Clashes in Confinement: Men's Gendered Experiences With
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CLASHES IN CONFINEMENT: MEN’S GENDERED EXPERIENCES WITH CONFLICT IN CANADIAN PRISONS By Alicia D. Horton A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY IN CONFORMITY WITH THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY KINGSTON, ONTARIO, CANADA DECEMBER 2016 Copyright Alicia D. Horton 2016 ABSTRACT This dissertation presents the results of in-depth qualitative interviews with twenty-three formerly imprisoned men regarding their lived experience with prison conflict and the pain of incarceration. The results suggest that prison is a gendered ‘total institution’ (Goffman 1961). The pains that men experience in prison are uniquely gendered in that the deprivations imposed by incarceration– deprivation of autonomy, liberty, goods and services, heterosexual sex, and security (Sykes 1958) – in the reverse, define idealized masculinity as it is currently socially constructed: self-reliance, independence, toughness or invulnerability, material and economic success, and heterosexual prowess. From these shared deprivations emerges a gendered code of conduct that perpetuates a hierarchy among incarcerated men by constructing violent masculinity as a subcultural norm. The results suggest that the gender code in prison represents a set of rules that create opportunities for men to police each other’s gender performance and make claims to masculine statuses. Because status is inextricably tied to survival in this context, many men feel pressured to perform violent masculinities in prison despite privately subscribing to a non-violent sense of self-concept. The results suggest that violence is an expressive and instrumental resource for men in prison. A gender theory of prison violence, methodological findings, theoretical implications, ethical considerations and the short and long term aftermath of violent prison conflict are discussed. i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have so many people I would like to thank. Thank you to my graduate supervisor, mentor and friend, Dr. Vincent Sacco. You have offered unfaltering support, advice and guidance throughout the eight years that I have been a graduate student at Queen’s University. It is tremendously difficult to express the extent to which I am grateful and honoured to have had the opportunity to know you and to call myself your student. You are truly irreplaceable and loved by so many students, faculty and staff at Queen’s. I am forever indebted to you for your kindness, compassion and humour and I will take forward the many lessons that you’ve imparted as I continue in my academic career. Once again I find myself struggling to adequately convey in words the depths of my sincere admiration for you as a scholar, mentor and person – and once again, words are insufficient. Thank you so much for everything you have done for me and for being the most superb mentor and just simply the best person ever. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the men who participated in this research study. I am so thankful for your openness and authenticity in sharing your lived experience with me. I know that for some of you it wasn’t easy to discuss the sensitive and painful details of your prison experience and the difficulties you’ve had post-incarceration. Please continue to share your experiences with others. I learned so much from you and I hope that you gained something positive from your participation in this project. Your contributions to the research are invaluable and I hope that this dissertation has in at least some small way done justice to your stories. Thank you Dr. Fiona Kay for your support and advice over the years. Thank you Dr. Murakami Wood for your enthusiasm for my research projects. Thank you to the members of my examining committee: Dr. Vincent Sacco, Dr. Fiona Kay, Dr. David Murakami Wood, Dr. Holly Johnson, Dr. Victoria Sytsma, Dr. Marie Louise Adams, Dr. E.D. Nelson and Dr. Margaret ii Pappano. A special thanks to Dr. Holly Johnson for her comments on my work and for travelling from out of town to be present at my PhD defence. Thank you to current and former Queen’s faculty and staff: Dr. Carl Keene, Dr. Rob Beamish, Wendy Schuler, Michelle Ellis, Anne Henderson and Celina Caswell. Thank you to Queen’s University for graduate student funding. A sincere thank you to anyone who reads this dissertation. Thank you to all of the scholars who produced the valuable research that I’ve cited in this dissertation. Thank you to all of my students. Thank you caffeine and google scholar. Thank you to the many people who have been involved in some way in helping me with this project and/or in particular those who have listened to my rants; these people include: strangers, my students, Judy Peterson, Susan Sellick, Charline Johnsen and my colleagues at UFV, Shanlea Gordon, Greg Simmons, George P., Julie Gregory, Cody Bosel, Mel Scott, Anna S., Rick S., and Mike G. Thank you to my mom, Pat Horton, for always supporting me and listening (or at least pretending to listen) to countless rants about prison and the PhD process. You are the best mother in the world and I am so lucky to have you in my life. Finally, I would like to recognize my cousin Justin Horton and dedicate this dissertation to him. Justin’s life was cut short in January 2015 and I wish we could have had more time together. