User:Lysander/Dehumanizing aspects of prison

People talk about prison being a dehumanizing experience, or say that in prison, you become a number. I think what that means is that all the things that set you apart from other people in the outside world become irrelevant when you get locked up. You now have pretty much the exact same role, value, rights, and associates as any other prisoner. You no longer fill the same niche you once did in society's highly complex division of labor; you're now just another ward of the state.

Outside of prison, you may have been an software engineer who made $50,000 a year and had a car, a house, and a girlfriend. In prison, you sweep floors for $5 a month and live in a prison cell just like the guy who has spent his whole life dealing drugs. Maybe you used to spend your time having intellectual discussions on the Internet. Now you sit in a cell with people who make fart jokes all day. It's easy for a prisoner, cut off from his comrades on the outside, to think "What have I come to?" This is especially true if the few people from the outside who talk to the prisoner, such as family, defense attorneys, etc., have a negative view of the actions that led to his incarceration. To counterbalance all this social disapproval, and all the comforts and opportunities to contribute to society that have been lost, requires a strong compensation.

No matter how noble your cause, you're considered by other prisoners, and by the guards, to have "messed up" by going to prison. That's the one unifying factor that all prisoners share: that they're considered to have committed a crime, and to therefore be deserving of the same fate. Each prisoner gets allotted an identical bed, an identical locker, and an identical portion of food. All the same rules apply to each prisoner; no one has special privileges, except to the extent there is some sort of hierarchy of prison gang members, or members of various races; or some sort of pecking order based on respect for strength, street smarts, offense of conviction, etc. Political prisoners tend to be outsiders to all this, but it's generally not considered very impressive to have gotten in trouble on purpose, or at any rate to have not committed crimes for goals other than personal gain.

The only thing that sets a political prisoner apart is his belief, if he has that belief, that he made a difference in the world that was worth his sacrifice. The most obvious sign of that is letters or publicity letting him know that he's inspired others. Without that, he can look around and easily feel that he is now on the same level as the guy who never had a political thought, but selfishly committed aggression against others. Or at any rate, he may think on what he was accomplishing outside of prison and wonder what was the point of giving it all up.

The hostility and mistreatment that people endure at the hands of fellow prisoners, or of guards, they have reason to expect, since it comes from people who are ignorant or have opposing ideologies, or who are hired to execute the judgment of the state. It is much more demoralizing when one's political comrades abandon one. When those comrades have said that they support civil disobedience, but then decline to help the activist make the most of his sacrifice, and cause the greatest positive impact in the world that he can in exchange for the years of his life that he is giving up, they are proving themselves to be hypocrites. This breaks down the bond between fellow activists, and tends to make veterans of civil disobedience less enthusiastic about encouraging others to follow their example. Why bother, if it won't make much difference?

Sometimes we see activists start out defiant and then lose heart halfway through their court proceedings and succumb to the pressure to plead guilty when they'd initially planned on going to trial. They may opt to remain silent when given an opportunity to speak prior to sentencing, or even apologize to the court for their “crimes,” rather than giving the principled allocution statement they had planned. This is usually a sign that a prisoner has changed his cost-benefit analysis, typically in response to an attorney's advice and a lack of support from activists on the outside.

Often, these statements of contrition are reported in the press or cited in appellate court documents. It creates a permanent record of a humiliating moment of weakness that the activist may regret the rest of his days. These statements are an embarrassment to our movement too, because they give the impression we don't have our act together with regard to prisoner solidarity, since we obviously were not able to successfully bolster our activist's courage and keep his morale up.

It's crucial, if people want to encourage civil disobedience, to fight against the dehumanizing effects of prison by supporting their incarcerated comrades in achieving their goals. This should include blogging extensively about their actions, and helping them continue to get their thoughts out to the public while they're behind bars. This can give them a feeling of remaining relevant, and inspire others.