Learning to labor in prison

Abstract

Taking the case of prison healthcare reform in Italy as an empirical basis, the article explores the ways in which legal intervention is materialized in the social relations, cultural horizons and operational practices of prison healthcare workers, focusing on the concept of (embedded) “legal culture”. Drawing on the findings of ethnographic research conducted over the last nine years, the article explores the relationship between clinical and legal languages in everyday prison life: observations are made about the processes through which clinical assessments can be “translated” and “reinterpreted” into the language of legal codes specific to the prison setting. The results suggest the possibility of partially questioning readings that identify the processes of prisonization of healthcare operators as the sole cause of the reproduction of governmental elements in prison health practice. The legal cultures of prison staff and health professionals do not appear to be as different as at first sight.