People and Productivity

The first time I heard the phrase, I was probably in the womb, my Mother probably watching the latest criminal justice sensation story on TV. That's how immanent the concept seems to me anyway.

It is one of those phrases that slips continuously into social consciousness, an unconscious mechanism in liberal-democratic societies (a-la-Borat, read repressed) that controls widespread social panic , euphemistically addressing a society's carefully hidden doppelganger--the antisocial.

Nevertheless, it took me years of incarceration, of crossing into the forbidden territory itself, to come to a full understanding of its meaning-in-use.

It usually comes as a great rhetorical flourish ending an inspiring speech made by someone in authority. To these people, it is the last word par excellence--the essential message to the enemy, the basic Gospel to the benighted heathen, the critical freedom message of Voice of America. It is to them like the musical flourish--a twitter really--to the Baroque Symphony; like celebratory gunfire to sub-national third-world militias; like the Aaronic Benediction to the Catholic Mass.

"...so that they might become productive members of society."

There it is in all of its anti-antisocial beauty. If I could I'd embark on a great etymological dig to uncover the first use of this blessed phrase, and its first benevolent application to the benighted criminal. Like Foucault, I would excavate the historical record and find where it all began, where the public mind initially contracted its peculiar viral strain.

There is no doubt some great mystery about the whole of human society hidden in that archaeological record---a deep and all-pervasive essence that has contributed a part to the very fabric of the contemporary social system.

Reducing the role of criminal rehabilitation to social productivity reveals, apart from an all-pervasive capitalist thought-world, the cynical nature of of the current correctional regime. A productive member of society, in this view, and which is borne out by reality, can be a subsistence wage earner who never finished high school, and lives the entirety of his life in a disorganized, disadvantaged community. This is a legitimately productive rehabilitated criminal in the system's view. Productivity, thus, is exposed as a euphemism for benign underclass.

Nevermind that subsistence wages, lack of education, and underclass status are all leading factors in criminality. That's clearly not important--what's important is reducing crime!

Incredibly, the authorities do not see the connection, nor the contradiction here...

More on this later.

Rule by Nobody

Hannah Arendt once defined bureaucracy thus. And she said of it, "If we identify tyrrany as government that is not held to give account of itself, rule by nobody is clearly the most tyrannical of all, since there is no one left who could even be asked to answer for what is being done." What she says next is as striking as it is relevant to the basic dynamic of prison society: "It is this state of affairs, making it impossible to localize responsibility and to identify the enemy, that is the most potent causes of the current (written in the 1960's but just as relevant today) world-wide rebellious unrest, its chaotic nature, and its dangerous tendency to get out of control and to run amuck" (Arendt in her essay "On Violence").

"I want a grievance right f--ing now!" Bang, bang, bang. "Get the grievance clerk down here now ^&5@$!" Bang, bang, bang. This is a daily routine here--the default response whenever a ward feels that he has been treated unjustly. The cards are always stacked against him of course; and I have seen an equal amount of frivolous and legitimate grievances, all following this precise pattern. Welcome to the first step in the bureaucratic process of the youth prison grievance system.

In theory, a polite and helpful staff is supposed to send a competent ward grievance clerk to deliver a numbered grievance form to the ward grievant. He is then supposed to fill out the form, and return it to the clerk who logs it and then submits it to the living unit Senior Youth Correctional Counselor. She is then supposed to exercise all of her competence and training to weigh the merits of the grievance, and deliver the preliminary finding. If the grievant is not satisfied, an appeal process is enacted that basically climbs the bureaucratic ladder of the institution.

In practice, literally anything can happen. The grievance clerk is never sent, or more frequently, he is instructed not issue the grievance. Or the grievant is offered some small pittance (I have seen anything from doughnuts to electronics) in exchange for withdrawing his request. Or the grievance gets “lost” (usually thrown away). Or perhaps its most frustrating fate, it actually makes its way along the prescribed bureaucratic track—and the grievant is patronized, the issue is evaded or ignored through the masterful use of technicalities, staff are defended, and the grievance is finally “resolved”, that is, a higher, ostensibly more competent bureaucratic official proclaims, ex officio, a last and final judgment, whether in accordance with policy or not, and the whole matter is dropped. Usually by that time the grievant is either pacified to his satisfaction, so disillusioned that he gives up with no further objection, or has further demonstrated his immaturity and “acted out”, usually violently, and the issue is therefore transformed into an issue dealing now with the wards own behavior. The buck gets passed endlessly in the process. The faces change, the only consistency being certain favored clichés, taught I think in a top secret ministry for bureaucrats deep underground---“I’m just doing my job.” Or, “I’m just following policy.” Or, “Well, you’ll have to take that issue up with my boss.” Or dozens more instantiations of the same oxymoronic expression of bureaucratic responsibility.

