prison system . But m y research indicated that, far from enablin g inmates to m ak e positive life choices and assert their a u to n o m y in m eaning ful w ay s, such pro g ram m e s were universally derided as a w aste of time and money. M any vocational courses and treatm ent p ro g ra m m e s had long w aiting lists, and several inmates serving relatively short sentences felt they had little chance of m aking it to the top of the list before their parole date. For those serving long or life sentences, how ever, there was an added pressure in that one of the m ajor release criteria is that the individual has successfully addressed his offending behavio ur. These inmates w ere w ise to the fact that in the under-resourced prison system , their chances of release at the end of their tariff w ould be enhanced not only by attending the cou rses that were available, but by sim ply show ing willing and putting their n a m e s d ow n for them. Their understand ing of the collu sio n that is required of them in m a n ag in g their ow n prison sentences by d em onstrating a willingness to attend classes and treatm ent pro g ra m m e s hard ly m ak es it any m ore palatable to them. But being able to see through the institu tional ideology at least gave my re spondents som e sense of inverting m acrosocial processes, even though their responses were largely passive and enforced. U nfortunately for inm ates, if they are n ot wholly co m p lian t in the proced u res that assess, process and classify them, they are often stereotyped as 'a w k w a rd '. B urm an (1988: 76) provides a usefu l analogy in relation to the resistances of the un em p lo y ed to go v er n m e n t agencies and counsellors: [F]rom a system point of view . . . 'a w k w a rd ' m e a n t an eruption of individual agency cutting against the bureaucratic grain. Here the . . . self w as reaching for the authorial pen and trying to 'w rite' his or her ow n practices. These struggles, though painfu l, were synergistic responses to a d om ination w hich w as experienced as unfair. A t their b est . . . they k now led g ea b ly penetrated the mystique and professional pretensio ns of that system. M a n y of my respond ents had indeed penetrated the m ystiqu e and pretensions of the prison and probation system s, and prided them selves on h av ing insight into macrosocial processes and ideologies that were m e a n t to remain h idd en from them. They implicitly u n derstood that the system which subjects them to m arginalisation, classification, surveillance and the pejo rative ju d g em en ts of prison staff and the w id er society was itself not beyond censure:

I 63

Capti ve audi ence

The screw s treat us like scum , but they're ju st the sa m e as us. M o st of them operate on a system of bribery - or w o rse (Del). The public class us as anim als, but they're the anim als that put us in here (Jamie). Ironically, given the prison system 's (and arguably, the w'ider public's) apparently w e a k c o m m itm e n t to rehabilitation, it is fears a b ou t the nature and potentially h arm ful influences of electronic m edia that m ay underlie its delayed and restricted im plem entation . The question of w h eth er people are sent to prisons as p u n is h m en t or fo r p u n is h m e n t is still central to discussions a bout w h at prisoners have a right to expect in terms of basic m inim um stand ard s of living, and in p o pular discourses on the pu rposes of im p risonm ent, arg u m ents for rehabilitation are som etim es (and arguably increasingly) ov ersh ad o w e d by notions of reform and retribution. Consequently, it is of little surprise to w itness evidence of hostility a m o n g the general public towards in-cell television, w hich is seen as both a high-status co m m o d ity that has no role in a place of austerity, and as a potentially corruptin g influence that m ight un derm ine efforts to 'treat' the individual. T he In d ep en d en t (30 N o v e m b e r 1997) sum m ed up the prevailing view in an editorial u n d er the heading 'Television - a force for good in our n ation's prisons': Prison, eh? Nice cosy beds, good food, gyms, libraries . . . More like Butlins than a pu nishm ent. It'll be colour televisions next. The right-w ing tabloids will be in full cry, no doubt, as will som e backbenchers. M ichael How ard will lose no opportu nity to remind us that he rejected the idea, and to m o ck Jack 'tough on crim e' Straw for his w et liberalism in this regard. N or will the reaction be confined to politicians and editorialists. The verb 'to cosset' will be vigorously conjugated in the snug bars and H appy Eaters of the nation. M an y people will be genuinely outraged . . . It is a fund am ental social trait to w ant to see the guilty suffer. All cultures provide for pu n ish m en t and w e are a very rare exam p le in hu m an history of a culture which d oesn't kill at least som e of its criminals. Here, and now, the instinct for retribution m eans support for tough and unpleasant prison conditions. If they are not to hang, or go hungry, then they should at least squirm a little uncom fortable, not leisured and entertained. Reform

and

rehabilitation

are

thus

usually

be

regard ed

bored

as

and

mutually

e xclusive goals, and claim s that television u n d e rm in e s attem pts to reform

T h e m a c r o s o c i a l i ns t i t ut i o n a l s p h e r e

criminals play down its potential to aid offenders' rehabilitation back into society. Indeed, it is often precisely television's rehabilitative, dem ocratising role that is at the heart of objections to media availability in prisons. Central to much political rhetoric and public discourse is the notion that retribution leads to deterrence, and should therefore be the primary task of the prison service. Mere loss of liberty is insufficiently powerful to accomplish these ends; the inmate must be made to suffer through a series of deprivations - including the deprivation of access to the medium of greatest penetration in the UK population as a whole which will clearly dem onstrate the advantages of remaining out of prison. This position dominates a great deal of the media coverage of prisons and is one that reflects the views of a sizeable proportion of the British population: The history of Britain's prisons since 1945 has not been a happy one. It is a story of many dedicated people trying to make things better, and continually trapped by what can only be called 'the system ' the system in which the sentencers produce a steadily rising prison population; the system that fears political embarrassm ent and revelations in newspapers about prisoners enjoying themselves watching colour videos more than it fears revelations about prisoners locked up for twenty three hours a day and having no access to sanitation (Stern 1987: 247). But as The Independent editorial (30 N ovem ber 1997) goes on to say, in most developed societies mass media technologies are taken utterly for granted and television, more than any other mediu m, is for the modern citizen the 'ubiquitous window on society, a prime source of thinking and information'. The view of rehabilitationists, then, is that one of the primary benefits of in-cell television is its capacity to allow prisoners to remain part of society even while they are formally segregated from the outside world: [Television] shapes us. Now, granted, prisoners are physically cut off from society. But that is as much for our safety as for their punishment. Assuming that we hold to the idea of rehabilitation and the return of prisoners to ordinary life after their sentences, then cutting them off from social trends, thinking, entertainment and news is pointless, even stupid. Prisoners who watch television for hours are not only likelier to be easier to guard and oversee; they are also likely to end up more like the rest of us (ibid.).

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A m o n g the British press, The In depen den t is un usual in presentin g such a liberal view and the m ajority of ne w sp a p e rs have op posed the im plem entation of personal television sets in prisons. O pposition to television in prisons is arguably but one strand of a m u ch w id er anti­ television sen tim ent in Britain, a hostility that has bordered on moral panic (C orner 1995). There is a pervasive feeling, probably derived from the Protestant w o rk ethic, that w atching television is unproductive, especially in com pariso n to other m ore 'w o rth y ' activities. The appeal of TV as a w ay of filling time is seen to w o rk against the pursuit of more creative activities, to erode family and com m u n ity ties, and consequently to harm personal and social d ev elopm en t. H ow ever, the notio n of time being m easured against value or usefu lness p resupp oses the v ie w e r has more pu rposefu l alternative optio ns available to him or her. Far from being a precious com m od ity, in prison, time can b eco m e an enemy, and media resources are frequently em p loy ed to fill 'w ea ry tim e' and to facilitate the transcending of every d ay life (B runsdon 1990). A further arg u m e n t against television is its representatio n as a cultural invad er (C orner 1995), an anxiety that is part of a b road er preoccu pation with the globalisation of cultural form s and products and, in particular, the A m erican origin of m u ch p o pular global culture. Television is but one area of interest to critics w ho view anything A m erican as intrinsically cheap, trashy and alien to British culture and identity, and a more w id espread version of this trend is concern for a general d eb a s em en t of taste (ibid.). M an y high-profile c o m m e n tato rs have alluded to w h at Jo hn Reith, the first D irector G eneral of the BBC, called the 'low est com m on d e n o m in a to r ' of public taste. Within the prison service, m uch is spoken about the potential of in-cell television to provide in-house channels of in form ation and education, as if to provide justification for its im p lem e n ta tion ,2 but the con su m e rs are, like the rest of the population, generally more interested in being entertained, and it is s om etim es the u n d e m a n d in g or sensationalised that best fulfils this need. A n other elem ent of anti-television feeling is attitu dinal influence. The claim here is increasingly used to sum up the 'p ro b le m ' with television as a w h ole, b ut specifically it is believed that visual im ages are capable of exerting a negative influence upon the attitudes and b eh a v io u r of view ers. This influence is seen to be sufficiently pervasive and unassailable to have a general effect on social values and action, and crim inal activity as learned beh av io u r is at the very heart of anti-TV sen tim ents. O ne of the m o st c o m m o n versions of this concern is the 'c o py -cat' theory of disorder, w hich is widely articulated in relation to prison disturbances. Within the prison service there is recognition that once in-cell television is installed, it is difficult for the prison gov ernor

T h e m a cr o s o c i a l institutional s ph er e

to regulate or censor specific p ro g ram m e content. In the course of my research I encou ntered m any prison officers and g overnors w ho expressed concern a bout w h at they perceiv ed as televisio n's capacity to blu r fantasy and reality, b u t som e w ent further, noting that it could be especially problem atic in relation to specific prison populatio ns: Sex offenders w ho have [in-cell television] m a y have their cognitive deficiencies reinforced and thus un d e rm in e the offending b ehav io ur w o rk they have participated in (G overnor, in response to questionnaire). The w atershed issue is a real issue for Juvenile Centres. A policy of w h a t time the TV goes off need s to be established w hich takes a ccou nt of w h at is on (G o vernor of Y O I, in response to questionnaire). In general I d o n 't see there being a need to regulate or censor in­ cell TV - it would be virtually impossible to do so, in fact. But there are potential issues that m ay need to be addressed in relation to vulnerable or violent inm ates, in term s of television feeding their im ag inatio ns and perhaps intensifying, even s upp orting , their fantasies in som e w a y (Governor, in conversatio n). Related to this fear of unhealthy influence is the perceiv ed link b etw een television view ing and cognitive im pairm ent. Usually ad vanced by reference to psychological data, this arg u m e n t sees cultural deterioration as a co nseq u ence of eroded m ental capacities and is frequently used to illustrate claim s of falling educational standards (C orner 1995). A lthough there is no conclu sive evidence to su p p ort this view, it has entered the public consciou sness and m ay partially explain w h y so m e long-sentence prisoners - fearing m ental deterioration - favour reading, writing or p u rsuing hob b ies to w atching television. It is clear, then, that the overtly m oralistic and class-tinged bias inherent in m u c h anti-m edia sen tim ent d ovetails neatly with the traditions and ethos of the prison service. Put simply, the arg u m ents are that m edia in general, and television in particular, hind er the crim inal's inclination to reform , do nothing to reduce the likelihood of him reoffending and reward him for his d eviant behaviour. Even though in m o st prisons in­ cell television is part of the Incentives and Earned Privileges s chem e and is therefore only available to those w h o have earned the right to have it, for m any people its e n d uring statu s as luxury g oo ds preclude it from

