Exacting control through disciplinary hearings: “making do” with prison rules

Thomas, Jim; Mika, H.; Blakemore, Jerome L.; Aylward, Anmarie

doi:10.1080/07418829100090901

Cited by 7 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…In this view increased litigation and rights for inmates may be said to have contributed to increased lack of control, lawlessness, and violence within the prison system. Another interpretation, however , emphasizes that prison administrations either were entirely too slow in responding to inmates' expectations that their newly legally guaranteed rights and privileges be realized and granted in concrete ways (Weiss, 1991a(Weiss, , 1991cWicker, 1975) or tended to shift correctional practices of control in ways that produced the same effects as those earlier practices which were now being legally proscribed (Colvin, 1992;Thomas, Mika, Blakemore, & Aylard, 1991). In this view increased violence among the inmate population can be seen as an expression of the inmates' mounting frustration in the face of prison administrators' unwillingness to change prison conditions in ways that realistically conformed with either the letter or spirit of the law.…”

Section: The New Penology: Justificationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Science is Subverted: Penology and Prison Inmates' Resistance

Huspek¹,

Comerford²

1996

Commun Theory

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The problem of violence within America's prison system is not only misunderstood in key respects by the penological science that seeks to know it; it is in significant respects an effect of penological science and the practices it generates in the course of having aligned itself with legal discourses of the political state. Our thesis, informed by concepts that are central to Michel Foucault's antiscience project, is that violence within America's prison system is best understood as an oppositional response to a penological science, which, organized as a set of discursive practices and deployed in an alliance with legal discourses of the political state, succeeds in knowing inmates only in restricted and ultimately self-defeating ways. Our thesis is neutral as to the truth or falsity of the specific knowledge claims of penology. Rather our focus is on the ways in which retrictedness and self-defeat are inherent in the very doing of penology and how, further, the purported successes of penology's discursively grounded knowledge claims, as well as the practices they engender, contribute to the (violent) undoing of those very same claims. W e offer illustrative empirical support for our thesis by showing some discursive practices of penological science, how they are deployed specifically in the course of inscribing inmates as scientifically knowable objects, and how such tactics incite inmates to develop new identity resources, steeped in violence, which effectively subvert penology's claims to knowledge.

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Section: The New Penology: Justificationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Science is Subverted: Penology and Prison Inmates' Resistance

Huspek¹,

Comerford²

1996

Commun Theory

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“…Other research applies Goffman's (1959) dramaturgical perspective quite differently, focusing instead on organizational factors within courts such as decision-making, restorative justice practices, specialty courts and organizational reform (Bynum & Paternoster, 1984; Dignan et al, 2007; Miller & Johnson, 2009; Rose, Diamond & Baker, 2010; Thomas, Mike, Blakemore & Aylward, 1991). For example, Miller and Johnson (2009) use three years of observation data to describe front- and backstage within problem-solving courts.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the case of misalignment between the front- and backstage, criminal justice procedures, which may be unseen and thus questionable, may need to be altered to align with front-stage norms of accountability (Thomas, Mika, Blakemore & Aylward, 1991). Thomas and colleagues used ethnographic data from prison disciplinary hearings to illustrate the inconsistency between formal rules and enacting performances.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Front-Stage Stars and Backstage Producers: The Role of Judges in Problem-Solving Courts

Portillo

Rudes

Viglione

et al. 2013

Victims & Offenders

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In problem-solving courts judges are no longer neutral arbitrators in adversarial justice processes. Instead, judges directly engage with court participants. The movement towards problem-solving court models emerges from a collaborative therapeutic jurisprudence framework. While most scholars argue judges are the central courtroom actors within problem-solving courts, we find judges are the stars front-stage, but play a more supporting role backstage. We use Goffman's front-stage-backstage framework to analyze 350 hours of ethnographic fieldwork within five problem-solving courts. Problem-solving courts are collaborative organizations with shifting leadership, based on forum. Understanding how the roles of courtroom workgroup actors adapt under the new court model is foundational for effective implementation of these justice processes.

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“…Most of this research has centered on determining the influences of judicial decisions regarding imprisonment or parole officials’ decisions related to re‐imprisonment (e.g., Baumer ; Feldmeyer and Ulmer ; Huebner and Bynum ; Kutateladze et al ; Lin, Grattet, and Petersilia ; Patterson ; Spohn and Holleran ; Steiner et al ; Ulmer ; Warren, Chiricos, and Bales ; Wooldredge ; Wooldredge, Griffin, and Rauschenberg ). Few studies have focused on punishment decisions made within prisons (e.g., Flanagan ; Thomas et al ).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An examination of decision‐making pertaining to punishment administered within prisons is important, however, because these decisions can restrict an individual's liberty during their imprisonment (e.g., segregation), and also affect the timing of an individual's release from prison if the punishment results in the loss of sentencing credits or influences parole decision‐making (Babcock ; Flanagan ; Glaser ). Punishment decisions made within prison are also subjected to little oversight, and prison officials enjoy considerable discretion when meting out punishments (Crouch ; Harvard Center for Criminal Justice ; Thomas et al ). If punishment disparities result from this situation, then some offender groups may endure a greater loss of liberty relative to others.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Punishment within Prison: An Examination of the Influences of Prison Officials’ Decisions to Remove Sentencing Credits

Steiner¹,

Cain

2017

Law Soc Rev

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Despite considerable research directed toward understanding the factors that affect punishment decision‐making leading to imprisonment, few studies have examined the influences of punishment decisions within prisons. Punishment decisions made within prisons can affect an individual's liberty during their imprisonment and/or the timing of their release from prison if the punishment results in the loss of sentencing credits or influences parole decision‐making. Moreover, if punishment disparities result from these decisions, then some offender groups may endure a greater loss of liberty relative to others. In this study, we examine the factors that influence prison officials’ decisions to remove sentencing credits in response to prison rule violations. Analysis of collected data from a Midwestern state prison system reveal that prison officials are primarily influenced by the seriousness and type of the rule violation, along with an inmate's violation history. Other relevant factors include those proximately connected to an inmate's risk of subsequent misbehavior such as gang membership and those that are linked to practical consequences and constraints associated with the organizational environment and particular inmates such as the proportion of their sentence an inmate has served and whether an inmate has mental health problems.

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Exacting control through disciplinary hearings: “making do” with prison rules

Cited by 7 publications

References 16 publications

How Science is Subverted: Penology and Prison Inmates' Resistance

How Science is Subverted: Penology and Prison Inmates' Resistance

Front-Stage Stars and Backstage Producers: The Role of Judges in Problem-Solving Courts

Punishment within Prison: An Examination of the Influences of Prison Officials’ Decisions to Remove Sentencing Credits

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