Prison Rule by Nobody is the leading cause, in my experience, of tension, anxiety, and violence in prisons. It underlies every other problem, taints the whole superstructure, and is therefore partially responsible for them all.

Forever Young

"Hey Nasty, your boy C-Loc says what's up, cuz."

"Heeey, what's my boy doin out there Capone?"

"Gang-Bangin!!"

So the conversation goes, night and day. Delusions of grandeur in the minds of socially disadvantaged, developmentally stunted young adults in the California Division of Juvenile Justice. These guys are rapidly budding into adults, at least legally and physically (state jurisdiction delays their legal development into full-fledged adults until their 25th birthday...unless of course they do something really bad).

Beyond physical and legal maturation, however, there is little or no progress. All the trappings of adolescent immaturity--the idolization of Rap stars; unrealistic delusions of impending fame and wealth; unrestrained hypersexuality; utterly self-centered notions of social expectations and responsibilities; oppositional-defiance syndrome-esque perspectives of normative modes of social participation and authority--mixed with histories of abuse, broken homes, drug abuse, delinquency, antisocial attitudes, and frequently, violent crime, reinforced by a youth prison culture that turns these characteristics into a full-blown identity.

Meet the typical ward of the California Division of Juvenile Justice.

Sometimes it amazes me that these are the same kids that California has become so frightened of. A kid that calls himself Capone (after the famous Mobster) is a gang member, but can barely read or write, sings rap songs at the top of his lungs thinking he's the next rapper-cum-entrepreneuer, and whose plan B is to somehow buy an apartment complex in Watts and "sell it for big money to Section 8."

Another who tattoos racist symbols on his arms with pen ink and a staple in his cell ("I just do it dot to dot, you know."), thinks himself a part of a neo-nazi race of ubermench, but who comes to me when nobody's looking to ask for help to pass his GED exam so that he can "get a high-power (that means really good) job when I get out."

These guys, these kids are frightening when they have a gun in their hands. Have we ever really stopped and asked why they don't even believe the hype themselves?

Living among them, being identified as one of them, I know that for most, they turn to criminality, paradoxically, because its the easiest option. Their fears are the fears of children--they don't want me because I'm too different; they think I'm stupid; I don't have what it takes. Many of these thoguhts I had when I was 6 or 7 years old.

I frequently wonder what kind of hell it is to simply lack the socio-psychological (or, as the system likes to call it, cognitive-behavioral) equipment to grow up, to think adult thoughts, to develop a truly mature sense of self. I have read about patients with severe brain trauma, who can no longer recognize the human face qua human face. Is something of the sort also the case with these eternal youth? Have they lost the ability to recognize, identify with, the face of society? What do they see when they look in the mirror? Is acquiring social norms like acquiring language--the older you get, the harder it becomes?

Throwing Carrot Wheels

Sometimes it is nice just to sleep the day away in here. Pull the covers over your head and seal yourself up from this god forsaken land of the caged. The vernacular phrase for this is 'sleeping your time away." It's the tacit, elliptical way in which prison culture acknowledges periodic bouts of depression.

I get depressed whenever I face the prospect of having to stay in my cell all day long. This is the bitter lot of the majority where I am incarcerated, and so I have had the opportunity to watch up close the various ways in which these young guys, most of them just kids, deal with the maddening idleness of day after plodding day of restless inactivity.

Today was just one of those days. For me, it's rare to be marooned on the living unit, so I am mostly glad for a day here and there to myself. I use it to sleep in, read, write, listen to NPR. But today isn't working out--mild depression has set in. So I went back to sleep. I dreamed lucid dreams, about trees and the ocean, non-incarcerated dreams that raised my spirits considerably. About 2:30 PM I woke up again, no longer depressed, though dazed from over sleep. Eyes still closed, I swung my legs off the bed, determined to be productive with the latter part of my day. Stepping down, I feel something strange beneath my feet. Wet. Circular. Cold. Did I spill something last night? I open my eyes and look. I laugh. Reaching down, I pick up a pen and paper, and now here I sit, writing about the dozens of carrot wheels strewn across my floor.

