2.

Prison Paranoia

A Pyramidal Organization

In the words of article 2 of Poland’s prison staff law of 1959, the staff is “a formation that is monolithic, armed, and in uniform.” In other words, it has a paramilitary character and is organized like an army, with a hierarchy of ranks from private to general.¹

One can distinguish elements of this decidedly hierarchical structure. The work of the prison system is directed by the Central Administration of Penal Institutions, whose head, a general of the prison staff, holds the post of vice-minister of justice. Basic units, such as prisons and detention centers, are located throughout the country. They are divided into regions and are controlled by regional authorities under a Regional Administration of Penal Institutions.²

The structure of both of the higher levels reflects the structure of the basic units. For instance, the Central Administration is composed of several organizational units: the organizational-legal department, the staff department, the penitentiary department, the security and command department, the employment and records department, the department of technology and communication, and the health service inspector. Similarly, detention centers and penal institutions have a penitentiary department, a security and command department, a department of employment and records, a financial department, an economic department, and a health service.

The penal institutions and detention centers can also establish independent and group posts for undertaking certain tasks: political, training, social, economic and labor, safety and hygiene.³ In addition, the penal institutions may include auxiliary economic units, “budget enterprises” (small factories supported by the prison budget), schools, and hospitals.⁴

The penitentiary administration oversees four functions: confinement, social, economic, and resocialization.⁵ The implementation of these functions is the duty of special departments of the prison staffs.

The confinement function imposes rules of conduct on convicts so they will conform to the formal aims of the institution. Though all members of the prison staff help fulfill this task, the department of security and command is mainly responsible for security in the institutions and for the observance of regulations, discipline, and order by both inmates and functionaries. It is this department that fulfills the role of prison militia. Security is achieved by placing prisoners in isolation in a separate area with suitable buildings and a system of protection, enforcing discipline, performing searches, preventing escapes and revolts, using safety measures, and meting out stipulated punishments, such as the “hard bed,’’ food rations, solitary confinement, prohibition of smoking, and exclusion from participation in cultural-educational activities.⁶

The social function is a by-product of the confinement function. Because the penitentiary isolates, it takes on full responsibility for the inmates and therefore must guarantee at least minimal living conditions, food, hygiene, and clothing.⁷ Carrying out this function is the work of all the departments, but the economic department and health service are chiefly responsible.

The economic function involves compulsory employment of offenders, both in the prisons and in outside enterprises. The system provides general and vocational schooling for inmates to meet the needs of its enterprises.⁸ This function is the concern of the civilian employees of the prison enterprises, the school, and above all the department of employment and records, the main manager in the employment of inmates. The tasks of this department also include overseeing the admission and release of inmates, protecting deposited objects, and housing prisoners.⁹ This function also is intended to guarantee suitable management of the part of the national wealth at the disposal of the institution, i.e., investment, repair and maintenance, and bookkeeping and supplies.¹⁰ These tasks belong mainly to the economic and financial departments.

The resocialization function is the responsibility of the penitentiary department. Of greatest importance here is the discipline of inmates. This involves a strict regulation of the inmates’ behavior toward the prison staff and other prisoners, both in workplaces and in other permitted areas.¹¹

The paramilitary character of the prison staff comes with the adoption of hierarchical subordination as a style proper for managing an institution. The system is centralized. It does not exclude handing over power to the lower ranks, but the transfer is carried out according to strict regulations that enable those in higher positions to make decisions “upward” or “downward.” The resultant dependence of the lower ranks on their superiors indicates that this hierarchical subordination actually presumes a division of labor and not of competence.

The penal institution is directed by a warden, who is responsible for the realization of all four functions of the prison. All the other functionaries employed in the institution are his subordinates. Hierarchical subordination is obligatory in the management of the penal institution and the whole prison system. The warden has deputies, each of whom is assigned a separate set of duties. The work of particular departments is overseen by directors assisted by deputies. The workers of the departments are subordinate to the directors. The wardens are responsible for tasks entrusted to them and, if it is included in their duties, for a given group of prisoners.¹²

The duties of each functionary of the prison staff are precisely delineated,¹³ each responsible for duties assigned to them.¹⁴ This obliges them to an absolute execution of directives issued by the superior organ, with no right to question their correctness, and accountability for failure to carry them out. Even an instruction of a facultative nature, given in the form of a directive or advice, becomes binding, since there is a certain risk and responsibility for what might happen should that advice not be taken into consideration. The system of hierarchic subordination usually adopts the method of directive management.¹⁵

The higher the post in the official hierarchy a functionary holds, the greater the responsibility. A characteristic feature of the organization of the prison staff is the fact that the superior is held responsible for the work of his subordinates. The greatest responsibility therefore lies with the warden of the penal institution.

