‘Perfectly individualized and constantly visible’? Lateral tightness in a prison holding men convicted of sex offences

Abstract

Late-modern penal power has been described as ‘tight’. Through the increasing use of indeterminate sentences and psychological assessment, and the growing insistence that prisoners engage in self-government, the prison monitors and seeks to change those it holds. This tight and disciplinarian power is often described as contributing to the increasing fragmentation and atomisation of the prisoner community. However, this article, which is based on research conducted in a English medium-security prison for men convicted of sex offences, argues that tightness can operate through the prisoner community, in a process which it terms ‘lateral regulation’. It shows that prisoners spend a lot of time observing, categorising and policing their peers, in ways which replicate and often uphold the more formal systems of power. However, the relationship between these two systems of power is complex, and prisoners’ collective self-regulation can conflict with and challenge the demands of the penal institution, in a way which reveals some of the weaknesses in the institution’s disciplinary gaze, and indicates the normative motivations underlying this regulation.

Navigating moral dimensions and lateral power – The experiences of men with sexual convictions and histories of sexual abuse serving sentences in a therapeutic community

“…Ievins (2020) described vividly how the behaviours of men with sexual offences were tightly scrutinised by their peers. Violence was not condoned and if a resident was violent to a peer or staff member, they risked losing their place in the TC, and thus their actions were constrained by the penal power of the institution to expunge them.…”

“…Recent research on the experiences of lateral penal power that operates within a prison for people with sexual convictions has highlighted the laterally tight nature of informal penal power. Ievins (2020) described how men with sexual convictions in a non-TC, single-offence prison engaged in lateral regulation of each other's behaviour, calling out and reporting on what they perceived to be inappropriate behaviour. This, she argues, created a sense that one was constantly watched by their peers in a ‘tight’, panoptic manner, driven by the salience of sex and morality to issues of sexual offending.…”

The prison as a reinventive institution

“…Our data are drawn from three main studies: a project investigating the everyday social life and culture of a medium-security men’s prison in England (Crewe, 2009); research into the social experiences of prisoners convicted of sexual offences in England (Ievins, 2017); and a programme of study comparing prisoner experiences in England & Wales and Norway, with a particular focus on female prisoners and male prisoners convicted of sexual offences. All three projects were primarily qualitative, drawing mainly on in-depth, semi-structured interviews, including the elicitation of biographical narratives.…”

“…But the word ‘few’ is important here, because within the narratives of some prisoners are clear statements of normative voluntarism. In Ievins’s (2017) study of men imprisoned for sexual offences, for example, around a fifth of interviewees stated that they had pleaded guilty, with many declaring that they ‘wanted to be punished’ because of their feelings of guilt:I would have been a lot happier serving much longer, not only because I thought I deserved it but the thought justice was actually being done and [the victim] would have had more peace of mind knowing that I am locked away.(Louis) 2 I didn’t go out looking for someone to rape, but I did, and it happened. So I told her then to go to the police.…”

Top Bunk, Bottom Bunk: Cellsharing In Prisons

“…In such ways, the degradation of constant surveillance does not just encompass institutional 'panopticism' (Foucault 1991) so much as lateral, inter-personal surveillance (see Ievins 2020). The deprivation of autonomy was also manifested in the multitude of ways that, alongside the already acutely stressful experience of being imprisoned, prisoners were required to manage an unwanted interpersonal dynamic: 'we've got to face each other and do our sentence' (Levi).…”