Crime, Shame, and Reintegration
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C-Bosworth.qxd 11/16/2004 4:43 PM Page 200 200———Crime, Shame, and Reintegration people whose lives are often hopeless, and it gives American prisoners are being published. These texts them an avenue for personal change,” said Jim include Disguised as a Poem: My Years Teaching Carlson, a former manager of the program. “It must Poetry at San Quentin by Judith Tannenbaum, be retained.” Doing Time: 25 Years of Prison Writing edited by Bell Gale Chevigny, Prison Writing in 20th Century America edited by H. Bruce Franklin, and Couldn’t THE DECLINE OF CREATIVE Keep It to Myself: Testimonies From Our Imprisoned WRITING PROGRAMS AND Sisters edited by Wally Lamb. Books such as these HOW UNIVERSITIES INTERVENED make accessible the wealth of artistic production Since the 1980s, growing conservatism across the from U.S. prisoners and point to the ongoing impor- United States has precipitated cuts in funding to a tance of creative writing programs in prisons. They number of creative writing programs. For example, also offer testimony to the efforts of writers and the National Endowment for the Arts dramatically activists from the past three decades whose belief in cut funds to prison journals in 1982, and by 1984 the power of writing helped influence the lives of every significant prison writing journal temporarily inmates. dissolved. In response, writers who believed in the —Vince Samarco value of teaching creative writing in prisons were forced to return to volunteering their services or See also Adult Basic Education; Art Programs; Drama to turn to academic institutions for support. Two Programs; Education; General Educational Develop- groups that have effectively harnessed the financial ment (GED) Exam and General Equivalency Diploma; Literacy; Prison Pell Grants Literature support of universities are the Prison Creative Arts Project and SPACE. Further Reading The Prison Creative Arts Project, founded by Buzz Alexander at the University of Michigan in Chevigny, B. G. (Ed.). (2002). Doing time: 25 years of prison writing—A PEN American Center Prize anthology. 1990, offers theater, writing, and visual art work- New York: Arcade. shops in prisons and juvenile detention centers Cleveland, W. (2000). Art in other places. Westport, CT: Praeger. throughout Michigan. The project offers University Franklin, H. B. (Ed.). (1998). Prison writing in 20th century of Michigan students the opportunity to teach in America. New York: Penguin. state prisons as part of a class. The group offers Lamb, W. (Ed.). (2003). Couldn’t keep it to myself: instruction, exhibitions, and advocacy. Testimonies from our imprisoned sisters. New York: Regan. Space in Prison for the Arts and Creative Expres- PEN American Center Archives, Princeton University. (2004). sion (SPACE) was founded in 1992 by a group of Retrieved from http://libweb.princeton.edu/libraries/ women from Brown University interested in working firestone/rbsc/aids/pen.html in the Women’s Division of the Rhode Island Adult Tannenbaum, J. (2000). Disguised as a poem: My years teach- Correctional Institution. The program offers theater, ing poetry at San Quentin. Boston: Northeastern creative writing, and visual arts workshops to University Press. inmates. The group also produces a journal and trains others to respond to the issues of incarcerated women, particularly issues of disrupted families, histories of CRIME, SHAME, abuse, and challenges to feminine identities. AND REINTEGRATION In his book Crime, Shame and Reintegration, pub- CONCLUSION lished in 1989, Australian criminologist John There is a mixed future for prison creative writing Braithwaite puts forth a theoretical model for deal- programs. Funding is still scarce, yet increasing ing with crime at the individual and community numbers of anthologies by and about the lives of levels. Braithwaite integrates many traditional C-Bosworth.qxd 11/16/2004 4:43 PM Page 201 Crime, Shame, and Reintegration———201 sociological theories of crime into a single view to commit criminal acts for personal gain and explaining why some societies have higher crime hedonistic pleasure. Proponents of control theory rates, why certain people are more likely to commit assume that it is more important to look at why cer- crime, and how communities can deal effectively tain people do not commit crime, rather than why with crime for the purposes of prevention. some do. It is assumed that, without a particular set According to Braithwaite, high rates of predatory of restraints, the average person would commit crime in a society are indicative of the failure to criminal or immoral acts. shame those acts labeled as criminal. Braithwaite Criminological research has established that var- argues that the breakdown of community ties in ious personal and circumstantial characteristics are modern urban communities has meant that perpe- positively correlated to criminality. Being male, trators of crime are not made to feel ashamed of between the ages of 15 and 25 years, unmarried, their actions, and thus continue victimizing others unemployed or without steady