The warden is the direct head of the institution.¹⁶ He divides tasks among his personnel, is responsible for administering punishment in accordance with the principles of the penitentiary policy, and molds the life of the institution and the situation of its inmates. The burden of responsibility placed upon the warden for his own activity or that of his personnel, and for the results of the didactic process determines his position as a superior of the functionaries employed in the institution and as the superior of its inmates.¹⁷

He directs all the departments of the staff, constantly controls them, and is responsible for his own and his subordinates’ activities. . . . He is personally responsible for peace and order in the prison, for the strict carrying out of instructions and decisions of the authorities, and for administering punishments in accordance with the binding regulations. . . . He is obliged to take care of the rational organization, from the didactic and income point of view, of the prisoners’ work, school, and other forms of training, the sanitary state of the prison, the health of the inmates, proper feeding, clothes, and bedding. He has the right to mete out penalties, within the limits of binding regulations, to subordinate staff and to the prisoners. The warden of the prison can issue regulations in important and urgent cases which transcend the range of his rights.¹⁸

In turn, the deputies of the warden and the heads of particular services are responsible for their subordinates and for the duties they perform.¹⁹ Lower staff members are responsible for the proper fulfillment of their own duties and those of the functionaries subordinate to them. If they work with prisoners, they are responsible for the group of inmates under them.²⁰ Responsibilities of staff members therefore increase correspondingly with the rank of their official post.

Prison rules foresee punishment of inmates for misdemeanors,²¹ and official staff regulations foresee penalties for functionaries.²² A prisoner’s misconduct is analyzed not only from the point of view of its importance and the suitable punishment but also according to whether the fault lies with a specific functionary, who perhaps ignored his obligations and made the wrongdoing possible. If, for instance, a fight breaks out among inmates in the exercise yard during the absence of functionaries who should have been with the inmates, the functionaries must be punished along with the inmates. Of course, the absence of staff members during such an incident can also testify unfavorably about the work of their superiors.

In such a situation, a violation of prison staff rules can of course be registered only if it is detected by a superior or if a functionary who is not directly responsible for the given group of prisoners notifies the superiors of the institution. One cannot rely on the possibility that the surveillance in the exercise yard will of their own accord inform the warden about neglecting their duties.

A formal notification about a misdemeanor to the superiors or the warden obliges them or him to take certain steps against all those responsible for the event, including inmates, functionaries, and direct superiors. If, however, the person who notifies the warden about the violation is the superior himself, he places himself in a favorable situation; he noticed the misbehavior and thus was alert, a good worker. To a certain extent, the informer can become the executor of the sanctions placed on the functionaries. If the guards notice misbehaving prisoners and stop a fight, then only the participants in the fight will be penalized. In that situation there is no misdemeanor on the part of the staff, who were on the spot and reacted suitably; the chain of punishments is broken at the prisoners’ stage. But if the guards find out about the fight after it occurs they may well remain silent and count on the secrecy of others.

The functionaries may be found guilty of much more serious misdemeanors:

Let us say that a prisoner has been beaten and, to make it impossible for him to demand an official medical examination, he was placed by the guards responsible for the assault in solitary confinement. In this cell, still beaten or threatened with further violence and starved, he took his life. This event is serious enough so that its disclosure . . . could signify not only certain consequences in relation to the direct perpetrators but also to their superiors and the warden, and it testifies unfavorably about the work of the prison system. The case would have to involve the prosecutor, who would bring an accusation against the direct perpetrators. The charges of negligence of duties would spread to consecutive superiors, including the warden, and quite possibly the examination would also concern the eventual responsibility of the appropriate Regional Administration of Penal Institutions—for example, whether prior controls had been put in place in the institution. . . .²³