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being an option for convicted prisoners. This sen tim ent pe rvad e s even a m o n g senior prison service staff: I d o n 't m orally hospital quite a

agree with them having p ersonal televisions, 1 think it's objectionable. To put it in perspective, I had a relative in recently for a m ajor operation. She w as going to be in for long time, and obviou sly w e w anted to m ake her as

com fortable as possible, so w e signed up to 'ho spitelly ' as they call it. It cost us £10 a day for the sam e service they get in here for £1 a w eek. It really gets up my nose to hear them com plaining that they d o n 't get this, that and the other in here. They get so m uch m ore than they would on the outside (G o vernor G rad e, in conversation). I do have a problem with it [in-cell television] to be honest with you. It's just another little thing, isn't it . . . another little perk that sw ing s the pe n d u lu m their w ay (Senior Officer, in conversation). Even the claim that it is rehabilitative is unproven. In fact, m any of the senior prison service personnel w h o responded to my questio nnaire concurred with the view s of inm ates noted earlier that in-cell television can d im inish social skills: [In-cell television] reduces op portunities to socialise with other prisoners and the social benefits w hich 's h a rin g ' a facility can confer - encou ra ges greate r selfishness (Governor, in response to questionnaire). A s with 'd ining in cell', now alm ost universally introduced, som e social benefits will be lost (Governor, in response to questionnaire). A m o n g supp orters of in-cell televisio n, how ever, it is believed that not only does TV keep inmates in to uch with an outside world to w hich they will eventually return b ut it also provides a m eans by w hich prisoners have to pay for som ething out of their prison earnings, and therefore teaches them responsibility. Furtherm ore, the flexibility of the IEP policy m eans that individual prison gov ernors can decide how to use in-cell TV as part of their ow n control or rehabilitation strategies at a local level. W h a t this m e an s in respect to the latter is that, in m o st prisons, in-cell television is used as an incentiv e to get and keep inmates off drugs. For e xam p le, at Gartree, prisoners are only permitted in-cell television after they h av e had successiv e negative results in m and a to ry drugs tests for

T h e m a cr o s o c i a l institutional s ph er e

six m onths, while at A shw ell a rath er different approach is taken with those w ho are d eem ed to be m aking strenuous efforts to beat their drug addictions being rewarded with in-cell TV, s om etim es even at no cost.3 It is w id ely ack n ow le d g ed that drugs present con tem p ora ry prison gov ernors and officers with one of the greatest threats to security and control, and for prison authorities to use w h a tev er m eans available to m inim ise these p ro blem s is un derstand ab le. H ow ever, one g o v e r n o r's belief that he is replacing one addiction with another less harm ful one is arguable. I saw little evidence to suggest that anyon e was successfully refraining from taking drugs sim ply b ecau se they had a television. Indeed, so m e inm ates felt in-cell TV creates the very e n vironm ent which encou ra g es recreational drugs use: I w a s in prison tw enty years ago. The experien ce w as com pletely different then, it's now m u ch more civilised. It used to be three in a cell, pot under the bed. But in som e w ay s things have got worse. They were far less security minded then. E verything revolves around security now. But there w a s n 't the c o m m o n experience of heroin

then, ju st cannab is

and

hooch.

N ow

we

have

in-cell

television, electricity . . . It's not the fault of the authorities but they'v e created the perfect en v iro n m en t for taking d rugs with this in-cell TV (David). W h ate v e r the success of A sh w ell's policy of using television to encou rage people off drugs, it clearly d em onstrates that the rehabilitative discourse persists in prisons. But w hile m an y prison s p ok e sp e rson s publicly acclaim the benefits of the in-cell TV sch e m e, there is still so m e residual d ou bt about its efficacy on the part of m any prison staff and inmates. The d ichotom ies inherent in the system are clear to see. M a n y people believe television can aid the rehabilitation of offenders back into society, yet there is an u n derly ing concern that it d im inishes their chances of reform. Within the prison service, there are hop es in-cell television will enhance prison regim es by e n cou rag ing good behaviour, yet there are s im ultaneously fears it will be d etrim ental to re gim es by reducing personal contact and interaction; it is co m m e n d e d as a m eans of com m u n ication with the outside w orld, b u t it has sim ultaneously been noted it reduces the channels of face-to-face c o m m u n icatio n within the prison walls and provides private, h idd en contexts in w hich drug taking and other illegal activities can take place; while public statem ents are m ad e about the potential of in-cell television to e nhance educational opportunities, in reality it is cu rtailing association time, replacing som e education pro vision and reducing attend ance at the classes that remain.

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Given all these considerations, it has to be assum ed that the co m m itm e n t to rehabilitating (or, for that matter, reform ing) prisoners is being un d erm ined by more p a ra m o u n t concerns.

N o rm a lisa tio n

Since the publication of the W oolf report, the prison service has addressed calls for prisons to be 'n o rm a lise d ' (Bottom ley et al 1997), and m edia resources are a key co m p o n e n t of this effort. The strategy of 'n orm a lisa tion ' has tw o elem ents. First, it is based upon the notio n that prisoners are norm a l individuals w h o h ap p e n to have com m itted a crime, a prem ise that contrasts with rehabilitation d iscourse which maintains that crim e is com m itted by m aladju sted individuals w ho m u st be made 'b etter' in prison. The second aspect of norm alisation is that the p u n is h m e n t co m p o n e n t of im p ris o n m e n t is the deprivation of liberty and that, aside from that, inm ates should be able to live as 'n o rm a lly ' as possible within the constrain ts of confinem ent: in other w ord s, the experien ce of the prison itself should not be punitive. T he principle of norm alisation is intrinsic to the notio n of prisons providing 'h u m a n e con ta in m en t', a central tenet of King and M o rg a n 's evidence to the M ay com m ittee, set up in 1978 to review the state of the prison services and to m ak e re com m en d a tion s for change. Lord Justice M ay rejected the n orm alisin g d iscourse of King and M o rg an 's report, but there has nevertheless been an increasing co m m itm e n t to n orm alisin g the prison en v iro n m en t over the last two decades, m ost evident in im proved living conditions. A ltho u g h m any argue that norm alisation in British prisons does not go far e n ou g h , the chang es that h ave taken place to m ake i m p riso n m e n t m ore like life outside represent a significant d ev elop m en t in attitude a m o n g prison authorities. In essence, the prison e nvironm ent has historically been governed by a principle of deterrence k now n as 'less eligibility' w h ereby cond itions in prisons m u st be no better than those experienced by the poorest sectio ns of the w o rk ing classes. However, with prisons u n d er increasing scrutiny from g o v ern m e n t inspectors, acad em ic researchers and prison reform gro ups, regim es are increasingly underpinned by efforts to ensure they are no (or not substantially) w orse than those experienced by the equ iv alent population outside. It is from within this w id er context of entitlem ent that the introductio n of m edia resources into prisons m u st be regarded, for if the question of m edia access for inmates was sim ply one of less eligibility, personal television sets w ould have been introduced several years ago. In-cell television raises m any of the arg u m ents previously rehearsed in 170

T h e m a cr o s o c i a l institutional s ph er e

relation to the introduction of in-cell radio in 1974 and the reasons for the delay in im p lem enting the s chem e are probably as com p le x as the rationales behind its introductio n now.4 In addition to historic notio ns of less eligibility, one of the latent concerns that m ay have impeded its progress is the belief that electronic m edia are fu nd am entally changing the nature of incarceration, erodin g the 'totality' of total institutions and challenging traditional a rgu m ents about the p u rposes of im prisonm ent: Prisons were once m ore than places of physical incarceration; they were places of inform ational isolation as well. A prisoner was not only limited in m o v e m e n t but also 'e x -co m m u n ic a te d ' from society . . . Today, how ever, m any prisoners share with the larger society the privileges of radio, television, and telephone . . . For better or w orse, those prisoners with access to electronic m edia are no longer co m p letely segregated from society. The use of electronic media has led to a redefinition of the nature of 'im p ris o n m en t' and to a d e fa c to revision of the prison classification system : The co m m u n ic atio n variables of 'high inform ation' prisons versus 'low inform a tion' prisons now have been added to the physical variables of 'high security' and 'low secu rity' (M ey row itz 1985: 117-18). Although in-cell television is increasingly being seen as a key earnable privilege, the fact that n ot all prisons (nor all prison w ings) can a cco m m o d a te television sets for technical reasons m eans this aspect of a policy that w as designed to eliminate so m e of the inconsistencies in prisoner entitlem ents - IEP - is perceived as grossly unfair by m any inmates: Here [at Stocken] som e wings have no TV, so m e have got in-cell TV, so m e have got in-cell TV w ith satellite. It creates a two-tier system within an already two-tiered system . I'm on Enhanced , yet I hav en 't got a TV. I feel like a second -class citizen (Rob). W hen in-cell TV w as anno unced all inmates expected to get it immediately, b ut m any will n ot do so for a n u m b e r of years. Inmates will gain and lose as they m ove establishm ents (Governor, in re sponse to questionnaire). How ever, as M ey ro w itz suggests, those prisoners w h o do have personal TV s are no longer excluded from participation in the public sphere and, in general, prisons today are far better integrated into the wider co m m u n ity than ever before. Two key poin ts arise from this 171