It would be funny if it weren't so sad, irritating if it weren't so indicative.

Now picture this. Some poor 19 year old kid, locked all day in a tiny, filthy cell, too poorly educated to occupy himself with writing or reading, too developmentally stunted to see the sheer juvenility of sitting on his floor, slinging carrot wheels out of his door and into my room across the hallway. Meet my neighbor across the way.


He is undergoing the rehabilitative program of the California Division of Juvenile Justice.

Now ask me why, when this kid finally gets out of his cell, he picks a fight on the way to school. The first guy he meets, just wham, its you today buddy.

He doesn't understand his anger, his frustration. He just knows its there. Just like the guy walking towards him that he's about to attack.

The Adjudicated Vote

I stayed up late on election night, listening to the voter returns. What an incredibly disconcerting experience listening to an election in prison. Why? Apart from obvious reasons, I would wager that a majority of the hundreds of guys here were simply unaware that an election was taking place. True, that’s not much different from society in general—a majority of Americans, though probably aware that an election was taking place (who can escape the TV ad’s?), did not even bother to vote.

The real difference is that there were also many guys in here who would have liked to vote, but neither had the means nor the will to violate institutional regulations to get registered, procure, and then send in an absentee ballot.

De jure, as adjudicated minors, wards of the state are eligible voters. But de facto, they are disenfranchised voters, denied the power of the vote by the failure of the DJJ to promote and facilitate voter registration and absentee ballot availability.

I don’t think it’s a grand conspiracy to suppress the adjudicated vote. Frankly, I don’t think the system is that smart. Nevertheless, elections have come and gone here, and nothing is said or done to advertise the fact that these guys could vote if they wanted to.

This is very sad indeed. There is nothing that exemplifies more the value of the citizen, the power of the individual, the right of the person, than the power, the right, the responsibility, the privilege of the vote. The right to the vote proclaims the right of the individual to claim a place in society, and to expect to be held to account, and hold society to account, for that place.

And so what better exercise can youthful offenders engage in to learn social responsibility, and to be invited into the rights and responsibilities of the social body?

This should be the thought of a truly rehabilitation-oriented system. It is foolish to hope for thoughts from a system such as this…and that is the truly disturbing thing: I am the only one thinking these thoughts.

What have I become?

We get the occasional surreptitious look at newspapers in here, and yesterday I was able to procure the A section of the Los Angeles Times (the November 6, 2006 edition). “A City Strains to Arrest a Deadly Trend” caught my eye immediately. The story featured the recent murder of a 12 year old boy in the city of San Bernardino. It addressed all the classic issues of a city grappling with violent crime and gang activity. But it really got me thinking…

Living in here, completely isolated from the normal rhythms of social life, it is easy, far too easy, to lose touch with what I guess one can call ones sense of social identity. In this enclosed, highly regimented, artificial environment, social identity—which is already pretty eroded in many offenders by their prior antisocial, criminal histories—is further eroded by the total disconnection that takes place—social and psychological--in the carceral process.

I could not believe that I had felt, albeit just for a second, a sense of absolute distance from this mainstream representation of social identity conveyed in the article—the expression of a city wounded by violent crime. I was taken aback by this brief feeling of dislocation, of displaced identification if you will, in large part because I have worked so hard (and have become very proud) to maintain and grow a sense of identification, of belongingness, with my community, and with society. Early in my incarceration, I resolved to consciously resist adopting the prison vernacular and the prison mentality it fosters and sustains (which is characteristically anti-social, and revels in the very de-indentification with the social that I have at great pains worked to maintain). For this decision, I have lived as a vagabond and an outcaste here (a prison social position usually assigned through anti-anti-social conduct, and which is usually hard and very vulnerable), fiercely maintaining my non-affiliation with prison associations (like prison gangs) at considerable personal risk. It is a dangerous thing to remain a non-affiliate in prison—but I considered it more detrimental still, a betrayal of my own social identity no less, to pursue any other course, despite the benefits (safety, mostly).

And so the momentary horror I felt at my reaction to the article--I felt sympathy, but only a thin, emaciated sense of empathy—put me into a brief panic, and caused me to immediately reevaluate the entire progress of the six years of my carceral life.

