Prison Abolition and Reform: A Sociological Perspective

This essay explores the concept of prison abolition and reform from a sociological perspective, discussing the need for alternative non-penal regulatory frameworks and the impact of incarceration on individuals and communities. It also examines the arguments for and against prison abolition and the potential for reformation.

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Introduction
Prison reform and prison abolition are changes in the system of incarceration of criminal
offenders. However it is not distinctive that a libertarian society would have prisons which are
much like the ones which exist in recent times. Although it is possible that an individual
blacklisted or banished from highly advantageous or wanted communities would end up with no
choice but to belong to less wanted community which would operate specifically as a prison.
According to McLeod, as with borders, the prison system is recognized as an element of state
structure which is considered to be beyond any query. Thus, several debates and disagreements
arises whether prison system is ‘soft’ or immensely ‘tough’, thus considering whether prisons
need reformation and the way it can be made to work in an improved manner. Nevertheless, the
idea of its abolition tends to remain unspeakable, appalling and indeed unimaginable. The thesis
statement of the essay is ‘Prison abolition looks for an end to the use of punitive policing and
imprisonment.’
Discussion
Criminal punishment arranged concerning incarceration in Western countries and
incarceration’s corollaries such as punitive policing, detention, probation, civil commitment as
well as parole. Drawing relevance to these factors, prison abolition is identified as a highly
compelling call in recent times. Richie has noted that concurrently, the use of imprisonment as
an approach of attaining mutual peace, integrity and security along with constructive retributive
justice, should to be called regarded a serious doubt. Comprehensive studies of Ryan, Mick and
Ward have noted that prison abolition primarily seeks to the end of the use of disciplinary
policing and imprisonment as the chief means of seeking problems at social, economic and

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political level. Abolition primarily aims at drastically reducing dependence on incarceration as
well as constructing social institutions along with proficient conceptual frameworks which would
render preventable imprisonment. Cunneen et al. have claimed that abolition is not specifically
regarded as a call for immediate prospect or getting rid of all prison walls. However, prison
abolition essentially tend to envelope alternative non-penal regulatory frameworks along with an
ethic which will distinguish acts of violence, dehumanization along with ethical misdeeds
embedded in any act of detention or in other sense confining and regulating offenders by penal
force constituting of human beings. These evidences tend to sustain true in the case of certain
individuals who tend to pose highly critical, illustrated danger to others who must be convicted
and further the severe amount of threat they constitute (Reiman and Paul Leighton).
Meanwhile, Saleh-Hanna has noted that as incarcerated populations have recently
increased, concept of solitary prison confinement has developed into a primary mechanism for
internal detention as well as prison discipline. Such confinement have developed in such a way
that the actual number of individuals have confined to a small cell for around twenty-three hours
per day which tends to remain unknown and are likely to exceed for 85,000. Reports of Etesam
Farnaz et al. have noted that some offenders are sentenced to ‘premium’ facilities which only
comprise of solitary cells whereas ordinary offenders belonging to economically
disadvantageous or racially marginalized sections are placed in solitary confinement as detention
for the crime of violating prison rules or violation of their own protection. Findings of authors
have revealed that stays in solitary confinement typically tend to sustain for extensive period,
even for considerably minor disciplinary rule defiance and may be indistinct. Davey, Day and
Balfour have cited an instance of one young prisoner who had been detained by legal
enforcements officers with seventeen packs of Newport cigarettes received sentence to over two

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weeks of solitary confinement for each pack of cigarettes that estimated over eight months of
solitary imprisonment. Ryan and Ward have noted that another prison in New Jersey had spent
eighteen years in solitary confinement. Even though the solitary confinement status has been
subjected to evaluation in every three months, the prisoner explained that he had stopped
participating in the evaluations with no concrete investigation.
Cunneen et al. have noted that solitary confinement has become extensively resistant and
identified as a regular part of the rhythm of prison life. However, such a basic structure of prison
discipline in Western nations involves substantial violence and acts of dehumanization which
further leads solitary confinement in generating severe impacts of physical torture. However, in
the view of Harkins and Meiners notwithstanding the acts of apparent horrors and apprehension,
solitary confinement is been regarded as an extension of the logic as well as fundamental
structure of prison supported punishment with highly disciplinary isolation as well as legal
surveillance to the disciplinary administration of the prison. Saleh-Hanna in their study have
mentioned that solitary confinement’s justification along with supposed efficiency flows from
the unspoken legitimacy of prison confinement. It is highly imperative to note that prison or jail
imprisonment tends to isolate the offender from the social world whereby he primarily inhabited
previously. Such severe isolation from imprisonment has the propensity to disunite individual
from his or her competence to move of his or her choice, to interact with others and further to
apply control over the details of individualistic life (Setchell, J., et al.). Furthermore, horrific
events of imprisonment are identified as outlier forms of acts of dehumanization and violence by
the fundamental approach of caging or detaining individuals tends to separate them from their
parenthood and humanity and further sets in motion dynamics of power, supremacy and
subordination. Additionally, studies conducted by Behan have mentioned that severe seclusion

