Description

Dr. Anton Symkovych will discuss prisoners’ organization in a Ukrainian medium-security correctional colony for men; prisoners’
culture and power relations between themselves and with prison staff. He argues that despite official disapproval of the ‘inmate code’, prison authorities are heavily dependent on the prisoner-controlled informal structure to keep prison order and maintain uninterrupted industrial production. This rigid hierarchy is a permanent fixture which predetermined an individual’s role, expectation, and behaviour.
Without it the power balance and, thus, order could not be maintained. Drawing on the data from his ethnographic study, the speaker posits that the ‘inmate code’ ensured a peaceable co-habitation for prisoners as it granted individuals some confidence and assurance of their position, if not a degree of autonomy. The majority of prisoners believed that this traditional arrangement was the only just and safe way to survive incarceration and thus it was normative behaviour to comply. Whilst this informal structure was inescapable and entailed harsh punishments for violations, it, to some degree, controlled and limited arbitrary violence. Finally, the talk will explore how the changing profile of traditional informal prisoner leaders, the availability of drugs, and policy changes such as the availability of early release, have threaten the legitimacy and sustainability of the informal prisoner control structure.