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dev elopm en t. First, those 'on the ou tsid e' can no longer use television as a private forum in w hich to discuss the pro blem s of crime and crime prevention since inm ates can now 'e n te r' society via the fibre-optic cables of tele com m u n ica tion s (M ey row itz 1985: 118).5 Secondly, it is possible that as prisoners are increasingly able to m o nito r and interact with the larger en v iro n m en t informationally, they correspo nd ing ly increase their d em an d s for greater physical access to the outside world and expect entitlem ents c o m m e n su ra te with those accorded the w id er population. Th e se two processes arguably create a shift in the b alance of power, so that instead of norm alisation ha p p e n in g at the pace at which the prison service think appropriate, inm ates are them selv es playing a role in change. The prison authorities are thus faced with a dilem m a. O n the one hand, concerns ab ou t television constituting 'bad culture' have gained popular credence and are as intrinsic a part of everyd ay cultural currency as the related belief that prisoners m ust be subjected to sufficient depriv ation in prison to deter them from ever reoffending again. O v e r the last fifty years, w h en m u ch public attention has b een focused on the erosion of traditional values and cultural ties (C orner 1995), television has provided a conv enient scapegoat, and now here more so than in the frequent - if m etho do lo gically unsound - attempts to link m edia im ages with rising crime. N otions of prisoner e m p o w e r m e n t therefore do not sit easily with m o d e rn political rhetoric w hich is arguably still m ore concerned with public perception than with prisoners' rights. Indeed, one of the aims of the IEP policy is to m eet 'p ublic expectations a bout w h a t kind of place prison should b e ' (Liebling et a l, 1 99 7:x), and if the press are to be believed, the vast m ajority of the British public are not in favour of personal television sets in prisons. On the other hand, the arg u m e n t that television is a luxury that prisoners do n ot d eserve is b ec o m in g increasingly hard to sustain. In the UK and A m erica, 98.9per cent of h ou seh old s own at least one TV set, 75 per cent ow n tw o or m ore sets and one third of the population subscribe to cable or satellite. It is estim ated that view ers in Britain watch an average of 24 hou rs per w eek , w hile an A. C. Nielsen report claim s that, in the U SA , TV sets are switched on for approxim ately 50 hours per week (quoted in Fow les 1992). A s such, television in both countries (as in the rest of the d eveloped world) is deem ed far less a luxury than a public utility, and the provision of television sets in prisons is entirely consistent with n o rm al life. Put simply, if the prison service ad heres to the view that the vast m ajority of people in its institu tions are not pathological but are 'n o rm a l' individuals w h o h appen to have transgressed the consensual codes of society, it has to conced e that prisoners have as m u ch right as 172

T h e m a cr o s o c i a l institutional s ph er e

anyon e else to w atch television in w h a tev er form and quantity they so desire, even if its norm alisation of the prison environm ent leads to an escalation of prisoners' d em an d s and expectations.

Control

From the discussion so far it can be inferred that any theoretical analysis of an e n v iro n m en t where social control is a fact of every d ay life m u st take accou nt of M arxist theories of p o w er relations. Critics argue that those with least p o w er in society are over-represented in prisons, and that one of the prim ary functions of im p riso n m e n t has alw ays been to regulate the beh a v io u r of, and discipline, the least p o w e rfu l strata of society (see, for exam p le , R usche and K irchheim er 1 9 3 9 / 6 8 ; Foucault 1977; Ignatieff 1983). This, then, raises an im portant issue relating to m ed ia

that

is

rarely

publicly

voiced.

Television

and

other

m edia

technologies are un do ub tedly desirable com m od itie s that im prove the quality of every d ay life for m ost prisoners, w h a tev er view one takes of their entitlem ent to such privileges. But their capacity to serve the needs of officers, g ov ernors, the prison service, g ov e r n m e n t and the w id er realm s of p o w e r is less frequently discussed. In an era w h en managerialism has em erged as an influential conceptual d ev elo p m en t in penal

policy,

the

need s

of

the

individual

prisoner

have

beco m e

increasingly ov ersh a d o w ed by the requ irem ents of rationality, efficiency, cost-effectiveness, accountability and organisation (Feeley and Sim on 1992; Bottom s 1995). For exam p le , in-cell television enshrin es the principles of the three d im ensions of m anagerialism (B ottom s 1995) that have d om inated the criminal justice and penal system s over the last ten years. It is con su m erist in that it appeals to liberal individualists as an im p ortan t hu m an rights d e v e lo p m e n t and pays lip-service to the notion of prisoners as p o ssessors of entitlements. It has sy stem ic characteristics in that it reduces out-of-cell activity, thus potentially cutting staff costs. It also offers an incentive for good behaviour, and potentially constitu tes a policy that can be im plem ented consistently across the w h ole prison estate (although with variations being devised at a local level, and technical im plem entation pro blem s at som e prisons, this is not yet the case). Finally, it is actu arial in its capacity to occu py large n u m b e rs of potentially unruly prisoners w hile m inim ising interaction b etw een them. It has been noted that one of the m ost frequently expressed analogies in relation to television as a form of control is that it is a habit-form ing ad diction; a drug (M a n d e r 1980; P ostm an 1985). The resem blance b etw ee n the properties of drugs and those of television w as not lost on 173

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a g ov ernor w h o described in-cell television to m e as 'the m ulti-colo ured narcotic', or the staff, one of w h om co m m e n ted : 'y ou should see them when N eighbou rs is on - it's like a tranquilliser.' The increasing reliance by prison authorities and staff on using television to occu py and pacify an otherw ise potentially volatile population represents an im portant change in the p hilo sophy and pu rpose of im prisonm ent. W he re prison life in the past w as structured around the production of discipline and the eradication of idleness (Foucault 1977), so that every m inute of the day w as used to its m a x im u m efficiency, m ed ia are arguably rapidly replacing purposeful activity (w ork, association and so on) with n o n ­ pu rposefu l (i.e. n on -g oal orientated) activity. Even within the m o dern rhetoric of the prison sy stem , in-cell television appears to have conflicting p u rposes, for while it achieves one of the aim s of i n c e n t iv e s and Earned Privileges' - to im pro ve prisoner com p liance through reward - it nevertheless see m s to be at odds with another of l E P 's prim ary intentions - to im pro ve constructive occu pation in prisons. The M arxist conclusion that decisio ns to introduce a particular incentiv e or p u n is h m e n t are generally u n derpinned not by consid erations of the recip ients' welfare, b u t by ideological and m aterial interests on the part of those in power, w ould therefore seem convincing. The ad option of in-cell television in the majority of British prisons has coincided with a sharply rising prisoner p o pulatio n and a correspond ing fall in w o rk opportunities, w h ich have com bined to leave m ore inm ates with longer periods of unstructured time to fill. Taken to an extrem e, it m ig h t be argued that w h ere prisons originally aimed to train and discipline the body in order to increase its capacities and im prove its efficiency (Foucault 1977; M atth ew s 1999), they now fail ad equately to occupy the body, b ut do go so m e way to occupy the m ind , albeit in w h at m any consider to be 'mind/ess activity'. Two inm ates put their view s strongly: There's less resistance here [in Stocken] b eca u se there were TV s here already. People were conditioned. This is a very passive jail - it's a 'TV jail'. People are pacified b ecau se they w o n 't w an t to lose their TV. It's not like a drug - it's even more po w e rfu l than that. I've got a friend in Bedford [Prison] who can 't wait to get to a jail like this for the TV. N ot just a TV. All that goes around the TV. Feet up, living a life of luxury. It's all that goes with it. It's n ot ju st a box in the corner. I m ea n, how easy can they m a k e prison? (David). This is a very petty jail and in-cell television is part of that. They're alw ay s putting up obstacles to test you. They can take it off you for the pettiest reason. It's all about the general public. In-cell television 174

T h e m a c r o s o c i a l i ns t i t ut i o n a l s p h e r e

is good for new inmates but in a prison like this it creates a lazy environment. People don't do hobbies any more. Som e of the young ones just watch television all day. 'Baby bird' we call it (Brian). Yet to suggest that television is only useful in prisons as long as it performs the role of 'electronic babysitter' contradicts the findings of uses and gratifications-based audience research, and panders to what has been described as 'TV priggery' (Fowles 1992: ix). Unfortunately, however, many in the prison service voice privately - if not publicly - that the greatest advantage of in-cell television is to occupy the minds and senses of an otherwise fickle and unstable population. Conspiratorially minded critics have gone further, arguing that television prevents people from engaging in more serious political thought or activity (Eagleton 1991) and that throughout history, repressive regimes have sought to keep populaces passively entertained on a diet of cheap commercial television (Stevenson 1995). Although the prison service would not publicly acknowledge this is the case, they may tacitly believe that in-cell television is a useful safety valve for the system. Several wing officers told me that initially they had been extremely sceptical about the prospect of in-cell television because of the reduction in opportunities for social control strategies or 'dynamic security' that results. Most, however, were now entirely supportive of the initiative, at least in so far as it had reduced some of the inherent tensions and made aspects of their own work easier. For some, it had the advantage of giving them something to talk about with their inmate charges, but for most its function as a control mechanism was paramount. Several officers mentioned it had diminished opportunities for mischief-making and interpersonal violence, while some even suggested it had reduced incidents of selfharm and suicide. This senior officer's com m ent was typical: I was very sceptical at first. It just didn't seem right that they should have their own television sets - it seemed we were rewarding them for their crimes. But although I still feel that it's m orally wrong, I have to be honest and say that, as far as this prison's concerned, it's been a very good thing. There's less bullying now than there used to be and things are generally a lot quieter on the wings. I was a very loud and vocal critic of in-cell TV when we heard it was coming here, but I suppose I've been forced to eat my words. But while the advantages to inmates are also acknowledged, there is little recognition of the hostility some prisoners feel knowing that, if it is not happening already, they may soon find themselves being locked up in 175