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT i ACKNOWLDEGMENTS ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1 Men in Prison 1 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 7 Men under Attack 7 The Prison Setting 7 Physical Attacks 12 Sexual Attacks 15 Psychological & Emotional Attacks 18 Characteristics of Vulnerable Men in Prison 19 CHAPTER THREE: THEORY 27 Men in Conflict 27 Theories of Masculinity 27 Theories of Prison Culture 32 The Concept of Conflict 37 Prison Conflict & Violent Masculinities 40 Staying Safe(r) in Prison 45 Safe Space & Saving Face 48 CHAPTER FOUR: METHODOLOGY 56 Prison Research 56 The Research Process 57 Sampling 58 Interview Location 65 Qualitative Interviewing & Gender 67 Coding & Analysis 75 Research Ethics 77 Reciprocity & Participant Motivation 77 Confidentiality & Informed Consent 82 CHAPTER FIVE: RESULTS PART ONE 84 Men in Pain 84 Gendered Pains of Imprisonment 85 Freedom of Autonomy & Self-Determination 85 Loss of Goods & Services 89 Heterosexuality, Relationships & Family 91 Privacy & Vulnerability 98 Liberty & Forced Intimacy 99 iv Isolation & Segregation 101 Pain of Gender Hypervigilance 104 Captives & Captors 109 Emasculation, Pain & Violent Conflict 115 CHAPTER SIX: RESULTS PART TWO 125 Men in Trouble 125 Routine Violence 125 Codes of Prison Masculinity 127 Learning the Code 133 Staying Safe(r): General Strategies 135 Code Violations: Masculinity, Social Control & Conflict 139 Being Tested 140 Rumors & Dangerous Labels 142 Fighting Words 145 Violence as an Instrumental & Expressive Resource 146 Non-violent Conflict Options & Costs 155 CHAPTER SEVEN: RESULTS PART THREE 164 Men in the Aftermath 164 Old Violence & New Problems 165 The Pain of Violence 168 Problems & Pains Post-Incarceration 170 Resilience & Resistance in Post-Prison Masculinities 173 CHAPTER EIGHT: CONCLUSION 179 A Masculinities Theory of Prison Conflict 179 Socio-Political Climate & Conditions of Confinement 183 Future Research 185 Theoretical Implications 185 Methodological Implications 189 Social Implications 191 Concluding Remarks 192 REFERENCES 194 APPENDIX A: The Future of Research Ethics: A Warning 215 APPENDIX B: Biographical Description of Participants 230 APPENDIX C: Letters of Information & Consent Document 234 APPENDIX D: Research Ethics Approval Letter 237 v CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION MEN IN PRISON Men are responsible for the vast majority of violence in Canada and most often their victims are other men (Sacco and Kennedy 2012). For some men, the use or threat of violence may be crucial to daily survival in male-dominated subcultures defined by structural disadvantage, victimization risk or lack of access to the protection of law (Anderson 2000; Carr et al. 2007; Majors and Billson 1993; Jacobs and Wright 2006; Kennedy and Baron 1993). Canadian prisons are particularly threatening and dangerous places for incarcerated men (Cooley 1992; Garrison 2014; Ricciardelli 2014). Masculinity is besieged from all sides in a prison setting; prisoners are subject to enforced compliance to authority, decreased opportunities for autonomy, independence and heterosexual pursuit; separation from families and children and generally little access to political and economic power (see Sykes 1958; Ugelvik 2014; Ricciardelli 2014; Michalski 2015). With few other resources for self-protection, violence and the body become important instrumental and expressive resources in the struggle to claim masculine dominance, gain upward mobility in the prison social hierarchy and survive incarceration. This research attempts to illustrate the ways in which prison conflict – particularly violent conflict – is part of a process of masculinities construction in a setting threatening to masculinity. A key claim advanced is that the violence that incarcerated men experience is rooted in and a reflection of the taken for granted character of violent masculinity that is normalized in mainstream culture (Katz 2003, 2013 Dagirmanjian et al. 2016). That men in prison experience violence to a significantly greater degree than men in the free community is not necessarily an indication that imprisoned men have acquired a distinct set of values or beliefs supportive of violence – but rather, that many incarcerated men experience a lack of access to resources to protect themselves and 1 accomplish masculinity in non-physical ways. I attempt to detail the ways in which men’s pains of imprisonment are uniquely gendered in that the shared deprivations that prisoners experience as originally defined by Gresham Sykes (1958) – deprivation of autonomy, heterosexual relations, goods and services, and security – in their reverse, describe the characteristics of ideal masculinity as it is currently socially defined: self-reliance, independence, heterosexuality, economic and material success and toughness or invulnerability. Men and masculinities are symbolically – and quite literally - under attack in prison.