The prisoners constitute the base of a pyramid whose particular stages of responsibility lead to the pinnacle—to the warden, who is responsible for the whole prison. No one is subordinate to the prisoners, and there are no persons for whom they can be held responsible. The lack of such responsibility demonstrates their nonparticipation in power. The entire day of the subordinates of these total institutions is planned; the same is true of the ways of satisfying their fundamental needs. In other words, as Goffman pointed out, total institutions take over responsibility for the subordinates and must secure for them everything that is regarded as indispensable.²⁴

The Conspiracy of Ignorance

Each level of the prison system, when threatened with dire consequences, will try if possible to endow the precipitating event with an official interpretation that helps those involved avoid being held responsible. Superiors will intentionally ignore the efforts of their staff, preparing their own version of an incident by, for example, persuading the inmate witnesses to make false statements or forcing them to do so.²⁵ Events that leave no material traces but testify negatively about the work of the superiors, such as the drunkenness of functionaries while on duty, may be “forgotten” by the superiors unless they are officially informed about such misbehavior. By being silent, however, a person faces the threat that his behavior may be brought to the attention of superiors and result in additional consequences.

The unwillingness of superiors to be officially informed about incidents perpetrated by their own subordinates or a silent agreement to prepare a suitable official version of events to avoid disclosure at a higher level constitutes what I term avoidance of negative knowledge. The universal avoidance of negative knowledge by a sizable group of functionaries I call generalization of the avoidance of negative knowledge. Thus this term takes into account the place in the official hierarchy of the prison staff threatened with official consequences as a result of the obligation to officially disclose an incident to higher ups. Hiding knowledge about the avoidance of negative knowledge I call a conspiracy of ignorance. Such a conspiracy obviously is a defensive measure against the pyramidally organized responsibility system, whose essence is that higher ups can be held responsible for certain behaviors of other members of the organization as well as for their consequences.

The upshot of the whole system is that (I) slight misdemeanors, for which responsibility is not transferred to others or is transferred only to a small degree, are more likely to be revealed than are infractions for which the responsibility falls on people who are not their direct perpetrators, and (2) the less the probability of disclosure of the misdemeanor, the greater the number of persons who could be held responsible and the higher their place in the hierarchy.

The Statistical Dangers

If the staff of a prison are able to meet the expectations of superiors at a level higher than their own institution, the evaluation of the work of the penitentiary units and their wardens will be heightened. This evaluation is made on the basis of information supplied by the warden to the central institution. In other words, the warden is judged by his superiors on the basis of his own information about the implementation of orders and not on the basis of their actual realization. That means the warden can conduct his own private penitentiary policy.

The nature and number of misdemeanors committed by functionaries is one of the most important bases for the authorities of a penal institution and, above all, the regional and central authorities to estimate the discipline of the prison staff. This estimation is made by comparing data from other institutions. A hierarchical list of penal institutions in particular regions according to the number of their misdeeds is then composed. The listing is important for the division of rewards and bonuses among the regions and institutions. It is also relevant in shaping a personnel policy.

Under these circumstances, it is easy to see why prison staffs are interested in keeping the number of misdemeanors low. Staffs are most concerned with creating the best possible picture of the personnel, their morale, their qualifications, and so on. Consequently, the prison report introduces distinguished staff members and those of merit, displays an institution’s achievements and photographs of the best employees, and in general describes the institution in the best possible terms.

The warden does not like it when he receives a formal notification about misconduct committed by a staff member, for such a report leaves a trace in the documents, while he himself is obliged to take a stand in the case. Notification is also disliked by department heads, counselors, and wardens, since a serious misdeed committed by an inmate throws a shadow on their work.

Comparison with other penitentiary units means that statistics can become dangerous. The same peril exists when comparisons are made on the basis of data from the same institution but for different years. This danger is mitigated with the aid of secret projects to limit the number of reported misdemeanors. Such projects assume that the institution will remain as close as possible to the predicted median for all institutions and that the misdemeanor index for an institution will not deteriorate. All events that might eventually affect the index negatively will be suitably sanitized in accordance with the rule of avoiding negative knowledge.

