Role of Labour Discipline, Time and Space in the Formation of Modern Prison

Role of Time

The most recent crime activity to have developed in UK and all across Europe is the phenomenon of gang activities. Gang activities are believed to have increased especially because the crime has been ignored for a long period. However, the old theories about the origin of the gangs and the sources the gangs acquire their power have been found to be misleading. It has been established that the gang talk has been propagated by the media as more people especially in the younger generation being recruited into the gangs (Hallsworth and Young, 2008, pp. 175). The new members become new threats to the society as they are bound to live on the gangs forever.

Form of productive relations widely argued it in any period as every system of production will discover punishments that will correspond to its productive relations and the fact that punishments will only exist if specific criminal practices exist.

To make it clear, they argued that though the mode of transport that was being used was crude and human, it was motivated by the fact that there was a need for labour on the farms and mines (Foucault 1977, 76). The labour was not available in large quantities where it was needed while it was in surplus, in England. The condition called for the need of balance between the places it was in demand, and the places it was available and hence this is what called for the transportation of prisoners. It was noted that the speed on which a convict reform is not determined by the heaviness of the punishment that one is put under, but it is rather dependent on many social factors. The first reason that will determine how a prisoner change is the people he or she is surrounded with and how they make him or her feel. If the prisoner is surrounded by people who believe that he has achieved a lot, he or she will feel the need of doing more and more crime and hence low chances of changing.

People recognized that all systems of production were ‘social productions’ and there is complex dynamic relationship between agency and structure (Camp and Hughes, 2010). They recognized that people will make the world a better place but they will not do it on their own will. Something forces them or coerces them to make the world a better place. They also noted that there is a form of equality that operates in an economy of the relationship between consumption and distribution. The findings called for the punishment that would seek to incorporate the principle of equivalence even in a balanced economy.

The new mode of punishment was criticized that it aimed to punish less this was not the case the new mode of punishment looked for more humane way not to punish less but to punish better (Cohen, 1985). The new forms of punishments that were adopted were not just supposed to oppress the prisoners, but they also sought to be positive and increase productivity of the prisoners. There were new forms of follow up to the prisoners where the prisoners were put under surveillance. This surveillance helped to classify the prisoners according to their actions and separate them from each other, and it also was essential in examination and follow up of the prisoners after they had been separated.

The new forms of punishments shifted their focus from inflicting bodily pain which was the norm in the past to a more modern and moderate form of punishment which was aimed at

Role of Labour

The emergence of the modern prisons was seen to be over determined in that it consisted of various overlapping and mutually reinforcing determinations. Political movements also had an influence to the use of imprisonment. Most judgments were based on racial framework with different people from different races receiving different forms of punishments for a similar crime. On this period, work was mostly associated with slavery and hence it was despised as it became more and more hated since it was associated with unequal compensation to the doer.

There was some development in the prison system, and there was clear power crystallization of power in prisons (Mccarthy, 2001, pp. 203). It was noted that prisons once established generated their own knowledge, discourses, practices and effects. The new prison system provided a place and means on which the prisoners would be studied and analysed. It was within this timeframe that the delinquent was established and was highly attributed to biography and personality which it was believed that it existed outside and beyond the commission of a specific act. It is out of this experience that the need to have a scientific study of crime was established. On the contrary, the study of crime was not the reasons why there was need to establish jails but the establishment of jails was the main accelerator for the need to study criminology.

With time, the analysis of power has been studied, and there has been evident character of the prison (Weiss, 1987, pp. 331). Prison has been for a long period been associated with punishment in the society; this was drawn from the olden days where the prisoners had to be punished for there to be ay remarkable change. People started association prison with the punishments rather than a correction unit where the prisoners were to undergo some form of correction. There have been studies to try and explain the obvious aspects of the assumptions of modern prisons. The studies have established that there is a major difference between how people think about imprisonment and how the prison system looks. However, previous studies have been criticized mostly due to the scant details and lack of any meaningful account on the development of women imprisonment in the past.

The prisons started adopting more and more women as time moved on. Mostly women were held on bridewells where they were mostly involved in preparing textiles (Zedner 1991, 67). Women were preferred on this work as they were more efficient on it. There was a probability on the increase of the bridewells was further contributed by the fact that the women prisoners were being used for other reasons as prostitutes. These places developed and became highly profitable brothels and hence it became a better source of income than men who could only be used in the fields. This exploitation led to the early campaign for the establishment of separate prisons. It was noted that the immorality would reduce in a great amount if the prisons were set out differently and separate men from the women.

