‘It's in the air here’: Atmosphere(s) of incarceration

Abstract

Contrary to descriptions of a desensitising situation – with restrictions on movement, monotonous regimes and sparse surroundings – much research highlights imprisonment as sensorially and emotionally powerful. Following work within the ‘turn to affect’ that focuses on non-verbal, non-conscious and, often, non-human embodied experiences, scholars have attended to how such elements cohere into ‘atmospheres’. Whilst the language of atmosphere is synonymous with the prison – a space that is widely anecdotally considered to conjure a particular ‘feeling’ – discussion of the mechanisms for and experiences of atmospheric production and consumption in this space has, thus far, evaded scholarly attention. Atmosphere is a word often used in prison literature, but it is rarely analytically unpacked. Accordingly, drawing on qualitative research data from individuals designing, and working and living in prisons, we focus on how various components – including aesthetics, olfaction, temperature, and the performances that arise from them – comprise sensory atmospheric affects in prison. In doing so, we find atmosphere(s) emerge – not simply from the materiality of the prison itself, but from cultural constructions of carceral and non-carceral landscapes and in conjunction with personal practice and preference. Accordingly, the prison is tied to particular constructions about what a prison should feel like and how people should (re)act to/in such spaces. In some cases, prison designers attempt to engineer particular atmospheres that cohere with wider political motivations around penal philosophies. However, despite the common reflection that prisons generate some kind of atmosphere, respondents are unable to offer a concrete description of what this may be, and much of our data highlights a definite precarity and changeability to atmospheric affect, which is likely to raise ambiguity around attempts to design carceral atmospheres.

Sensing probation in Canada: Notes on affect and penal aesthetics in risk assessment

“…I have explored optics as visual stimuli that signal interpretative meanings, whereas haptics mediates symbolism through subtle cues between humans and machines in the design of LSI-R software applications. Probation is powerful both emotionally and sensorially in how it embodies non-verbal and algorithmic experiences through atmospheric pressures (Turner et al, 2022). I am cautious about this interplay, sensing it relates to an algorithmic logic of the RNR model where efficacy for desistance and rehabilitation becomes subsumed by a risk paradigm (Ward and Maruna, 2007).…”

“…Penal weight in terms of workload analysis points further elucidates how service providers experience human geography in terms of their performative value. Rethinking carceral space virtually, in terms of aesthetic software design—and how implicit choices may colour experience, calls attention to penal structures that foster human agency, nature, and well-being (Jewkes et al, 2020; Moran and Jewkes, 2014; Turner et al, 2020, 2022). A just design, therefore, focuses on hope and health in its governance and architectural orientation to criminality (Jewkes, 2018: 6).…”

“…For example, understanding why evaluators tend to override risk ratings upward rather than downward (Orton et al, 2021) evinces concern about risk inflation and particularly how upward ratings exert a more positive effect on predictive validity (Guay and Parent, 2018). The proprietary nature of risk assessment tends to make details about its development opaque (Pope and Bromwich, 2022), and no known studies have explored the application of risk assessment software in terms of colour palettes, aesthetics and performance (Turner et al, 2022).…”

“…Where human perception is highly vulnerable to the social psychology of software design (Harris, 2016), such computer programming pertains to a penal communication theory in how meanings about punishment are inherently conveyed and understood (Duff, 2002, 2003). Therefore acclimatising to these atmospheric pressures evinces a need for ethical design choice-making and discussion about what is valuable for carceral spaces (Turner et al, 2022).…”

“…As Turner and colleagues (2022) discuss, attention to the aesthetic and architectural design of carceral spaces represent atmospheric pressures—in which competing emotions call for a ‘turn to affect’ (Pile, 2010; Thrift, 2004). Probation is likewise acclimatised to ‘sensory penalties’ that relate to human experiences of punishment and spaces of social control (Herrity et al, 2021).…”