employment, of without remorse. lower socioeconomic status, living in a city, and The concept of shame is the linchpin of this having low educational attainment are all indicative theory. Braithwaite suggests that if perpetrators of a statistically higher propensity for crime. The were made to feel guilty about their actions, they opposite is also true. Individuals who are female, would be deterred from committing further crime. younger than 15 or older than 25, married, of a He bases this assumption on the belief that those higher socioeconomic status, living in a rural area, who are closely tied to family and community and having greater than secondary school education anticipate a negative reaction to the violation of would be found to be at a significantly lower risk of community norms. Foreseeing the shame that they committing a criminal act. would feel, they are deterred from committing According to Braithwaite, the very characteris- crime. However, according to this theory, shaming tics that lead one person to have a higher propensity must be done in such a way as to be reintegrative, for criminality also lessen his or her relationship bringing the offender back into the community, with family and community and leave a person less rather than disintegrative, which would push the susceptible to the deterring power of shame. Those individual even farther out of the community. For characteristics associated with a lower risk of crim- Braithwaite, reintegrative shaming is the key to inality correlate to increased contact with family effective deterrence and crime prevention. and community, which in turn increases a person’s susceptibility to shame. For example, an individual who is married with children has responsibilities to BACKGROUND TO THE THEORY his or her family that may constrain him or her from Braithwaite integrates the major tenets of five dif- making risky or poor choices, whereas a single indi- ferent theoretical traditions in 20th-century crimi- vidual does not necessarily have such ties to family nology into his theory of reintegrative shaming. He and responsibilities. Those who are more integrated explains how labeling, subcultural, control, oppor- into the community and involved in relationships tunity, and learning theories fit into his work. with others are less likely to commit crime because Crime, shame, and reintegration is not then an they appreciate the shame and embarrassment that attempt to rewrite criminology, but to synthesize would result from violating community norms and several seemingly disparate theories into a singular values. Furthermore, those who are firmly inte- explanatory system. grated into a community feel personal responsibil- ity for the safety and well-being of those around them. In contrast, those who are not integrated into Crime a community or involved in meaningful relation- Braithwaite begins with the notion, taken from ships with others are more likely to commit crime control theory, that individuals are naturally drawn because they do not feel a sense of responsibility C-Bosworth.qxd 11/16/2004 4:43 PM Page 202 202———Crime, Shame, and Reintegration to those around them, and they are not constrained unworthy of the community. There are no efforts to by feelings of shame. reintegrate the offender, and he or she is rejected by Briathwaite uses these beliefs to argue that cohe- the community. Disintegrative shaming is exempli- sive, communitarian societies, such as Japan, which fied in the traditional criminal justice system by the are characterized by networks of interdependent court and sentencing process. Here, the offender is relationships, are likely to have lower rates of crime stigmatized by his or her conviction and literally, as than more individualistic, fragmented societies, well as symbolically, sent away from the commu- such as the United States. In Japan, he claims, nity to prison. honor and responsibility to family and community Shaming that is reintegrative is not “soft” or are emphasized. The Japanese place their commu- “easy” on the offender. Although it can be done in nity and family above themselves. In contrast, love and with caring, reintegrative shaming can also people in the United States and other Western be degrading, cruel, and punishing. The difference nations are socialized to value individuality and between reintegrative and disintegrative shaming is personal accomplishment and fulfillment over the not in the quality of the shaming, but in its aim and needs of family and community. According to in the processes that follow. Disintegrative shaming Braithwaite, it is this distinction of values that emphasizes the evil of the actor, while reintegrative accounts for Japan’s much lower rates of violent shaming acknowledges the act as an evil thing, and predatory crime. done by a person who is not inherently evil. Reinte- grative shaming is followed immediately by ges- Shame tures of reconciliation and inclusion, before the deviant identity is established as a master status. For Braithwaite, shame is the ultimate deterrent against the violation of societal norms, for those who have a stake in a particular community.