Prison

Prison is a public housing building meant to confine individuals within the building so that they cannot escape for a period of time, either to protect society from them, to deter other possible criminals, for retribution purposes, for political repression purposes, for purposes of war, for religious purposes, or to otherwise reform the individual prisoner. Outside a few crimes, prisons are nominally reserved for adult, convicted felons deemed psychologically well enough to understand their actions. Other forms of institutionalization of criminals differ in the scale at which drugs are given to inmates and the security level involved. Forced labor is common (but not universal) in US prisons, which would otherwise be called non-commercial human trafficking if without state sanction.

Attempts at modern philosophical justifications for prison beyond confinement vary significantly and are heavily debated. Forms of confinement for criminals before prisons were commonplace, called 'gaols', were geographically spaced within the community and often indistinguishable in external architecture from residential housing.

In most prisons, prisoners are monitored daily by state officials, where in others, the prisons are co-governed by imprisoned gangs, with the state guards taking a role of bribe recipients from the inmates or their affiliated gangs. While most prisoners enter by state sanctioned kidnapping called arrest, the decline in the availability of voluntary public housing has led to people purposefully committing crimes, and purposefully enter prisons, to avoid, for example, the physical dangers of homelessness or exhaustion from limited social activity while under formal or informal civilian guardian arrangements. The treatment of prisoners across the globe varies wildly. In the USA, Russia, and other countries, prisoners are often sexually and physically abused by prison staff, and to an extent that may be systemic in an individual prison, and this form of punishment is often a tacitly accepted and systemic outcome of the punishment, shown both in uninterrupted victim impact statements during court and correctional officer comments after a prisoner is sentenced.

History

Prior to the popularization of prisons, honest torture or immediate death were more common as punishment for criminals. Early forms of prisons in the 1700s were presented as a more humane alternative to this, but were not originally meant to reform the prisoners, but instead to religiously 'redeem'.

Prisons were partially an outlet for a religious practice of the purposeful infliction of suffering onto humans. Specifically, the religious practice of expiation, a supernatural theory that humans are spiritually redeemed through suffering.

After the 1800s, the purpose of prisons in the USA changed somewhat to include the possibility of practical reformation of prisoners. European prisons then followed suit. The reformative purposes of these prisons were narrow and ideological, meant to teach obedience primarily by trying to force a respect for order and authority. "Idlers", "depraved men", and "vicious men", were primary targets for this attempted training.

By the late 1800s, humanistic rules for prison authorities were nominally codified, including ideals of treating prisoners with 'integrity, respect, dignity, and fairness'. Proportionality was also codified into prison rules around this time, or the idea that the level of punishment should be proportional to the perceived (or asserted) effects of the crimes.

By the Progressive Era of the early 1900s, prisons changed to laboratories where social workers and psychiatrists could experiment and fine tune ways to change behavior more broadly.

The philosopher Michele Foucault argued that prisons were just one part of the institutionalization of those society deemed expendable, along with poor houses also geographically separate from the rest of civil society. The shared theme of all these institutions for 'expendables' was containment and deprivation of liberties.

Purposeful admission

Three squares and a cot

The homeless, those facing homelessness, or those otherwise in poverty will often commit crimes after a personal judgement that the punitive nature of prison is preferable to food insecurity, housing insecurity, untreated medical conditions, and/or the weather elements.

Those willing to put themselves in jail for safety will often do so repeatedly if their sentences are short.

Dramaturgical admission

For a certain archetype, the self-evaluated civil disobedient, the narcissistic transgressor, the suicidal performance artist, and/or an individual whose passion for a crime is so great that prison is a sacrifice, a prison is not a place to avoid forever, but a predetermined, often purposefully theatrical climax to their public actions. They may brag about their crime knowing it will result in prison without a clear civil disobedience context, or otherwise author their own capture. They may perform their criminal action in a purposefully open way in order to force the state to play the final role in their chosen script. In this context, the prison is not a cage but a stage, solidifying what they believe will be a legacy of personal glory, righteous self-harm, moral sacrifice, or ideological warfare.

Publicly broadcasted crimes or "performance crimes" have been on the rise since the internet has enabled individuals with undeveloped ethics to broadcast their activities to the world. However, the motives for such crime admission in public are still being theorized. The academics Ryan C. W. Hall and Terry Day argue performance crime motivations fall in into 5 categories:

1. Attention seeking
2. True believers
3. Psychotic
4. Sadism
5. Monetary

Attention seeking performance criminals may not necessarily be dramaturgical as they may not know the impact of sharing the content, especially if they are young and foolish. Thoreau's theory of civil disobedience was primarily meant for abolitionists, intellectuals, and academics. However easy access to mass broadcast has extended the scope with which people utilize civil disobedience for. They will utilize civil disobedience to advance an honest opinion or obtain followers in spite of recognition they will face penalty. Sadistic performance criminals may have a psychological desire to annoy authorities with their crimes.

Weary ward

For those under untenable guardianships, either formal through the state, or informal by their own poverty, the sadism or social aspect of jail may be more appealing than their own limited existence. While they may evaluate life at home as a "supermax prison", the actual prison may become enticing to them, and especially if they have a combination of masochistic, suicidal, and homosexual urges.

Intent beyond confinement

One theory is that prison and legal consequences exist to help ensure that society remains orderly. Punishment exists to try and ensure uniform behavior among a large population. If these punishments do not occur, or if special exceptions are made, then uniform behavior may be less likely.

See also

• Carceral architecture