Hard Time: A Fresh Look at Understanding and Reforming the Prison

Featuring numerous updates reflecting the latest research, the new 4th Edition of Hard Time: A Fresh Look at Understanding and Reforming the Prison offers compelling insights into the origins, evolution, and future promise of America s penal system. Along with extensive revisions to all chapters, changes for this new edition include greatly expanded coverage of the types of hardships experienced in prison, completely rewritten chapters on prisoner violence and suggested reforms, and a new chapter on supermax prison facilities with an assessment of the efficacy of single–cell confinement.

The text retains the popular previous edition s  vivid and often poignant ethnographic accounts drawn from male and female inmates along with prison staff, giving voice to the complexities of contemporary prison life and greatly enhances our understanding of the prison experience and urgent need for reform. More timely and important than ever, Hard Time: A Fresh Look at Understanding and Reforming the Prison, 4th Edition, offers illuminating insights into life behind and beyond the prison bars in America a nation whose criminal justice system incarcerates more of its citizens than anywhere else in the world.

Robert Johnson is a Professor of Justice, Law and Criminology at American University, Washington, D.C., and Editor and Publisher of BleakHouse Publishing. His publications include Death Work: A Study of the Modern Execution Process, which won the Outstanding Book Award of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences.

Ann Marie Rocheleau is Assistant Professor at Stonehill College, Easton, Massachusetts. She collaborated on research studies on juvenile corrections, community policing, and drug purchase for the National Institute of Justice and the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Alison Brooks is a Research Associate at the National Institute of Justice. She is the co–author of Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship the World Over and Gay and Lesbian Communities the World Over.

Dedication 4

Foreword 5

Chapter 1 Crime, Prison, and the Case for Corrections 10

A Predilection for Prisons 13

A Case for Decent Prisons 24

Chapter 2 Modern Prisons in Historical Context 34

American Prisons before the Penitentiary 34

Penitentiaries 36

Reformatories 42

The Big House 45

The Correctional Institution 51

Chapter 3 The Pains of Modern Imprisonment 63

Pain Amelioration in Prisons: Three Stages 64

Living with Deprivation 66

Pain and Harm 84

Chapter 4 Prisoner Deficits and Immature Coping 89

Immature Coping 89

Prisoner Types 97

Dysfunctional Adaptations to Imprisonment 104

Reconciling Public and Private Inmate Cultures 106

Chapter 5 The Public Culture of the Prison: Violence 110

The Nature of Violent Prisoners 111

The Nature of Violent Prisons 125

Situational Violence 130

A Note on Violence in Women s Prisons 133

Chapter 6 The Private Culture of the Prison: Living in Prison 136

Living in Prison 137

The Ecology of Prison Survival 142

Prison Life, Prison Niches 147

Coping Strategies for Living in Prison 162

More Than Survival 168

Chapter 7 Correctional Officers Public Custodial Agenda 171

Correctional Officer as Hack 171

Stress, Alienation, and Burnout 189

Chapter 8 Prison Officers Private Correctional Agenda 201

Providing Human Service 201

Human Service Activities 206

Rule Enforcement as Human Service Work: Developing Relationships and Legitimacy 212

Collaboration in Helping 215

Human Service in Perspective 220

Chapter 9 Supermax and the Overuse of Solitary Confinement 224

Living and Working in Supermax 225

Assessing the Efficacy of the Supermax Experiment 231

Some Failures of Supermax 235

Moving Forward: The Devil Is in the Details 249

Chapter 10 Reform 254

Smarter Punishment, Better Prisons 256

Getting Out and Staying Out 279

Afterword 287

References 290