The power to disclose or hide negative events within the framework of the plan is a dangerous tool in the hands of the heads of penal institutions. The absence of clear-cut criteria for reporting or hiding misconduct intensifies the feeling of uncertainty and menace generated by the existence of informal channels of information.

Mutual Capture

Because no staff member is interested in giving formal notification to the warden of misdemeanors committed by employees, such notifications are made only when the misdemeanors cannot be ignored. Usually they are made by staff members of one department about those in another, frequently as the result of conflicts between departments. Most often the conflicts involve members of the security department.

The tendency to conceal misdeeds of staff members raises the possibility that management might lose control of the situation in a prison. To avoid that, informal channels of information are developed. What officially is not seen nor heard becomes unofficially the object of intense efforts to know about everything happening in an institution. The administration organizes for itself an inflow of information from trusties in menial positions and from prisoners about both the work of the staff and the behavior of other inmates. The administration tries to give the impression that it knows everything. When it unofficially informs workers about their misdeeds (which they believed had not come to light), it heightens the impression that it knows everything and hears everything. The employees may become convinced that the walls have ears.

An informer’s job offered by the warden or some other higher up to an employee can be a form of distinction. A refusal to act as an informer is not well received and places the person who refuses outside the group of trusties, lowering his chances for promotion. A worker or inmate may become a voluntary “squealer” if he is “spotted” for drunkenness, theft, unexcused absence, or some neglect of duties. Informing in such situations is seen by the superior as a form of rehabilitation. When unofficially informed about a functionary’s infringement, the superior may, depending on needs, turn it into an official case. If the incident testifies negatively about the work of a superior, he will probably pass over it in silence. That is not to say he will forget about it.

The informal information system implies in turn an informal system of punishments and rewards. A known but undisclosed violation may become the cause for informal punishment of the perpetrator: additional work hours, voluntary (unpaid) work, no advancement in pay, lack of promotion, a dressing down in private, assignment to unattractive tasks, or a change of posts.

These informal systems of information gathering and of penalties and rewards make for mutual relations among employees that are dominated by uncertainty and distrust.²⁶ The functionaries seek to eliminate the consequent feelings of threat and insecurity in three main ways.

Some functionaries assume the pose of eager workers when they are around those whom they distrust, including fellow workers and strangers. The rule is that one should never behave in such a way as to enable someone else to “have something” on one; that would be like handing weapons to the enemy. The situation in which one “has nothing” on another person, even if mutual, offers no feeling of security in the presence of the other. The considerable risk of behaving in a way contrary to regulations makes the other person a potential inconvenient witness. Everyone seeks information harmful to other persons, something that can be passed on to superiors to hurt others’ reputations. The chief aim is not necessarily to harm another but to have something on him, a good weapon which at the same time convinces one that the other person is no better than oneself. But this weapon is not used needlessly. If it were, one might deprive oneself of something that protects. Moreover, informing might encourage others to view one as a squealer. This weapon is usually simply held rather than employed; its function consists mainly in making the interested parties realize that one possesses it.

A second way of eliminating feelings of insecurity is to try not to cross the path of a person who has something on one. One may be ill treated, ignored, or spoken badly about and not react directly, since one can be harmed. That is why information about those who can harm one is specially sought after. If this task proves impossible, it becomes necessary to spread information that could harm the other.

The third way arises when two persons have something on each other. On this basis they can build mutual trust, become friends, and feel free in each other’s company. An acquaintanceship that does not include such a mutual acknowledgment of “sins” is worth little. This equilibrium eliminates uncertainty in relations with others and is in fact a model for which the whole inmate community strives to follow. The two “partners” arrange their relations with others so as not to endanger the mutual trust.

Even prison interactions based on such trust differ, however, from relations shared by “free” people. If non-inmates maintain contacts with a person it is usually because they like him and have a high regard for his conduct. They try to act so as not to offend the other person. This interaction seems to be based on an element of control—the effort to act in accordance with certain values. That element is absent from the prison model of interaction, and the mutual “I have something on someone” opens possibilities of acting without being hampered by the other person, contrary to those highly regarded values. A member of the prison community concentrates on detecting something bad in another person. He does not like someone who has a clean slate, and it is particularly bad if such a person has something on somebody else. He must then hunt for some misfortune of the other and incessantly try to prove that he is no better than anyone else. The successive consequences of such a downward trend are that one believes more in damaging than in positive information.