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their cells for longer periods and forgoing other previously enjoyed 'privileges' b ecau se it is assum ed that in-cell TV g uarantees com pliance: TV has opened another gate - it's another little choice. But it m eans earlier and earlier b ang -u p . It locks you into a routine. If you're banged up at five o'clock at w e e k en d s, you 'll start b ang ing yourself up at five during the w eek. Also, w h en you had your ow n TV, there w a s n 't m u ch they could do to you . . . now it's being used as part of the p u n ish m en t regim e. W e'v e had them less than a w eek and already people have had their electricity cut off for having their TVs on too loud. It's an easy w ay for officers to get at you (Tim). O f all the relatio nships that exem plify the unequal distribution of p o w er and resources in prison it is the interface betw ee n inm ates and officers w hich is m ost im m ediate and which is most strongly im plicated in the flow of every d ay life inside prisons. Officers perform several roles in relation to inmates: paternalistic guardians; rule enforcers; m oral arbiters; and com bata nts with w h om prisoners are engaged in perpetual mind g a m e s (M cD e rm o tt and King 1988). W h a t all these roles have in co m m o n , how ever, is that they m ight be m ore typically associated with the relationship b etw een family m em b ers. It is therefore of little surprise to find that, w h e n it com es to television view ing, m a n y of the d ynam ics played out in liv ing-room s across the country have strong parallels within the prison com m unity, and that as one of the m o st significant in novations in recent prison policy, in-cell television is frequently the cond u it of authority (on the part of officers) and resistance (on the part of inmates). But there are nu m e ro u s other, m ore subtle w ay s in w hich prisons are characterised by the patriarchal d ep lo y m en t of p o w er (M athiesen 1965). From the staff w ho deliberately allocate n e w sp a p e rs to the w rong inmates (for e xam p le, giving the Telegraph reader the M irror, or the Sun reader a cop y of the G u ard ian ) to the officers w ho bring videos with a high sexual content for inm ates to w atch, as a 'w in d -u p ' intended to irritate or hum iliate their aud ience, m edia resources can provide a usefu l m eans of m an ipu lating prisoners' em otions and rem inding them of who is in charge.6 W h e th e r one should interpret such actions as mere m ischief-m ak ing or som ething rath er more sinister is debatable, but it is clear such cond u ct has a long history. Several research participants told me about the introductio n of in-cell radio into prisons in 1974, w h en inm ates had to have served at least fo ur years and have a clean record of good beh a v io u r befo re they were eligible for a radio set. Prior to this, the only form of com m u n ication in prisons was a radio controlled by officers, with loud speak ers positioned centrally on each landing. Inmates 176

T h e m a cr o s o c i a l institutional s ph er e

reported they struggled to hear the broadcasts, and would sit with their head s pressed up against their cell doors, strainin g to hear. Officers, m ind ful of their thirst for new s of outside, w ould keep the vo lu m e at a level w h ere the inm ates could ju st m a k e out odd w o rd s, b ut could not m ak e com plete sense of w h at w as being reported. O ther stories of this time told of how officers would refuse to put the radio on w h en requested to do so by inm ates, and of how they would im m ediately switch it off if ne w s ca m e on ab ou t a crim inal incident w hich m ig h t be of interest to the inm ate audience. W hen questioned , one officer at A shw ell confirmed that the first prison radios were a pow erfu l m eans of ensuring com pliance: 'there w as no better w ay of getting them all back in their cells after lunch than threatening not to turn the radio on.' A ccord ing to Vagg (1994), these kinds of stories epitom ise not only the arbitrarin ess of officers' d ecisio n-m ak ing , b ut also d em onstra te that prisoners are m ore interested in having access to m edia resources than they are in having greater rights in relation to other aspects of their treatm ent in prison. In the years prior to the introduction of in-cell television, Vagg notes that prisoners in The N etherland s reported being primarily interested in obtaining videos. A ltho ug h this finding seem s s o m e w h a t surprising, given the focus on prisoners' rights that is to be found in acad em ic literature, Vagg believes there is som e rationality to it. P risoners' rights have guided inm ates' expectations concerning their treatm ent in prison since the broad legal reform s of the 1960s and 1970s, w h en prisons - like other social institu tions - b ec am e increasingly p e rm eable to judicial, legal and other 'pu blic' interventions, and notions of citizenship and civil rights entered penal discou rses (Jacobs 1977). But at the time of w riting, prisons in England and Wales are not especially politicised and, for m ost prisoners m o st of the time, 'rig hts' arc b ackgrou nd consid erations to be referred to only on such rare occasions that dem and it. Furtherm ore, at the stage at w h ich a p riso n e r's rights b eco m e salient - for exa m p le , if he has attacked an officer - the ou tcom e is usually clear cut and u n derstand ab le (Vagg 1994). But at the routine level of w h eth er one can take one's radio into the exercise yard, swap cassette tapes with another inm ate, have m ore c o m p a ct discs than is officially perm itted, m ake a pho ne call outside the allotted time or request that a particular video is b ro u g h t in, prisoners are reliant on the discretion and flexibility of their officers. For Vagg (ibid.: 83), these are the most im portant every d ay issues for m an y inm ates, yet their ou tcom e rests upon a 'lurking unpredictability'. Consequently, while these issues may seem relatively trivial to the outsider, it is in such interactions that prison officers are able to reinforce w here the p o w e r lies. So, m edia resources clearly serve the pu rposes of the institution, 177

Capti ve audi ence

offering a pow erful incentive to good b eh av io u r w h ich, in tu rn, creates a calm in g influence on the regim e, reduces staff costs and provides officers with a useful control m echanism . In an era when security and control have em erged as the d o m in a n t concerns directing prison policy - m anifested in increased use of searching, m and a to ry drug testing, v olu m etric control of p risoners' possessions, re ductions in tem porary release and h o m e leave, and m any other restrictions (Liebling et al 1997) - m edia m ay be seen as an essentially dem ocratising force, yet the extent of their ability to e m p o w e r inevitably still d ep en d s on w h o is controlling access. M a n y critics are concerned that, despite ongoing discourses about re habilitation and norm alisation, it is security and control that remain at the root of the prison service's ideology and that continu e to influence their m ed ia policy. O f course, som e m ed ia are easier to regulate than others. B ooks and m ag az ines are relatively sim ple to censor or to ban outright and, during m y fieldwork, I c am e across several e xam p les of literary m aterial forbidden to prisoners, inclu ding hard-core po rn og rap h y ; texts - such as the fascist m a g azine B u lldog - w h ich m ight incite racial violence; and edu cational material - such as science m anu als instructing readers how to cond u ct potentially h azard ou s experim ents that could conceivably be used inappropriately. Prerecord ed m edia texts are also relatively easy for the prison authorities to regulate and, while inm ates are allow ed to have a limited n u m b e r of audio cassettes and co m p a ct discs in their possession, video tapes are usually only allowed into the prison if b ro u g h t in by a bona fid e m e m b e r of staff. In-cell television is, how ever, m u ch m ore difficult to control. It can be prohibited to som e inm ates, or w ith d ra w n as a p u nishm ent. But its content is virtually impossible to regulate other than by prescribing specific periods of time - for exa m p le , during w o rk in g -h ou rs or after 11 pm - w h en it m u st be switched off. Levels of literacy are m u ch low er a m o n g prisoners than in the population as a w h ole, and audio-visual media therefore tend to be seen as a great leveller of inequalities. C o m p u te r technologies are arguably yet m ore d em ocratising and, although m any prison gov ernors and H om e Office officials reported they do foresee a day w h en the Internet will be used as routinely in prisons as it is ou tsid e, it is difficult to im agine at this point how the prison service w ould regulate the seem ingly unregulateable flow of information which would inevitably result. Indeed, several of m y inm ate interview ees mentioned that restrictions on c o m p u te r use had been severely tightened in the m onths preceding the introductio n of in-cell television, and they view ed the confiscation of their personal com p u te rs - tho ug ht to be part of the overall drive to im prove security - as being directly linked to the provision of personal TV sets, w hich was assum ed to be intended as som e 178

T h e m a cr o s o c i a l institutional s ph er e

sort of quid pro quo com p en sa tion . M o st of these inm ates, how ever, said they w ould rath er have their c o m p u te r back than have in-cell television. A n other factor concerning in-cell television that creates tension b etw een prisoners and the prison authorities is the ow nership and cost of the actual sets. Given that one of the factors w h ich delayed the im plem entation of in-cell television in this cou ntry for so long w as the wid espread assum p tion it would be financed by the British tax-payer, som e respond ents have been angered by ru m ou rs that the television sets were purchased by the prison service in bulk from the high street retailer, Argos, at a discounted price of £44 per set. They were further aggrieved that they w ould be paying £1 per w eek rental w h ich, as far as they were concerned , m e an t the sch e m e w ould very quickly be generating a steady source of incom e for the Treasury. O n top of this, m any were disappointed by the standard of the equ ipm ent. The prison service took the decisio n that the sets would not have remote controls becau se they could easily be lost, and b ecau se they m ig h t e ncou rag e inm ates to leave the sets on standby w h ich, it is argued, uses electricity and increases the risk of fire. Furtherm ore, prison-issue TV sets have no teletext facility, w hich angered m any inm ates w h o use the service for new s and sports information. But that loci of p o w e r rest in the micropolitical spheres of prison life 'on the gro u n d ', as well in the m acro-structural d y n am ics above, is dem onstrated by the fact that prisoners find am ple opportunities to assert their agency and resist established forces and expectations. R em iniscen t of C o hen and T a ylor's (1972) street-w ise and erudite prison respondents who m ocked the lesser intelligence of their guards (an exa m p le being the 'thick screw ' w h o thought it a co m p lim e n t to be called an 'aggressiv e p s y c h o p a th '; ibid.: 139), de Certeau (1984) characterises all social relations as being a conflict b etw ee n the 'strategies' of the po w erfu l - w ho are assum ed to be c u m b e rs o m e, u n im aginative and b ureaucratic - and the 'tactics' of the w e ak - w ho are, by contrast, nim ble, creative and flexible. For de Certeau - and here his theory bears sim ilarities to that of G idd ens - institu tions constitu te one of the places w here the po w erfu l construct and exercise their power, b u t the w eak create their ow n 'sp ace s' within those places; m ak in g them tem porarily their own as they occupy and m o ve through them. De Certeau uses the language of warfare to describe these

processes,

arguing

that

subord inates

are

like

guerrillas,

appropriating space as a m e a n s of resistance. This m e tap h o r seem s particularly apt in relation to my ob servations of the spaces connecting the different w ings at H M P Ashw ell. K no w n to inm ates as 'the streets' these long, narrow corridors that run past the associatio n ro om s w ere out of the sight of staff in the w ing offices and, during association time, groups 179