I calmed down eventually, and began to think clearly. I had not, after all, become an institutionalized prisoner (a ‘docile body’ in Foucault’s phraseology). But I had neglected something. I had neglected, partly due to purely structural reasons, but partly because of personal bitterness at having to live in prison—I had neglected considering the authentic, nonreplicable, perspective of the Other of the carceral process—the very social identity, ironically, I had worked so hard to maintain: the mother, having lost her 12 year old son in a senseless act of brutality; a community afraid to let their youth venture more than a few blocks from their homes; a young boy, missing his murdered friend, barely old enough to comprehend it. I had neglected this perspective, the perception of the community’s Other—which can only be described as me.

I had been so busy in the negative element of the task, fighting off institutionalization, that I forgot the vital constructive element—maintaining an actual identification with society. I had fallen into the old fallacy of thinking resistance a form of construction.

To be sure, much of this can be attributed to the structure of the carceral process itself. How is one to maintain an identification with the social, and with general social values, when one is kept isolated from society? The problem is compounded by the fact that many offenders, when incarcerated, haven’t yet developed fully formed social identities, or worse, have developed distinctly anti-social identities. Sadly, for many youthful offenders, these structural factors are simply too great to overcome. They are caught up unawares, and develop under the influence of the system identities radically antithetical to society, and suited only for prison society—caged selves, literally formed through interaction with the core feature of the prison milieu—the cell.

But youthful offenders must bear some responsibility. And I especially must bear it, having understood my predicament, and in full knowledge of what is needed to maintain an empathic link to society. Still, it is frightening to think that even I am prone—despite my efforts—to moments of capitulation to institutionalization. If anything, it reveals the awesome negative power of social isolation—which is something we must all bear in mind, because every one of these guys will go home eventually. As such, it is in the best interest of society, and it is the responsibility of people like me who have ears to hear and eyes to see, to devise ways of reintroducing to institutionalized youthful offenders the face of society, and urging them, inviting them, to re-identify.

Superman

Superman

Walking around this place, you are always wondering, “Is this guy going to attack me? Am I going to have to defend myself?”

One incident in particular stands out as a particularly instructive case in point.

I was walking from the living unit on my way to college one day, and as I looked across the large field in the center of the institution, I saw another inmate, charging as fast as he can across the field, heading right for me. They call this stunt a “superman”, probably because you’d need that kind of kryptonic speed to actually reach ones intended target. At the same instant, I look over and see the security patrol realize what’s happening, and also start charging through the field on foot and in vans, in an attempt to cut superman off before he can reach me and the crowd I was walking with. Knowing this place, and seeing that superman is Latino, I quickly calculate that, I, being white, am not the intended target. The target is walking directly behind me, a group of African-Americans, also making their way to college. They see superman too, but, simply wanting to get to college, they just keep walking, shifting their books in case superman succeeds, but clearly banking on the security patrol to intercept him before he reaches them. Between his target and superman is a row of bleachers and a low masonry wall, which slows him down, allowing the security patrol to easily intercept him. They knock superman to the ground, dousing him in the face with pepper spray, and tackling him and putting him in cuffs. And all the while, all we can do is keep walking…there’s no sense in doing anything else, nor much of an incentive.

If you defend yourself, you’re likely to find yourself, like superman—hemmed up, sprayed, and sent to a “holding room”, which is a kind of isolation cell-block in the bowels of the regular living units. Though a lot of the guys will tell you that the holding rooms “ain’t nothin”, meaning they aren’t afraid of spending time in them, I think everyone for the most part is afraid of them—they are a powerful tool used by the institution to punish offenders through isolation. The holding rooms are absolutely dreadful places; dark, filthy, and depressing. Before the reforms began, offenders would languish for weeks in these cells.

Such is life in a youth prison. It is a life where anxiety and fear become permanent parts of ones own personality. Despite the fear of being a target from an unknown predator—whether it be a superman or a staff—you just keep on walking, keep on living as best you can a normal life, hoping someone or some turn of events will continue to intercept the threats, real or imagined, before they bear down on you.

After awhile, after years, the anxiety and fear normalizes. But in brief moments of safety and familiarity—like visits with family—the normalcy of your former life comes rushing back. And then you remember where you are.