NCJ Number
72337
Journal
Canadian Journal of Sociology Volume: 4 Issue: 1 Dated: (1979) Pages: 43-64
Date Published
1979
Length
22 pages
Annotation
A critique of the MacGuigan Report on the Canadian Penitentiary System leads to the view that medical and managerial reform models of prisons ought to be replaced by a model in which the working-class, represented by guards and inmates can manage prisons themselves.
Abstract
Canada's Parliamentary Subcommittee has expressed a desire for a more professional, middle-classified prison, posing the prison disturbance problem as a good inmate versus bad guard problem. Likewise, MacGuigan et al. have inhibited the carceral proletariat (guards and inmates), from formulating selfmanaged carceral models which might serve as viable alternatives to those (medical, corporal) devised by members of the middle-class in their own class interests. Essentially, the solution recommended by MacGuigan et al. is to restore authority to the prison executive. From a class point of view, this means simply shifting the locus of authority from incumbents in one set of middle-class occupational roles to the other. The power authority shift, in short, is an intraclass rather than an interclass phenomenon. Data from a North Carolina prison in the U.S. shows that socioeconomically and demographically, inmates and guards are very similar to each other, e.g.,, both come to the prison as a result of unemployment and both perceive denial of their legal rights and oppressive supervision. By normalizing the prison and making the justice available in society also available to inmates in their unfree society, a major instigator of prison disturbances (perceived injustice) will have been removed. Inmate organizations are to be encouraged. Not only do they facilitate communication between inmates and management, they also provide a legitimate means of expressing and dealing with grievances. They give inmates and guards the idea that they themselves have some control over their environment and thus may make them less alienated. Prisoners gainfully employed will leave fewer inmates available to be recruited for disturbance activity and also give inmates a greater stake in conforming with prison rules and regulations. Inmates involved in team concepts and working with correctional guards can serve to eliminate disturbances. Included are 24 footnotes and more than 60 references.