Capti ve audi ence

o f inmates would congregate to replicate som e of the activities that might be encountered am o ng such groups of young men on the 'real' streets outside. Given the opportu nities these locations provided for inmates to mingle out of sight of any authorities, it seemed possible it was not just banter that was exchanged in these corridors. In fact, A shw ell's governor asked m e to try to find out w h y so m any inmates (in particular, those w ho did not have in-cell television) eschew ed the association ro oms with their TV sets and pool tables, and instead loitered in the corridors outside, but I found no evidence of any illegal activity. It may sim ply be that, like the ad olescent youths encountered by Corrigan (1975), these prisoners were actively engaged in the social practice of 'doing nothing' except marking their 'p atch'. M ore specifically, they had found a w ay of using the imposed system of 'association activity' and creating a territorial space reminiscent of those they would have on the outside. The fact it involved a stubborn resistance of an activity designated a 'priv ilege' (television), and was invisible to the wing officers, added to the sense of 'foiling the other's g am e ' and enhanced the 'pleasure in getting around the rules of a constraining space' (de Certeau 1984: 18). Individuals thus use m edia technologies as a source of e m p o w e r m e n t - by rejecting them - in order to resist d o m in a n t ideologies. M o st prisoners I spoke to think that in-cell TV is one of the best innovatio ns they have seen in prison, yet m an y subscribed to in-cell television with extrem e reluctance, and frequently only after a significant period of refusing it: M o st of us are glad to have it, althou gh I m ust ad m it that I held out for a w hile as a protest ab ou t the w ay it's been hand led . [At Stocken] w e w ere told w e could buy our own T V s, so w e had to lose ten w eek s private cash to buy them , and then w e 're told we have to have their TVs. Basically, w e're paying £1 a w eek to have som e th in g taken off us. They'll use it as a p u n is h m en t as well. Instead of days remission w e'll lose tw enty -eig ht days TV (Bill). I d id n 't w a n t in-cell TV, but in the end I had to have it b ecau se I'm on E nhanced. I ca n 't pretend I d o n 't watch it now that I've got it, but I held out as long as I could. I enjo yed my eight m o nths here w itho ut it though (A nd rew ).7 O thers flatly rejected in-cell televisio n, principally b ecause to do so d em onstrates their individual strength of character and their refusal to toe the institu tional line:

180

T h e m a cr o s o c i a l institutional s ph er e

It's all carrot dangling in here. Well I refuse to bite the carrot. I'd like television b ut I'm not going to go d ow n on my knees and grovel for it. Call it resistance, if you like. W h e n you face institutional racism all you can do is resist . . . I refuse to buy into their way of doing things, especially as it's them w ho will reap the benefits (Paul). It's a two-tier situation here. We're being bullied, intim idated and dictated to about w h a t w e can spend our m o n ey on. Jo bs are scarce here and if you 're u n em p lo y ed , you 're on £2.50 a w eek. T hey 're saying w e have to pay £1 of that for TVs. Well, I'm not having one. I'v e refused to pay. N ine people on this w ing have refused in-cell televisio n b ecau se of the £1 per w eek and b ecau se of the situation with the old TVs. In-cell television w as n ever m e a n t to be a privilege. W h e n it was introduced it was a schem e . . . P risons now have a monopoly. It costs them £44 a set, so in the first year they'v e already m ad e £12 out of me. T he TV s d o n 't have re mote controls, they d o n 't have Ceefax w hich I used to keep up with world new s, and we can 't take them with us w h en we get out of here. I d on't see w h y I should be bullied into paying £1 a w eek for som e th in g I d o n 't have full use of. Argos have m a d e m o n ey out of this, this prison will m ak e a fortune from it . . . T h e y w o n 't give me a bill of sale for it, so I'm taking them to court (Billy). As these e xam p le s illustrate, m a n y prisoners believe it is not prisoners' rights or even the control factor that are of p rim ary interest to the prison authorities, b ut financial considerations. At all the prisons I studied, questions about the cost of in-cell television to the institution and to individual prisoners were para m ou n t. M a n y believed that after such a long period during w h ich it w as talked about, planned and not im plem e n te d , the only possible reason for its introduction now m u s t be to m ake m o n ey from them . How ever, the belief that the prison service primarily view s them, not as unique flesh-and-blood hu m a n beings but as units of cost within an over-bureaucratised fra m ew ork of policy, sim ply gives inm ates greater scope for resistance. Such protests un d erm ine the often taken-for-granted assum p tion that hu m an beings are passiv ely com p lian t w h en faced with behaviour-linked rewards and pu nishm ents. Several inmates reported they had previously deliberately stayed on Basic regim e as a sign of protest; others w ho were on Standard entitlem ents had no inclination to go any further; and others still who enjoyed E nhanced privileges m o ck ed the Sup er E nhanced prisoners in A shw ell and S to ck en 's self-contained S cand in avian units. 181

Ca p t i v e a u d i e n c e

In its discussion of macro structures and processes, this chapter has focused on the roles of prison officers, governors, the prison service, the Home Office and the wider public in implementing or endorsing prisoners' access to media. It was more difficult to research 'upwards' decisions taken regarding media policy than it was to research 'dow nw ards' the opinions and feelings of inmates, but the accounts of many prison officers and governors I spoke to suggested there had been significant differences of opinion on policy betw een the Home Office and prison service personnel in the Michael Howard era of the mid-1990s which lingered on into the period when I was doing my fieldwork. These clashes of opinion were most manifestly an issue at those prisons that already had in-cell television prior to How ard's appointment as Home Secretary, where the success of the scheme (as perceived by inmates, staff and governors) was constantly underm ined by the threat from above that it would be withdrawn. H ow ard's legacy appears to be that official opinion on prisoners' access to personal media remains guarded. The conclusion to be drawn from this discussion, however, is that although macro structures and processes permeate all areas of policy development, loci of power and control exist at all levels of the prison culture. Even where inmates have little choice, compliance implies resigned acceptance rather than dumb acquiescence. Indeed, negotiations between prisoners and prison governors regarding the origin, availability and cost of in-cell TV sets have provided a classic hegem onic site of struggle wherein the disempowered can engage in contested relations with the authorities that attempt to subordinate them. Far from lacking an understanding of econom ic drives, many inmates recognise that the struggle is not simply the product of an unequal relationship between themselves and the prison governor, but that the dominant interests extend far beyond the prison service into the realms of government and society. At the beginning of this chapter I noted it is unusual to come across a setting where media proliferate yet are so highly regulated as the prison. Most British prisons are now relatively 'media-rich' institutions. Wherever I went in all the prisons I studied, I heard music from radios and stereo systems, encountered inmates voraciously reading newspapers and magazines and was confronted by the flickering images of television monitors. Media resources are everywhere: in cells, workshops, gyms, staff offices, wing offices and in officers' cafeterias and relaxation areas. Yet the carrot which is dangled to encourage good behaviour can very quickly turn into the stick which is used to punish, and in-cell television's status as rew ard /p unishm ent is frequently ambiguous. As a senior manager put it: 'In-cell TV is a real and tangible reward which most prisoners want to have. It therefore forms an appropriate and visible part of IEP. Removal 182

T h e m a cr o s o c i a l institutional s ph er e

of TV is a very direct sanction which aids control of prisoners' (Head of Lifer M a n a g e m e n t Unit, in response to questionnaire). Furtherm ore, despite the proliferation of m edia technologies, the m ost striking im pression formed during m y fieldwork w as of how total these 'total institutions' seem ed . All the prisons I spent time in are situated in remote locations, physically rem oved from the rest of the com munity. M o st inm ates are not from the im m ediate vicinity and, for many, their h o m es, fam ilies and identities are firmly tied to an entirely different part of the cou ntry (or, increasingly, to a different part of the world). But more elem entary even than that, a prison is a closed, sequestered and usually alm ost entirely self-sufficient w orld. Despite being confronted by a v o lu m e of m edia technologies far exceeding that of any other kind of institution I have w orked in, at no time previously had I felt so cut off from the world than I did during my field research. It w as easy, then, to relate to the inm ates w ho described their sense of rem oval from reality, the 'f uzziness' that tinged their perception of events on the outside or even the pointlessness of using m edia to keep abreast of world events. M e d ia resources have un d o u b ted ly had a profound im pact upon prisoners' experiences of co nfinem ent and, as the previous two chapters d em on strate d , are crucial to p risoners' sense of agency and autonomy, and to the preservation of a stable social identity amid seem ingly o v erw h e lm in g structural constraints. But for m an y inm ates - particularly those serving long or life sentences - the p e rm a n e n t and pervasive im pression of being confined within a closed and highly m anag ed en v iron m en t is barely alleviated by the presence of m ed ia, and m any reported experiencing a profound sense of dislocation from the 'real w orld'. Macro forces have com bined in recent years to ensure a rising prison population w h ose n u m b e rs m u st be m an a g e d , controlled and rationalised. Initial consultations and d ebates by the prison service about the viability of personal m edia w ere ov ersh ad o w e d by an era of un precedented g o v e r n m e n t in volve m e n t in the prison service, characterised by authoritarian m a n a g e m e n t and austerity. Even though the current g ov e r n m e n t have permitted the introduction of personal m ed ia into m ost prisons in E ngland and Wales, the possible reasons for the decisio n are m an y and varied, and m ay serve the requirem ents of institutions and prisoners in very different, and frequently conflicting, ways. As this chapter has d em onstrated , the decisio n to extend prisoners' access to m edia has been driven by the ad vantag es they offer to staff and gov ernors as incentiv es for good behaviour. To som e extent the 'carrot and stick' ideology un derp in n in g the rules by w hich m edia initiatives (like other earnable privileges) are enforced and endorsed is m ad e 183

Captive audience

p o s s ib le b y th e a t t i t u d e s of the w i d e r s o c i e ty w h i c h , b y an d l a r g e , fails to s e e

p rison ers

as

s u b je c ts,

actively

'm a k in g

a

d i f f e re n c e '

in

th e ir

i n d i v i d u a l a n d c o ll e c t i v e liv e s. E v e n a c a d e m i c r e s e a r c h - w h i c h , in the sociological

t r a d i ti o n ,

has

resorted

to

red u ctive

ty p o lo g ies

of so c ia l

b e h a v i o u r , a n d in p s y c h o l o g y h a s f o u n d i m p r i s o n m e n t to h a v e m i n i m a l effects on id e n tity a n d b e h a v i o u r - h a s b e e n of lim ite d u s e f u l n e s s in this r e s p e c t . T h e n e t re s u lt o f all this is th a t th e p a i n s o f i m p r i s o n m e n t h a v e been 'stran g ely fo rg o tte n ' (M ath iesen 1 9 9 0 ) or 'trag ically u n d e re s tim a te d ' (L ie b lin g 1 9 9 9 a ) .