To become informed one must not only organize an inflow of information; one has to provide information, too. In this way, networks for gaining and transmitting deprecatory information appear. If one wishes to harm others, one can send via these networks false information which, despite lack of proof, is easily believed. It is said that “every piece of gossip contains some truth.” The networks thereby produce a “black” picture of a functionary as a drunkard, a thief, an informer. Any coarse behavior or infringement of regulations by the staff member is widely talked about. As a result, other staff become convinced of the worst behavior of their colleagues and in the process enjoy a certain feeling of being better than the other. The vicious circle closes. By only striving not to be worse than others, one lowers one’s own moral standards, permitting oneself to indulge in unsuitable behavior. The picture of the “generalized other” produced by the community of functionaries is sufficiently negative that everyone sees themselves in a more favorable light.²⁷

In this manner the configuration of relations stabilizes if one has something on everyone else, while one’s vision of the other is lowered to such a level of “worseness” that eventually what the other has on oneself ceases to be dangerous. The term mutual capture probably expresses most aptly such relations within the prison community.

A World of Secrets

Let us imagine that someone steals a large sum of money. Happy that his undertaking was successful, he boasts about his venture to his friends. His joy, however, proves short-lived—the “friends” steal his money and our thief finds himself in a strange situation. Although he knows who took the money, he cannot seek legal assistance—the money, after all, was gained by means of a crime. He also cannot rely on a voluntary return of the sum—his demands would simply be ignored. The “friends” assume correctly that he will not be a fool and notify the police; if he did, he could be charged himself. Our thief knows that he cannot harm his “friends” without bringing trouble upon himself, and he is aware that they too know this. To act sensibly he must keep the whole matter secret, and in this respect he can certainly depend on reciprocity. With this assurance, he can try to regain the money by, for example, organizing a group of persons who will force the new owners to return it, or who will at least punish them severely.

There are of course many ways of behaving in such a situation. I wish to emphasize at this stage that what occurred between the thief and his pals will remain secret, presuming they all act wisely.²⁸ The whole event could set into motion a further course of interactions which also remain secret. None of the parties involved will seek legal methods to end the conflict but, wishing to resolve it, will open ways for a multiplication of concealed facts. This type of event produces a new social reality in which the interested parties will not strive to regulate it by means of legal rules. They will enact certain codes of behavior in various types of secret interactions.

The person who initiates secret interactions must have a guarantee or be assured that the partner will keep secret the information or behavior which he witnessed. Disclosure could bring upon the perpetrator suitable punishment administered by persons or institutions motivated or obligated to do so. The sanctions result in loss of that with which the perpetrator was most concerned. They may take the form of emotional, moral, legal, economic, physical, or other penalties. It is precisely the threat of punishment that makes the partners’ silence so necessary. Trust in the tacit interaction has its source in the sanction which the participants can apply against each other for violating the secret.

In such secret interactions the partners retain an awareness that their contents cannot be disclosed; others cannot learn anything about them. It is only because there exists a world of people who should not know that it becomes necessary to differentiate events into those which can be disclosed and those to be kept secret—negative knowledge. This is feasible because of familiarity with society and the rules obligatory within it; this type of knowledge is also necessary to make one’s behavior correspond to eventual consequences. The initiation of secret interactions also imposes a knowledge about the types of bonds linking one with one’s partners and the sorts of interactions one can employ in relation to them. All this endows the secret interaction with the appearance of a conscious experience. Secret interactions do not have to take place as a result of the good will of their participants if they are based on the mutual possession of negative knowledge about each other. They also eliminate the element of social control typical in other interactions. In this particular interaction one does not have to be as constrained with one’s partner as in other interactions; the partner is not dangerous, and one does not need to feel ashamed in front of him as one does in the presence of others. But the elimination of social control from the secret interaction is conducive to the production of negative events that may disrupt the legal order.

