Experiences
Prison policy has two main and contradicting aims. One is to punish and inflict pain by depriving people of the freedom to move around and take part in society. The other is to rehabilitate prisoners by providing resources like work, education, programs, and others.
Prison policy states values of humane treatment and the principle of normalization. Even so, prisoner’s experiences of being locked up, monitored by cameras or officers, stripped and watched while urinating, and of isolation, are all beyond any experience of usual, social life. So, prison policy aims and practice are complex and contradictory.
Themes in the interviews with prisoners resemble those in usual conversations. But they have a twist, an imprint of the surroundings of control and security, and of cramped spaces that prisoners share with others for weeks and months. These others are persons they did not choose and cannot leave.
Some prisoners keep together in small groups for training and meals; others isolate in the cell.
Time
In prison, time and daily routines are standardized. Prisoners are woken up at the same time, and all activities of the day take place at the same time, for everyone: meals, work and school, outdoor time, sleep. There are few and limited opportunities for choice.
Being in society, we often take time for granted and experience it as a resource. In prison, time becomes a problem. There is too much of it.
“It can be a lot of dead time here.”
“The daily life here is boring.”
“Most of the time, in the evening, I just sit here. I have headphones on, I listen to music most of the time. Try to read some books, write some letters.”
Learning and unlearning
Prisoners may learn in workshops and when taking part in education and courses run by teachers. Some prisoners value this. These opportunities may work for some, for others they do not.
Then there are experiences and learning beyond official plans and programs, which take place within the prison structure, among prisoners and among prisoners and staff.
There are prisoners who withdraw and isolate themselves from other prisoners and from friends and family outside.
“And they have good school programs, you know. You can take any kind of degrees here. So the big things are in order.”
“In the free-time, now there are cutbacks there as well. That’s a pity. To sit down is not good, at least for some people. …
But – you are in a prison, you just have to follow what’s decided. That’s how it is. It’s a reason why we are here.”
“I was [young] the first time I was in prison. It was strange going from having … I was a lot in opposition against the system.
So it took me many years before I kind of realized that it’s just like it doesn’t matter what I do, the system always wins, so … but now I don’t care anymore.”
“In [avdeling] I have no problem with anyone, everybody is minding his own business.”
– "You are interested to keep it calm?"
“Yes, everybody just minding their own business.”
“Well, sometimes you tell them if it’s too much, you
tell them: ‘Hey, turn down the TV,’ or:
‘Do this,’ you know.
But – you get used to it.”
“Once in [Prison], we were three persons who stopped one prisoner until the guards came … Sometimes this may happen.
But there are people who should not be in prison.
This is about my security also.
It has happened that a prisoner has been attacked by another, just because he was mad. You see, these people, most of them are in Ila [prison], but you see some unstable persons also here.”
“I don’t have so much experience with prison,
this is my first time.
But when I’m here, I think this is the optimal way to serve a sentence, because I got everything, I got everything what I need. I got a big living room, I got a big TV, nice kitchen, I got a nice room to sleep in, I got my own bathroom, I got my own TV, my own digital box, my own DVD player, I got my library and shop. ...
“To me, I have been so long in prison,
I have become institutionalized,
… so I like my cell ...”
Moments of freedom
Some prisoners spoke of moments of freedom, exceptions that confirm the fundamental experience of being locked up.
“Before I could go out when I wanted [when cell doors were open].
I could go outside the house and [sometimes] on the [large] site. It gave a feeling of freedom going out. …
When you may go out when you want [when cell doors were unlocked], you get rid of a burden on your shoulders, you don’t need to wait for that … just go outside.
That gave a feeling of freedom.
Now the situation is new.”
“The only time it is noisy, that if it is a football game or something, then you can hear it at night-time, after we are closed in at night,
and if it is going a football game, you can hear it from the other block and all the way over, and it goes from top to bottom.
You hear people good. Yeah ...
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