Notes 1 In addition to the views of inmates, this chapter draw s on information gathered from a questionnaire I administered to seventeen senior personnel working in various capacities within the prison service a n d / o r with prisoners. The questio nnaire focused specifically on the introduction into prisons of in-cell television, and respondents numbered among them ten prison gov ernors (including one m an ag e r of a privately run prison), one head of a lifer m an a ge m e n t unit, two m an a g e m e n t consultants, one personnel manager, one head of regim es, a senior research associate in crim inology and a lecturer in law. With the exception of the two university staff, all the respondents were studying for an MSt degree at the Univ ersity of C am brid g e, and were approached when I gave a class to them on theoretical and m ethodological issues arising from my research. 2 A t present only H M P G arth operates an internal channel for the com m u nication of information and education, although plans are under consideratio n to extend the facility to all prisons with the technological capability to have it. 3 The gov ernor at Ashw ell told me he allows prisoners w h o he perceiv es to be making a concerted effort to free them selves of drugs a few m onths of in-cell TV g ratis as a sign of good faith and encou ragem ent.

Som e inmates, however, have interpreted this as a sign

that drugs-users are being rewarded for their habit. 1 A n u m b e r of other European countries preceded Britain in introducing in-cell television; for exam p le, it was installed in French prisons in 1985 (Vagg 1994). 5 M eyrow itz suggests that the e xam p le of prisons is extrem e, although he em phasises that the impact of media on prisons and the resulting inclusion of prisoners in the public sphere are sim ply the latest d ev elop m en t in a long history of gradual dém ocratisation via the m ass media, whereby previously m arginalised or form ally isolated groups - w om en, children, the poor, the disabled, ethnic minorities and hom osexu als - have had access to, and been inclu ded, in all spheres of public participation. 6 The range of legitim ate controls at a prison officer's disposal may be exhausted, as Sykes (1958) suggests, but for M athiesen (1965), all matters legitimately or non-legitim ately controlled and distributed by staff are effective because they are related to power. 7 At Ashw ell all Enhanced and Sup er Enhanced accom m od ation com es with a television, so prisoners w ho achieve this level of entitlem ents and privileges have to subscribe to in ­ cell TV and be prepared to pay for it.

The g o v ern o r's view is that if an inmate is on

E nhanced , but chooses not to have a TV, he is denying som eon e else the privilege of having it.

184

C o n c l u s i o n : the pa r a d o x ic a l p o w e r o f m e d i a in p r i s o n s

The social practices that shape identity, p o w er and gratification through m edia c on su m p tion am o n g prison inm ates have been u n d erp inned in this study by a dialectic of choice and constraint, and have been organised around the microsocial sphere of individuals, friends, partners and families;

the

interm ediate

m esocu ltu ral

sphere

of s em i-form al

and

inform al groups and netw o rks; and the m acrosocial sphere of g o v e r n ­ m ent, society, the prison service, gov ernors and prison staff. Like other prison sociologies this study represents a picture of prisons at a particular point in time; a sna p shot of the everyd ay lived experiences of inm ates as - at the b eg inning of a new m illennium - a specific nexu s of m a cro ­ political and social forces im pact up on, and intersect with, the cultural im peratives of an underclass of men as they struggle to m aintain a sense of w h o they are, and w ho they have b een, in the face of in n um erab le stigm atising and d eh u m a n isin g processes. G id d e n s '

structuratio n

theory

and

B ou rd ieu's

notion

of

habitus

provided m e with an 'o rienting d evice' (Layder 1998) by w h ich 1 was able to develop m y ideas ab ou t how power, legitimacy, control, pain, and identity are m ediated in m e n 's prisons. T he 'dialectic of control' that is central to G id d e n s ' theory alerted me to the fact that even though prisons are very evidently structured by strict ad herence to fo rm al rules and by com p liance in the face (or facelessness) of official hierarchies, the balances of p o w e r within them are neither fixed nor necessarily obviou s to the casual observer. The synthesis of B ou rd ieu's concep t of habitu s within G id d e n s ' theory gave structuratio n a m ore easily identifiable cultural d im ension enabling me to explore the use of m edia resources as a m eans of expressing agency, affecting b eh a v io u r and constructing identities (thereby m aintaining, nurturing or even entirely stepping out of one's usual habitus) am o n g both the d om in a n t and

the dom inated . This 185

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approach offered an illum inating insight into the social and cultural life of prisons, although it is im portant to note that m edia are but one im portant resource that individuals in prisons have at their disposal w h en cond u ctin g their day-to-d ay relations with others w h o share their social world. There may, then, be other informal, social conduits that act as 'third parties' in relatio nships of p o w er and subord ination, and that shape identity and re sponses to pain in prisons in sim ilar ways. This study has d em onstrated that m ed ia resources direct - indeed, m ed iate - flow s of p o w e r b etw een officers and inmates, and b etw ee n inm ates and other inmates, and I hope the interw eaving of micro and m eso fram es of analysis has shed new light on the decisions, choices and actions that prisoners struggle with every day of their incarcerated lives. At the m eso level of social practices, it has been d em onstrated that the psychological survival of prison inm ates d ep en d s largely upon their adoption, collectively or individually, of identities that enable them to adapt to their lives inside, or at least to cope with the stresses of con fin e m e n t with a degree of success. A lth o u g h solidarity is rare, pressure to conform is strong. Ind eed , absorption into one or other of the subcultures in prison, and the resulting sense of 'b elon gin g ' to a group with a strong collective identity (w hether the prim ary identification is based on ethnicity, political or criminal ideologies, access to contraband ec o n o m ic s or som e other variable) m ay provide a partial explanation for high rates of recidivism. T he custodial experience provides a highly structured e n v iro n m en t which - if one adheres to the inmate rules - can provide, for som e inm ates, ontological security based on m u tu a l su p p ort and cam arad erie. This cohesive structure a m o n g sim ilarly disad vantaged social 'm isfits' may c o m p en sa te for the ble ak er aspects of prison life (Hood and Sparks, 1970) although the notio n that som e inm ates cope better with prison than with 'free d o m ' is pro blem atic (Liebling 1999b). But given that m any lowerclass m ales in society at large get their m ost profound sense of self from group loyalties based on excessive displays of m anliness, it is unsurprising that the hierarchies of p o w e r found in m e n 's prisons relate directly to various concepts of m ascu linity (Fishm an 1934; Sykes 1958; Irw in 1970). The form s and codes of m ascu line b eh a v io u r that ch a ra c t­ erise the inmate culture are likely to have been learned in response to the im peratives of masculinity in w o rking-class culture, w hich act back on, shape and ultimately re produce the need for prisons. The capacity of som e inm ates to resist their ascribed identities of 'p r is o n e r' with all its conn otations of w e a k n e ss, conform ity and the relinquishing of power, is testim ony to the m ascu line h e g em o n y that is so e m be d d ed in the hierarchy of the prison world. 186

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How ever, as has been d em onstrated , the rem ov al of autonom y, choice and responsibility, and all the implications therein, can lead to anxieties concerning the deterioration of one's psycholog ical and physical w e ll­ being and serve to negate the sense of m anliness w h ich is at the core of m o st prisoners' identities. N ot all prisoners can 'do m ascu linity' in the w ay s prescribed by the prison hierarchy. For those w h o are defined by their peers as e m b o d y in g a subordinate m asculinity and w h o accept this characterisation of them selves, prison can b eco m e a terrifying ordeal. It is perhaps for these prisoners that m edia resources are m ost valuable in helping them to 'carve out a solitary sp a ce' (R ad w ay 1984: 211) and construct identities that run counter to the d o m in a n t m ascu line ideals. In the relatively recent days of association TV, when inm ates had to share view ing and negotiate access to m edia am o n g relatively large nu m bers, patterns of family view ing were frequently replicated, w hereby the content, m a n n er and view ing context of television c o n su m p tio n were co m m o n ly

d eterm ined

by

the

biggest,

strongest,

loudest

or

m ost

in tim id ating m e m b e r s of the group. N ow that in-cell television has arrived, m o st prisons enjo y - for the time being, at least - a quieter, more acq uiescent regime. M eso and micro processes and pleasures associated with con su m in g media originate from both the form and content of m edia resources. At a general level, m edia use m ight be habitual, tim e-con su m in g , provide com p anio nship and so on, but the p ro g ra m m e or text-specific content of any particular m ed iu m will also provide an im portant source of gratifications of various kinds. Consequently, the benefits to inm ates of having relatively unrestricted access to the form s of m edia w hich m ost of us in every d ay life take for granted should n ot be underestim ated . To recapitulate ju st a few exam ples: m edia have a structural capacity; they regulate patterns of activity and talk, and provide inm ates with a m eans of filling, structuring and 'm a rk in g ' time. They are relational, providing co m m o n ground for conv ersatio n and offering topics and illustrations on which people 'p e g ' op inions. They e ncou rag e affiliation with others and can provide a sense of co m m o n identity and shared fanship. M ed ia e ncou rage p e rfo rm ance and spectacle, providing m aterial for the construction or e n h a n ce m e n t of m ascu line identities and e n cou rag ing the construction of identities based on p o pular cultural heroes and role models. They have the potential to increase social learning and develop vario us aspects of socialisation, and m ay ad va n ce cultural com petence, extend in g the social d o m in an ce of som e individuals over others. They can also provide a m e an s of avo id ance of other people, allow in g som e individuals (perhaps notably, vulnerable prisoners) to 'tu ne ou t' of the

