Q&A on "The Illusion of Free Markets" with Bernard Harcourt discussion

In response to an earlier post, John (rightly) said that “there is no lobby for prisoners.” And of course, I have often said the very same thing.

But that got me thinking: Why exactly isn’t there a prisoners’ alliance PAC? Imagine how many family members of inmates, former inmates, and persons on parole or probation would be interested in contributing to a political action committee to support state and federal candidates who make mass incarceration an issue. With over 2.4 million persons behind bars today, and more than 7 million under correctional supervision, there would be a large network of individuals, inside and outside prison, who would be willing to contribute, I would think.

This reminds me of a wonderful film by Claude Lelouche from 1972 called L’aventure, c’est l’aventure, at the end of which the protagonists kidnap the Pope and ask, as a ransom, that every Catholic give one French Franc for his liberation! (It’s a hilarious film with, among others, Lino Ventura, Jacques Brel, Johnny Halliday, and others – a real blast from the past!). In any event, the analogy is that one Franc for each Catholic was not that much, but pooled together can amount to a nice war chest!

My partner tells me she thinks this is one of my ideas that could remain private. I wanted to know what you thought?

I found these subjects fascinating. As a matter of fact, I have decided to devote my master dissertation (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris, France) to the issue of the expression of the incarcerated, as individuals or as a group.

I am currently trying to understand how the the organizarion of prisons functionning and its subjective side, the experience of incarceration, affect the possibility for prisoners to express complaints and grievances to the authorities. Among others things, I am focusing on the impediments to the formation of collective expression and on how inmates find – or fail to find - ways to bypass them.

In order to do so, I am analyzing, from both quantitative and qualitative points of view, a sample of letters sent by prisoners to a French independent authority called the 'Contrôleur general des lieux de privation de liberté'. Its mission is to control the conformity with fundamental rights of places where people are deprived of their liberty by an administrative or a judicial decision. What interests me is the way people that have been physically and symbolically cast aside from society because of their actions succeed – or fail – to formulate complaints or denunciations that could be considered as ‘normal’ (in the sense Luc Boltanski gave to the word).

I would be very interested to know how these issues are dealt with in the United States.

In the United States, organizations within federal prisons are actively discouraged by transferring prisoners whenever their activities make demands, or whenever they appear to be threatening. I have never heard of prisoners even trying to, say, get up a petition. In some cases, there are real threats to prison order--the DC Blacks, for example, or the "EME," or Crips and Bloods, and not least, the Aryan Brotherhood. Some of these are groups that were already organized outside prisons, to a greater or lesser degree. At times Asians, Latinos, Blacks, poets, co-religionists, and others have attempted to form clubs, which for a time had been allowed.
As far as forming groups that protest conditions, forget it. I recall a Dutch prisoner in a British prison who complained, "In my country, the Prisoners Union would never allow this." We fellow prisoners were shocked and amused by the very idea that there could be such a thing.
PACs for prisoner and prison reform advocacy are a good idea, but wives and relatives of those inside are generally too concerned with their very survival to bother much with these things. I am sure that the voter registration rates among these are very low, though I know of no study on this subject. It would be difficult to study this group as well because of their distrust of the system, which in their experiences, I imagine, is well earned.
I would expect that prisoners letters and their responses to the Bureau of Prisons are available under Freedom of Information constraints, though there may be privacy issues that would preclude their examination. There is a federal prisoner complaint system, whereby complaints are escalated through a series of forms and their mandated responses, BP-9, BP-10, etc. There is rarely much positive response to these as it is assumed that the BOP was correct in their actions, or lack thereof, in the first place.
If you wish to contact me personally about first-hand experiences in British and US systems, please post your address and I will respond outside this forum.

Thanks for these fascinating comments – truly fascinating. On the question of prisoner associations, I agree entirely with Rumbustious that there are serious questions regarding voter participation among prisoners, ex-prisoners and their families. Chris Uggen and Jeff Manza have done remarkable work on the issue of felon disenfranchisement in their book, “Locked Out,” (in which they show that the Bush/Gore elections would have clearly gone to Gore if there had been no felon disenfranchisement). Tom Miles at the U of C had an excellent paper addressing some of their findings and argued essentially that the low voter turnout among ex-felons may have reduced the effects. (The paper was called “Felon Disenfranchisement and Voter Turnout’ and was at 33 J. Legal Stud. 85 (2004)). In any event, what is clear is that the issues of voter turn-out have to be addressed as well. Is there any reason not to believe, though, that mobilization through a prison PAC might also affect voter turn-out? In other words, it would help with that problem too!

Corentin in going to be coming to the University of Chicago to pursue this research on prisoners’ voices, and I would like to find ways to hook him up with prison authorities and prisoners in this country to see if he could collect some materials relevant to the situation in the USA. So if anyone has any leads on that, please do mail him off-line. My understanding of this Goodreads site is that there are ways for people to e-mail or communicate with each other off the grid. Please do!

Just got this e-mail from a friend and former student, and it seems it fits in this discussion thread:

Dear friends:

This week I incorporated a not-for-profit organization the Prison Resources Foundation, the mission of which is to provide free educational resources to prison libraries. Reading and learning are among the most powerful means of preparing inmates for re-entry to society. But as budgets get slash around the nation, programs for prisoners, who have few advocates, are among the first on the chopping block. I am still learning about what kinds of materials prison libraries need most. If you want to donate books or CDs in good condition or if you want to help me organize fund raising events, please contact me. In meantime, follow us on twitter!

Gabe

twitter.com/prisonresources