Scholarship and Prison: Same S**t, Different Context.

Scholarship and Prison: Same S**t, Different Context

The Criminal Justice System. An interesting social construct that responds when people come into conflict with the law by committing a crime through their behaviour. Individuals that commit crime are processed through a legal system and if convicted, the system provides the victims of their behaviour some just deserts by holding the convicted to account. The system also aims to maintain acceptable social norms through deterrence methods and punishes those that do not conform; with an over arching attempt to reform during the punishment process which it termed rehabilitation (McNeill, 2012). The most serious punishment response here in the the UK is of course prison now we no longer have capital punishment. This construct is a punishment apparatus that invariably involves politicians, professionals of all kinds to operate the justice functions, as well as academics and scholars that lead the way in terms of advising best practice, influenced by their up to date research and evidence. 

Anyone that has read anything else that I have written, will know that I tend to write my thoughts and reflections as I develop, learn and ponder over anything criminal justice. This is in the main due to evolving from  being a prisoner to a qualified youth justice practitioner, and now a university teacher. This blog is a response to my recent pondering about how we as humans respond to social context. Reflecting on how people in various cogs of the criminal justice functions perceive themselves to be different from others placed in different parts of the justice structure. Terms such as criminals, offenders, prisoners, inmates, cons, junkies and more recently residents and returned citizens creates a them and us narrative which alienates those in the system as unique, different and not like us. However, I will demonstrate that although there are clear differences in positions and social status, we are more similar than we think. Here is an example that derives from my lived experience of desistance and social mobility.

All social environments have a structure of meritocracy. Meritocracy was was coined in the book, The Rise of Meritocracy (Young, 1958). This concept is effectively social groups and organizations creating a hierarchy of what deserves least and most merit; or how to place value on individuals within any given social structure. Recent evidence suggests that meritocracy seeks to legitimize social inequalities (Son et al, 2011). Explaining why we have terms such as 'low skilled workers' for people that work bloody hard and get paid peanuts in society. While Bankers and CEO's amongst other highly merited jobs accumulate incredible sums of money. Those roles have more merit within our society. Some would say pay is not the only measure. I am sure many working in such undervalued employment may disagree. It could be suggested this is a consequence of our neo-liberal, free market society. I will not delve into the detail here as this as it will distract from the point I intend to demonstrate. 

In an educational and academic social structure, one of the key functions or merit is referencing and citations. When writing books, journals and assignments, the more citations we provide, and the higher the credibility or merit of those citation authors, we witness an increase in merit within this social context of academia. If I want to write about desistance, or rehabilitation for example, cite Shadd Maruna, Fergus McNeill, Beth Weaver or Terrie Moffit. This will increase the merit of the work within this academic meritocratic structure. Same principle if I want to write about prisons. We should cite Ben Crewe, Alison Liebling or Helen Arnold to obtain credibility and merit. If I was to write about youth justice which is my previous field, David P. Farrington, Steven Case, Kevin Haines, Neal Hazel or Sean Creaney would be very helpful. There are of course academics and scholars that I missed off these lists. I profoundly apologies for this, not intentional. In missing leading scholars, some will perceive this as a weakness if they merit those I have not mentioned. This will illustrate my point - so bare with me a moment. 

Upon arrival to prison, you quickly understand that prisoners have also constructed a hierarchical meritocratic system which allocates value within a hegemonic and toxic masculine structure. This has been explored by a previously incarcerated academic, David Maguire (2019). Maguire demonstrates the need to better understand how some prisoners are subordinated within this structure and defined as vulnerable prisoners with little merit. Believe it or not, I am going to argue that although those in prison live within a completely different social context to scholars within an academic one, there are some undiscussed less understood similarities. 

I have spent time in six prisons from juvenile through to young offenders, and then adult prisons as a young adult. Every time you are moved as a prisoner, you have to swiftly find your merit within the new hierarchy. So how is this done? Well, there are standard questions you are asked upon arrival to a carceral space as a prisoner. They are not 'do you have a 2.1 in sociology'. These are: what are you in for; when are you out; where are you from; and who do you know? The answers to these questions tell the prisoner asking and wider social system, what type of crimes you did; as a result, how much status you are likely to hold within this prison; how long you got for the crime, which may indicate your trustworthiness, and whether you pled guilty. It also inidcates whether you have merited connections and if you say you do, this could lead to further analysis to extrapolate how truthful you are being with further probing questions. All this is a an assessment of your merit and credibility within the meritocratic carceral space. 

So, how does this provide any relevance to the education or academic space as suggested in the title? As a result of these questions or assessments within the prison structure, I have come to realize that the response to this rigorous process is in fact referencing and citation. Just as I now mark academic work and place merit on the students citations to credible scholars; prisoners will cite other prisoners' or credible sources to obtain merit within this prison structure. I recall citing names of people I hardly knew to make sure I obtained this merit or status. "I know Johnny Blogs" as he is well respected in a previous prison with the equivalence of a Cambridge PhD. If I cite or reference him, this automatically gives me some credibility and merit. As Maguire's work highlights, this inevitably leaves those with little to no references to cite with no merit or credibility, rendering them little capital within the hierarchy. They do not get a distinction, or even a merit. In fact, these guys are lucky if they pass. In my experience, this drives people to conform to the hierarchical prison construct. Consequently abandoning one's authenticity as an individual to perform to the expected values and behaviours. This doesn't develop a positive self narrative. In fact, this process is an oxymoron to the desistance literature (Maruna, 2001; Laub & Sampson, 2001; McNiell, 2006; Weaver, 2019).

My point here is not to down play scholarship or education and compare it to prison life directly. Nor is my aim to create sympathy or share perspective of those I left in this challenging situation. I simply ponder on how I have seemingly transitioned from one social context to another, and yet our behaviors and interactions as humans are not so different after all. If we stop viewing prisoners as deficits or lacking skills when they indeed carry similar skills to all of us (placing myself in the latter group now), we may seemingly understand how those skills are transferable. If we prevent the othering of people in prisons, maybe we can focus on our common human conditions and responses to our differing social infrastructures. We are in the end just people. We all aim to do and be well within the context we are navigating. However, for one reason or another, we end up navigating different spaces in quite similar ways. Explaining the title of this blog as, 'Scholarship and Prison: Same S**t, Different Context'. 

Thanks for reading

Andi Brierley - Leeds Trinity University

References

1) Maguire, D. (2021). Vulnerable prisoner masculinities in an English prison. Men and Masculinities, 24(3), 501-518.

2) Maruna, S. (2001). Making good. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

3) McNeill, F. (2006). A desistance paradigm for offender management. Criminology & Criminal Justice, 6(1), 39-62.

4) McNeill, F. (2012). Four forms of ‘offender’rehabilitation: Towards an interdisciplinary perspective. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 17(1), 18-36.

5) Laub, J. H., & Sampson, R. J. (2001). Understanding desistance from crime. Crime and justice, 28, 1-69.

6) Son Hing, L. S., Bobocel, D. R., Zanna, M. P., Garcia, D. M., Gee, S. S., & Orazietti, K. (2011). The merit of meritocracy. Journal of personality and social psychology, 101(3), 433.

7) Weaver, B. (2019). Understanding desistance: a critical review of theories of desistance. Psychology, crime & law, 25(6), 641-658.

8) Young, M. The Rise of Meritocracy, London, England: Thames and Hudson.