187

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prison culture. They deny present realities and provide material for escapist or romantic fantasies, evoke memories and allow inmates to transcend the confines of time and space. They reinforce a sense of humanity, uniting the prison population with the w ider society in com m on experience. They diminish the sense of being marginalised, of being an undeserving underclass. They act as the filter through which localised practices define and shape external structural forms into concrete personalised experiences. Finally, media technologies act as a source of resistance; inmates who reject in-cell TV are seeing through dominant ideologies and rejecting the ethos that behaviour is linked to reward and punishm ent. I hope this book has made a valuable contribution to both the new generation of sociological prison research and to recent endeavours to understand how we construct self and identity in a mediated world. The bringing together of two bodies of research that have been previously disconnected and the integration of theory and practice have been important features of this study, and I hope such interdisciplinary, theoretically informed and empirically supported approaches will continue to guide prison research in the future. This study has provided a detailed description of a unique environment and given voice to people whose opinions are rarely sought, about subjects that are of intrinsic importance to them, and it has done so from within intellectual and theoretical frameworks that have aimed to develop our understandings of broader social phenom ena. In its descriptive accounts of everyday life, supported by the personal stories of the people who live in confinement, it has hopefully succeeded in what it set out to achieve; that is, to attest to the legitimacy - indeed exigency - of media consumption and culture as sites of pleasure, reflexivity and ontology to the stigmatised, marginalised underclass who dwell in our prisons. With the introduction of the media of mass communications into prisons, inmates are undoubtedly enjoying unprecedented access to information and entertainment. And not only can media mitigate some of the pains of incarceration, and provide the material out of which identities are constructed, but they can also grant prisoners a sem blance of public participation and return to them membership of some of society's democratic processes. Yet it is hard to avoid the conclusion that media are being used undemocratically within the walls of many prisons. Media - especially personal media - are highly effective devices of social and behavioural control. Even family viewing is governed by rules, both implicit and explicit, and is used as a reward or punishment, as a bartering tool and as a conduit of power, so it is not difficult to imagine how in the prison 188

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en v iron m en t the introduction of personal m edia - like letter writing and visits in an earlier phase - has b eco m e part of the state's a rm o u ry in the struggle to m aintain order and achieve com p lia nce in prisons (Scraton et al, 1991). The belief that TV view ing is an inactivity u n derpins the prevailing idea am o n g prison staff and authorities that personal television will result in passivity beco m ing the prison norm rather than discontent. Thu s, w h atev er pleasures are to be found in m edia form s and content will alw ay s be tempered by the d e m a n d s of the institu tion, to the extent that the incentive-driven im p lem entation of m edia into prisons m ay be interpreted, not only as a lever for securing com p lian t behaviour, but as a m eans of u n d erm ining the individual inm ate in relation to structural power. Perversely, the introductio n of m edia resources into prisons m ay consequently be re producing d isad vantage and depriv atio n. As earlier lock-up times are introduced, as opportunities for inmates to interact with others are reduced and as som e inm ates are effectively coerced into having - and paying for - in-cell television if they are to enjo y other privileges associated with the 'e n h a n ce d ' status ascribed to them , it is difficult to avoid the Fou cauld ian conclusion that personal m ed ia have one great, u n sp ok en a d vantag e as far as prison authorities are conc erned , and that is to norm alise the regulation and surveillance of inmates. In other w ords, in-cell television - for all its ack now led g ed ad v an ta g e s to inm ates - is being used as the 's w e e te n e r ' which is intended to m ask, or com p en sate for, the situational control m easures that are creeping back into the logic of im p riso n m e n t (M organ 1997). For the prison service then, the m e d ia's capacity to 'n o rm a lise ' every d ay life inside prisons m ay sim ply serve to ensure that the em bed d ed practices of im p riso n m e n t - h o w e v e r u n d em o cratic, un p op u la r or u n pleasant - are accepted as natu ral to inmates over time. O ne of this stud y 's key findings is that p o w e r is not unidirectional, but flows in and th rough prisons in multifarious and com plex ways. M edia - in their role as both a resource and a constraint - have altered the delicate balance of p o w e r within prisons and continue subtly to change and shift relations of d om in a n ce and subordination. An un derstand ing of this parad ox - that m edia are used both as a source of e m p o w e r m e n t by prison inmates and, at the sam e time, as a m eans of control over them - enables us to begin to address som e im p orta n t questions that remain at the heart of m u ch prison literature; namely, w h y is it that when prisoners apparently enjoy greater stand ard s of living than formerly, are m ore integrated into the world beyond the prison walls than ever before, and are enjo ying greate r civil and legal rights than their predecessors, do their personal testim onies indicate they m ay be experien cing a greater depth and w eight of im p riso n m e n t than at any time previously? H ow is 189

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it that prisons seem - on the surface at least - more hum ane and yet at the same time are more punitive? It is these paradoxical questions that future prison research might usefully address in order to extend our understanding of the complexities of the social world of prisons.

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205

Index

15 to 1, 92 100%, 92 Abercrombie, N., 5, 17, 22, 23, 25 A Country Practice, 127 Adam, B., 6, 13, 112 Adler, J., 20, 61n, 161 Adler, P., 158 Alasuutari, P., ix, 92, 129n Allor, M., 25 Altheide, D., 22 Ang, I., 26 Antiques Roadshow, 100 Appadurai, A., 23 Ashwell prison, 67, 69, 70, 73, 78, 84, 100, 102, 135, 146, 147, 148, 150, 169, 179, 180, 181, 184n Association rooms, 83, 144, 147, 156-8, 160n, 187 Audience research, 25-8, 62, 74, 89 Audio cassettes, 178 Banister, P., 98 Batman, 7-8, 106, 122 Berger, A., 75 Best, S., 35 Bill, The, 126-7, 159n Blakenhurst prison, 66, 78, 79, 142 Blumler, J., 8-9 Bocock, R., 58 Bodybuilding, 19-20, 41 Bondeson, U., 43 Bostyn, A., 11, 15, 30n, 149 Bottomley, K., 170 Bottoms, A., 65, 133, 173 Bourdieu, P, xii, 30, 38-9, 54, 59, 84, 117, 185 'habitus', xii, 30, 38-9, 54, 59, 62, 185 206

Bowker, L., 146 Boyle, W., 16, 56 Boyne, R., 37 Brittan, A., 13, 15, 16, 20, 21, 22, 48, 105 Brod, H., 49 Brook, K., 124 Brown, J., 8-9 Brunsdon, C., 117, 166 Bryant, C., 36, 60n Buckingham, D., 26 Bukstel, L., 31 Bulldog, 178 Burman, P., 30n, 39-40, 60, 86, 89, 97, 98, 101, 111, 136, 159n, 163 Caird, R., 2, 16, 30n, 31, 38 Changing Rooms, 119 Charlesworth, S., 22, 33, 86, 88n Chicago School, 85 Clarke, J., 46 Classic FM, 118 Clemmer, D., 60 Cockburn, C., 50, 61n Coffey, A., 78 Cohen, A., 46 Cohen, S., xi, 3, 11, 12, 13, 19, 21, 30n, 34, 38, 41, 60n, 75, 92, 96, 98, 134, 136, 144, 148, 151, 153, 155, 157, 179 Compact discs, (CDs) 178 Computers, 112, 178-9 Connell, R., 48, 50, 51, 61n Corner, J., 166, 167, 172 Corrigan, P, 46, 53, 180 Coyle, A., 2, 3, 56 Craib, I., 44, 45, 46 Cressey, D., 57, 60n Crimewatch UK, 143 Dad's Army, 105

Index

Dando, }., 110-1 Daily M ail, The, 95 D allas , 27 Deacon, D., 75 Deayton, A., 124 de Certeau, 17, 28, 141, 179, 180 DeNora, T., 8, 30n, 89, 129 Deprivation literature, x, xi, Chapter 1 passim , 14, 15, 31, 47, 60n Diana, Princess of Wales, 110-1 Dimmock, C., 124 Downes, D., 11 Dr Who, 6, 106, 123-4, 130n Drugs In prison, 101, 102, 129n, 138, 145-6, 148, 150, 152, 168-9 Similarities between television and, 101, 102, 103, 173-4 Dunbar, I., 70 Dunn, R., 123 Dunning, E., 57 Eagleton, T., 175 EastEnders, 118, 133 Eastwood, C., 20 Education in prisons, 21-2, 41, 95, 120 Elliott, P., 10 Emmerdale, 12 7 Ericson, R., 4 Ethnography Usefulness of, xii, 64, 85 Everyday life Role of media in, 8, 17, 19-20, 22, 28, 90 Feeley, M., 42, 173 Fineman, S., 149 Fishman, J., 186 Fiske, J., 17, 28-9, 119, 130n Flanagan, T., 11, 154 Foucault, M., 2, 31, 33, 35, 36, 59, 173, 174, 188 Fowles, A., 30n, 172, 175 Frankfurt School, 15 Freud, S., 45, 58, 107 Friends, friendships in prison, 151-4 Gaes, G., 118, 129n

Galtung, J., 10, 13 Garland, D., 2, 35, 43 Gartree Debating Society, 66, 88n, 134 Gartree prison, 66, 68, 69, 78, 79, 87n, 91-2, 104, 105, 113, 121, 124, 147, 148, 168 Gauntlett, D., 93, 99, 109, 116, 119, 121, 123, 130n Geisthorpe, L., 47, 81 Gender As factor in field research, xii, 81-5 Genders, E., 47, 81 Gergen, K., 24 Gibbs, J., 2 Giddens, A., xii, 5, 19, 21, 22, 30, 31, 35-9, 42, 43, 45, 54, 59, 60n, 64, 75, 109, 125-6, 133, 159n, 161, 179, 185 Structuration theory xii, 30, 35-9, 54, 59, 60n, 86, 159n, 161, 185 Gilmore, T., 49, 54 Giroux, H., 35, 38 Goffman, E., xi, 2, 3-4 , 14, 20-1, 34, 38, 42, 52, 57, 59, 81, 93, 96, 107, 130n, 141, 148 Gramsci, A ., 51 Grapendaal, M., 56, 60n Gray, A., 26, 87n, 93, 126 Grodin, D., 24, 77 Guardian, The, 71, 118, 176 Hagel 1, A., xi, 159n Hall, S., 42, 43, 44, 70 Hancock, N., 124 Hansen, A., 74, 75, 77, 88n H ave I Got News For You, 124-5 Hay, W., 143 Hearn, J., 48, 50 Hebdige, D., 16, 26 Hermes, J., 24, 26, 116, 119, 129n, 130n, 132, 144 Hill, A., 93, 99, 109, 116, 119, 121, 123, 130n Himmelweit, H., 63 Hodge, B., 26, 28-9 Höijer, B., 75 Holland, J., 115 H om e and Away, ix Hood, R., 186 '