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and segregation through justifiable concern of imprisonment, the amount of violent behaviour
and dehumanization of imprisonment not only tends to shape offenders who are detained but
tends to detain highly aggressive and disparaging outcomes for entire communities.
At this juncture, Cunneen et al. have noted that offenders leaving imprisonment are
typically marked by the experiences of imprisonment in certain ways through which the social
world outside the prison tends to exhibit high level of atrocities and insecurity. These factors of
growing insecurity has become highly challenging in order to seek employment and further
participate in mutual and collective social life due to increased stigma of criminal belief. The
impact of ‘stigma’ on offenders is typically been categorized in relation to modified labelling
theory which draws theoretical perspectives of social deviance. Additionally, authors have
developed three scales for use in particular to offenders. The personal stigma scale primarily
included factors whereby individuals demean because of being previously incarcerated.
Meanwhile, Ryan and Ward have noted that stigma linked to experiences of imprisonment tend
to show variances in certain ways by other stigmatized groups. Studies of Moore et al. have
revealed that amongst other offenders, higher level of penetration into the criminal justice system
tends to result in greater subjective status loss. At this juncture, authors have noted that offenders
of imprisonment experiences are typically been perceived as being positioned in the lower
hierarchy of the status within their communities in comparison to offenders who have been
detained but did not undergo any system of imprisonment or offenders who are caught to have
engaged in criminal activities but have not been arrested. Moreover, according to Etesam,
Farnaz, et al. system of incarceration is regarded as a facet of an individuals’ previous record
over which they have had an extent of power. Furthermore, in other words, stigma attached to
offenders is identified as ‘onset-controllable’. However, comparable to the onset-controllable

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notions of stigma attached to imprisonment, concepts of onset-controllable stigmas tend to
induce diminutive level of shame, greater level of apprehension and anger in addition to minimal
rates of aid and charity. Consequently, offenders especially other stigmatized groups should deal
with stigmatized identity (Reiman and Leighton). However on the contrary to other associations,
offenders must administer additional judgments related to the level of power and regulation
which have the tendency to supersede the previously imprisoned offenders resulting them to be
not only positioned in the lower level hierarchy of the society within the general population, but
also amongst stigmatized others.
Furthermore, it has been noted that offenders are no longer subjected to chain gangs or
engaged them into exhaustive physical labour for profit. According to Moore et al. , these
practices have been persisted in specific jurisdictions till the end of the twentieth century.
However, currently, another important form of imprisonment and punitive policing has
developed whereby an offender who tends to effectuate the crowd control and exerts high racial
discipline among the group results to the eradication of significant numbers of unfortunate and in
particular poor African American people from the sphere of civil society. Comprehensive
Cunneen et al. have noted that lawbreaking belief; unreasonably have been linked to certain
ethnic groups of African Americans, Latinos as well as indigent whites which have been
consequential to an undeviating loss of voting rights in majority of states, employment blocks
situated in several professions in addition to a lifetime prohibition on federal student aid along
with other critical consequences. These consequences in the view of Richie have further
worsened the physically isolated effects of confinement post-release, reducing opportunities for
important incorporation accessible to individuals as well as communities who have been severely

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impacted by confinement. These costs of belief comprise of a fundamental rejection of equal
citizenship as such conviction is likely to reconstruct the civil death linked to enslavement.
On the other hand authors have emphasized on the sustainable functioning of a prison
system. According to Saleh-Hanna, a society must comprise of a structural law enforcement
procedure and prison system in order to mitigate any form of criminal behaviour which might
result to aquatic situation in the society. Abolishment of prison system will not only result to
destabilized legal authority but at the societal level it will lead the society to a drastically
weakened and chaotic state. Abolition of prison system or incarceration would help criminals to
roam around rampantly on the streets and augment high level of antisocial behaviour which
would intensify criminal activities and lead the society to be observed by culture of
apprehension, violence and lawlessness. However very less supporting evidence have been found
which speaks against the abolition of prison system. Comprehensive studies of Etesam, Farnaz,
et al. have noted that prism systems in recent times have been found to be in critical situation.
According to Davey, Day and Balfour abolition of prison system can be conceptualized as an
approach beyond mere resistance. It will not only support the current structure but further will
foresee and help to establish new perspective where by operation structures will have minimum
importance. Reformation instead of abolition can be considered as an effective strategy which
will have the propensity to surpass the protest against the current circumstances to envision
justifiable and equitable world.
Conclusion
Hence to conclude abolition can take the form of eliminating the walls of the prison. on
the other hand abolition of prison system can also be considered of constructing alternate choices

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to imprisonment and supporting a society equitable for all along with countering capitalism
racism as well as ageism to acquire a world whereby carceral species will have less significance.
As a result, abolition of prison system will facilitate individuals to engage in politics of the future
which has been long ago envisaged by deinstitutionalization and prison abolitionists in present
times.

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