It is precisely toward this type of interaction, involving the greatest possible number of persons so as to reduce the feeling of threat, that members of the prison community strive. Such secret interactions in the institution eliminate other relations, planned and expressed in formal regulations, into which members of the institution should enter. Actually, legal regulations play a limited role in steering the life of these institutions. Secret interactions appear among both the superiors and the subordinates. The universal nature of these secret interactions may for all practical purposes actually abolish the official hierarchy, leading to the deterioration of formal authority.

The abrogated regulations and formal hierarchy are replaced by a new social structure, produced within secret interactions. Because these interactions are secret, this new structure, in contrast to the formal one, is not wholly known to members of the institution. But it features new social events with specific, normative codes that do not refer to the official ones. That is how secret interactions create a field for new social facts and a new normative order that regulates the new social events.

I call this new order the secret life of a prison. Its essential feature for the investigator is social solidarity. Because no one exists or has a chance to live without his faults being known to others, no one is able to talk about his own misconduct. Disclosure of even a small fragment could end with disclosure of the whole, which would be greatly unprofitable for everyone concerned. And so the appearance of someone new, including an academic investigator, means that the community must know what role to play in front of this new person.

The Facade of Formal Organization

Examination of a penitentiary requires an awareness of the dangers that could disturb or interrupt the process of becoming acquainted with this reality. Individuals who create a certain community are more or less conscious that they could be examined. The investigator also cannot remain indifferent to the attitude toward being examined which is taken by members of the community. It has been argued that the investigated reality can be so transformed by the research process that it becomes impossible to achieve reliable results. That often does occur because of the subjects’ awareness of being examined and their accompanying attitudes. In the social sciences the causal chain simply does not exist in the social sphere without consciousness.²⁹ The human subject can, after all, consciously decipher from the investigator the truth about himself or lie to make the investigator err. No research object except a person can in such an independent way explain or conceal itself from an investigator, since no other object modifies its behavior once it becomes known.³⁰ Thus the investigator should remain aware of the fact that the discernible presence of a stranger in a community can alter it. He or she also should keep in mind that even though the community becomes accustomed to his or her presence, it can change again when another stranger appears.

Experience teaches us that when we arrive for the first time at the home of new acquaintances, the meeting is rather ceremonious. We know very well that the everyday life of that household is quite different. We assume that a new social reality presents itself as different than it actually is. In addition, the person making our acquaintance, as a rule, wants us to believe that he possesses all the traits which he wishes to possess, that what he does will produce effects in accordance with his earlier declared intention, and that generally things are as he presents them. People create facades that define a situation while often concealing the gap between the illusions upheld and reality.³¹

The illusions which reflect official values are attempts at playing such idealized roles. The pictures of the ideal roles of members of the institution are in fact components of its formal organization, a scheme of behavior and relations that is intentionally planned for its members within the framework of appropriate privileges.³² To see this we do not have to carry out any research. The formal organization is after all composed of an official hierarchy defined on paper as an organizational scheme with in structions on how to act.³³ Instead of visiting the prison it would be enough to purchase several legal books to find out what official life in prison is like.

In a penitentiary, the behavior of the investigator is judged more or less consciously from the point of view of whether it serves the observer’s purposes. There exists the incessant wish to penetrate the investigator’s mind to discover what he or she knows and plans to do. The inmates and particularly the staff members want to control the state of the investigator’s knowledge and attitudes toward the reality found in prison. The direct disclosure by the investigator of his intentions can set into motion acts on the part of the community that will block the realization of his plans, or the community may present itself in such a form that the investigator has to question the adequacy of information collected on such a basis.

That is often the case with brief visits by people from the outside. In one penal institution for mentally defective women and prisoners with personality problems, visiting foreigners were shown three cells to acquaint them with living conditions.³⁴ In the first cell all the inmates were smoking cigarettes (which is strictly forbidden) and sat in various places, including on the bed (which is also not allowed). The overall impression was that the inmates enjoyed considerable freedom. In the second cell the inmates sat at a table looking at a cake; this was supposed to suggest a homelike atmosphere. In the third cell two of the inmates were sitting at a table with a chessboard. For anyone even slightly familiar with the reality of prison life, these scenes seemed artificial and stage managed. The inmates were visibly nervous and seemed concerned about how well they were playing their assigned roles. But the whole incident was not untypical of the way prisons seek to present themselves to outsiders.