207

Captive audience

Horowitz, R., 83-4 Horton, D., 9, 110, 111 Howard, M., 70, 71-2, 164, 182 Howe, A., 31 Hunt, J., 78, 85 Identity Personal, 1, 9, 17, 31, 40-6, 57, 58, 134-5 Social, 1, 31, 40-6, 57, 58, 134-5, 187 Ignatieff, M., 2, 31, 173 Incentives and Earned Privileges (IEP), 14, 69-70, 74, 102, 167, 168, 171, 172, 174, 180, 181, 184n In-cell television, 69-72, 94, 101, 103-4, 114-5, 118, 120, 133, 134, 148-150, 152, 156, 168-9, 173-5, 179, 182, 183, 187 Independent, The, 164, 165, 166 Inside Time, 144, 159n Irwin, J., 4, 12, 19, 57, 60n, 96, 134, 186 Jacobs, J., 4, 88n, 144, 177 Jary, D., 36, 60n Jefferson, T., 48, 61 n Jenkins, H., 6-8, 26, 27, 106, 107, 122 Jenkins, R., 40, 43 Jensen, K., 24 Jewkes, Y., 87n, 136 Johnson, R., 21 Johnson, T., 37 Jones, R., 134, 135, 137, 159n Jupp, V., 70, 72, 98, 131 Kalinich, D., 20, 60n Katz, E., 10 Kellner, D., 35, 117 Kilmann, P., 31 Kilminster, R., 37, 39 Kimmei, M., 48 King, M., 19 King, R., 11, 30n, 50, 87n, 143, 170, 176 King, S., 117 Kirchheimer, O., 31, 173 Krarup, H., 2, 38 Langdon, A., 70 Layder, D., 35, 38, 39, 54, 58, 59 Learmont, Sir J., 71 208

Lefebvre, H., 5, 15 Leicester prison, 67, 147 Liebling, A., 2, 12, 38, 43, 65, 69, 78, 149, 172, 178, 184, 186 Lindlof, T., *, 24, 62, 64, 75, 77, 80, 85, 88n, 94, 98, 99, 132, 142, 143, 156, 158, 159 Little, M., 150 Lipton, D., 162 Livingstone, S., 87n, 117, 126 Llewellyn-Bowen, L., 119 Longhurst, B., 5, 17, 22, 23, 25, 161 Lowenthal, D., 106 Lull, J., 26 McClymont, K., 71 McDermott, K., 11, 30n, 50, 143, 176 McHoul, A., 17, 20 McKay, H., 11, 16 McQuail, D., 8-10, 25, 29, 63 Mac an Ghaill, 18 Mackay, H., 97, 128 MacLeod, J., 33, 38 Magazines, 62, 65, 99, 124, 130n, 178 Mander, J., 173 Marx, K., Marxism, 31, 33, 58, 173, 174 Masculinity, 17, 18-20, 27, Chapter 2 passim, 84-5, 126-7, 146-7, 186-7 'hegemonic masculinity', 50-1, 52, 55, 57, 58, 94, 146, 186 Mathiesen, T., 4, 17, 18, 34, 139, 148, 176, 184, 184n Matthews, R., 10, 72, 87n, 102, 111-2, 174 'Meanings and motivations', 10, 62, 116-129 Merton, P., 125 Messenger, M., 124 Messerschmidt, J., 18, 45, 53, 54 Messinger, S., 50 Meyer, T., 62, 64 Meyrowitz, J., 4, 108, 109, 110, 111, 113-4, 130n, 150, 171-2, 184n Miedzian, M., 50 Miller, T., 17, 20 Mills, C. Wright, 40 Minsky, R., 44, 45, Mirror, The, 95, 99, 176 Misery, 144

Index

M oral M aze, 118 M orecam be and Wise, 103 Moran, A., 127 Morgan, C., 17 Morgan, D., 48, 50, 56 Morgan, R., 60n, 170, 189 Morley, D., 22, 26, 27, 87n, 93, 119, 126, 128 Morris, A., 47, 81 Morris, R, 14 Morris, T., 14 MTV, 115 Muncie, J., 162 Murdock, G., 84, 128 Music 8, 17, 54, 90, 91, 106, 107, 115 Neighbours, ix, 174 New Labour, 70, 72 Newburn, T., xi, 53, 159n News, 13, 91, 92, 119, 136 N ewsnight, 152 Newspapers, 13, 62, 64, 99, 120, 144, 176 Newton, C., 47 Old Time M usic Hall, 106 One Foot in the Grave, 103 One Man and his Dog, 120 Only Fools and Horses, 103 O'Sullivan, T., 6, 8, 87n, 89, 90, 129n Panorama, 118 Tara-social' relationships, 9, 110, 111 Philo, G., 119 Player, E., 47, 81 Police, Camera, A ction!, 143 Pornography, 124, 178 Porporino, F., 2, 31, 60n Porter, G., 124 Postman, N., 173 Postmodernism, postmodern identities, 42, 4 3-4, 59 Poulantzas, N., 35 Pratt, J., 42 Prison Dialogue, 66, 79, 87n, 120, 136-7, 142, 143, 149, 159 Prisoner Cell Block H/Prisoner,, 29 'Prisonisation', 40, 57, 60n, 139

Probyn, W., 56 Proms, The, 106 Pronger, B., 18 Psychoanalysis and the unconscious, 37, 43-5, 58 Quaterm ass, 7, 105 Queer as Folk, 94 Radio, 5-6, 13, 30n, 62, 65, 79, 92, 105, 107, 115, 118, 119, 120, 144, 148, 152, 158, 176-7 Radio 1, 100 Radio 2, 105 Radio 3, 118 Radio 4, 109, 115, 118 Radio 5, 109 Radway, ]., 26, 87n, 126, 187 Rawlinson, P., 81 Reader's Digest, 106 Remy, J., 48, 49, 82 Rosengren, K., 24 Ross, J., 125 Ruggiero, V., 10 Rusche, G., 31, 173 Sapsford, R., 2, 11, 21, 31, 41, 42 Satellite television, 140, 148 Scacco, A., 18 Scannell, P, 5, 6, 13, 14, 107, 109, 130n Schmid, T., 134, 135, 137, 159n Schroder, K., 128 Schwarzenneger, A., 20, 128 Scraton, P, 189 Scum, 144 Segal, L., 18 Segal, S., 20 Seidler, V., 52 Serge, V., 13 Shannon, T., 17, 56 Shover, N., 158 Silverstone, R., 6, 17, 22, 28, 116 Sim, J., 47, 51 Simon, J., 42, 173 Simpson, P., 120 Smith, C , 81, 82 Snow, R., 22, 23, 24 Soap operas 118, 125-7, 152

209

Captive audience

Songs o f Praise, 100 Sparks, R., 30n, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 60, 81, 87n, 88n, 100, 129n, 140, 143, 150, 160n, 186 Spigel, L., 6-8, 27, 106, 107, 122 Stallone, S., 20 Stanko, E., 53 Star Trek, 121-4, 130n Steptoe and Son, 105 Stern, V., 165 Stevens, D., 58 Stevenson, N., 28, 29, 95, 175 Stocken prison, 67, 69, 70, 73, 78, 100, 121, 140, 144, 146, 147, 148, 170, 174, 180, 181 Sun, The, 71, 95, 96, 117, 128, 176 Sunday Night at the London Palladium, 106 Swift, T., 63 Sykes, G., xi, 4, 14, 17, 18, 20, 34, 47, 50, 82, 84, 131, 145, 146, 150, 184n, 186 Talk Radio (TalkSPORT), 109, 110-1 Taylor, L., xi, 4, 11, 12, 13, 19, 21, 30n, 34, 38, 41, 60n, 75, 92, 96, 98, 134, 136, 144, 148, 151, 153, 155, 157, 179 Telegraph, The, 176 Telephones, 101, 109, 154 Television, 5-9, 13, 17, 26-8, 62, 65, 71, 79, 83, 90, 91, 92, 102, 103, 112, 114, 118-127, 144, 148-9, 152, 158, 165, 175 They Think It's All Over, 124-5 Thompson, J., 23, 24, 37 Thompson, K., 58 Thurston, R., 45, 51, 61n Toch, H., 20, 21, 47, 50, 57, 160n Tolson, A., 48, 51, 52, 53, 54, 138, 141, 142, 143 Top o f the Pops, 115, 157 'Total institutions', xiii, 3, 4, 29, 30n, 107 Tripp, D., 26, 28-9 Tudor, A., 15 Tulloch, J., 26, 122, 127 Two-way Family Favourites, 6

210

Underclass Prisoner population as, xi, 51-2, 61n, 114, 139, 188 Unemployment Similarities to imprisonment, 11, 30n, 136, 163 Uses and Gratifications research, 8-10, 62-4, 103, 116, 144, 175 Vagg, J., 17, 141, 177, 184n Van Damme, J-Cv 20, 128 Van Outen, D., 124 Vaughan, B., 37, 161 Video, 112, 178 Violence, 54, 56, 143-4 von Hirsch, A., 11, 111 Walmsley, R., 31 Ward Jouve, N., 19, 55, 61n Warren, C., 78, 81-3, 85 Wayne, J., 20 Weber, M., 50 Weigert, A., 97 Westwood, S., 137 Wheeler, S., 158, 159n Whitemoor Lifer Discussion Group, 66, 88n, 119 Whitemoor prison, 66, 69, 78, 79, 118, 120, 143, 148, 149 Wight, D., 11, 15, 30n, 149 Wildlife programmes, 120 Willis, J., xi Willis, P., 33, 38, 39, 46, 51, 60n, 64, 77, 159n, 160n Wilson, W., 51 Wincup, E., 81, 82 Wohl, R., 9, 110, 111 Wollen, T., * Woolf, Lord Justice, 69, 70, 71 Worrall, A., 134 Wrong, D., 34 Zamble, E., 2, 31, 60n Z Cars, 105