These calls for separation of the different genders led to the Jail Act which required full separation of men from women (Zedner 1991, 77). It limited the visitors’ establishing that women prisoners could only have a woman guard and that the males could only visit female prisoners if they were accompanied by a female police officer. Although there were no many prisons for women at this period, women were mostly segregated on wings of the male prisons. However, with time, there were separate institutions in the form of Magdalen houses for the repentant prostitutes. The emphasis of this institution was to help the women reflect on their pasts and to acquire new religious instructions. There was work on these prisons, but it was designed to be moderate so that it would help them to reform and educate them. The main tasks that were found on these houses included textile manufacturing, domestic chores, cleaning and laundering. It was assumed that these were female chores that women would enjoy doing and hence they would help them reform faster and be more productive in the society.

There was a widespread feeling that women required a different treatment from men (Zedner

There was a widespread view that prison was not good at all for women and hence, this played a great role in declining the rate at which women were imprisoned (Zedner, 1991). Women were given short sentences while many of them were placed under probation so as to enable follow up on their behaviour. The criminality perspective of women also changed as there was reduced scope of the activities that were termed as crimes.

Role of Discipline

conditions of the prisons as new codes of discipline were introduced, and the prisons were put under new management. The perspective about prison changed from the previous view to a liberal view which saw prison as a correction facility which aimed to transform criminals who were confined there to become better citizens.

Prisoners were differentiated on different classes with the aim of establishing classifications based on solitary confinement. Prisoners were to be differentiated according to their religion and the crime they had committed this was to avoid the spread of what was termed as contagious crime. Reformers believed that, through specially designed institutions, it would be possible to produce a rationally organized space which would foster the development of reason and the self-regulation of inmates. The new system believed that to control the contagious crimes in nature; separation was inevitable. Different classes of people were separated according to their age, gender and vulnerability. It was believed that the old could easily influence the young and that men could easily influence women. Those that were vulnerable to influence were also placed away from those that could influence them easily. The young children who were arrested were put under closer supervision where advice was the paramount motive of these juvenile jails (Pitts, 1990). They were not subjected to hard labour but instead they were given time to develop with the required guidance and counselling.

There was, however, a hot debate as to whether prisoners should be allowed to mingle freely during the day or there should be a complete confinement (Brown, 2003). Most prisons used to allow free interaction of prisoners from different departments to interact freely during the day and seclusion during the night. However, some prisons believed in full seclusion where the prisoners could not mingle with those from different sections. It was argued that keeping the prisoners in solitude would help them reflect on their life and regret on their deeds that would help them in the recovery process.

However, after much debate, it was settled that the process of full seclusion was unnatural, and it bred insanity (Morris 1976, 120). It was established that it would cost less to have the prisoners interact while they were working on the day as surveillance would be easier and at the same time, there were greater returns if the prisoners worked together. It was, however, uniformly agreed that there was a need for the imprisonment where the punishment would be severe by ensuring that there is minimal diet to create discomfort and ensured strict discipline.

The need for more disciplinary actions in the prison saw the introduction of military personnel in the prison system (Brown, 2003). They were supposed to ensure the existence of law and order in the prisons. These people were to ensure that there were high standards of discipline in the prisons. More professions besides the military were also present including doctors and psychiatrist who were introduced to help the prisoners with their medication. Their introduction saw more humane treatment of prisoners as the punishment shifted from the harsh and vengeance form it was before to more act of a disciplined calculation for the social good and the offender’s need.

On this wave of a new design of the cells, Pentonville prison in London was built, and it depicted a modern prison which had better conditions and at the same time the security of the prisoners was guaranteed. Since fewer people were being transported, this led to increasing in population of the prisoners that led to the development of a prison rule which stated that every prisoner was to engage in useful work for ten hours a day. The prisoners limited this and also the fact that they were sentenced to short imprisonments.

There was a widespread view that the prisons had failed in their objective as they became more and more torn between reforming the prisoners and punishing them. It was viewed that the prison had abandoned the role of punishing them, and it focused more on reforming them which was unacceptable at that time.

There was an introduction of the probation act in 1907 that allowed the follow up of the prisoners after they were released. There was a creation of a juvenile act in 1951 that aimed to establish separate children jail which was independent of the other mainstream jail (Pitts, 1990). The prison system advanced and there was more need to create more space for more offenders. However, the space that was allowed per prisoner was still limited so as to ensure the offenders could not get any consolation they needed, and they had to be remorseful.

References.

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Zedner, L. 1991. Women, crime, and custody in Victorian England. Oxford: Clare