So, we never got to my discussion question about whether or not a model prison could exist. At first glance, this seems like somewhat of a ridiculous idea. Foucault mentions in the reading that prison revolts were happening and it didn't seem to matter if it was a model prison or something less than that. This would seem to suggest that the revolts were not about the conditions of the prison but about the forces being exerted upon them. This brought me to the question of whether or not a "model prison" exists.
No matter what, prison is about depriving someone of something. The ultimate goal could be rehabilitation but the method by which this is accomplished is the deprivation of life or liberty. So, thinking through this as I go here, I am not even sure what it would mean to be a "model prison"? Does that simply mean that the purpose of the prison is rehabilitation as opposed to punishment or retribution?
It would be very tough to establish a model prison, because the inhabitants of a prison are not there by their own free will and therefore have little incentive to operate within the confines of rules which a model prison would require. A model prison would also have to define what its goals are in terms of either rehabilitating a convict or punishing him. Is it more the will of the people to deter future crime through strict retribution or is it more helpful to society to rehabilitate people and reintegrate them in with the masses? These are the kinds of questions that must be answered in determining a whether a prison is ideal or not and since one is unlikely to get a consensus on these matters, I would argue that a model prison will never exist as there will always be arguments and suggestions as to how to improve it.
ReplyDeleteI would argue that a model prison could never really reach perfection in that there would be no threat of uprising or revolt however I believe that the psychological condition within the prison is the most important factor here. We spoke in class about the differences between say Norway and the US. This example:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj3SMiDvjdg will be startling to us however I think that this question of model prisons cannot be explained by looking simply at the inmates or the prison walls or the mentality of the guards but rather it is a question of intersectionality with many conditions attributing to whether you have a prison which regularly riots (which is most likely a far more punitive place with inmates who feel resentment rather than remorse) than this place in Norway where there is a low rate of attempted escape and high rate of rehabilitation