UNDERSTANDING THE NEED FOR social support AND HELPING TO SUPPLY IT TO those WHO EXPERIENCE INCARCERATION
People in prison, including those suffering from mental illness, are victims of dehumanizing mistreatment including violence due to the use of excessive force and severe neglect in the form of moral exclusions and disengagement by prison guards and other staff (Haslam, 2006; Blackler, 2015; Gullapalli, 2015), as per correctional policy. This maltreatment is not favorable to successful reintegration into society. It is important to understand what social support is, and the role this type of support plays in the lives of incarcerated people who are isolated from society and stigmatized through public narratives. Social support is defined by the Vision Journal as that physical and emotional comfort that we receive from our family, friends, co-workers and others who help us navigate our day-to-day living.
Due to the isolated, hyper-regulated, largely single-sex nature of the prison environment, the dynamics of the prison are so radically different from the outside world that we should consider “the prison as a society within a society and a society in itself” (Sykes, xii). Because prisons are communities with hundreds of individuals working, eating, sleeping and living together for long periods of time, “such aggregates enduring through time must inevitably give rise to a social system” (Sykes, xii). This social system in not only the social order imposed by the prison staff, but also arises from relationships between people in prison, which we will refer to in this research as peer relationships. Because people in prison are isolated from free society, are geographically distanced and may be emotionally distanced from family as a result of their incarceration, considering peer relationships that are formed within prison is a critical part of understanding what social support means for people in prison. At the same time, for some people in prison, family serves as a constant link between their life in prison and free society and acts as a constant source of support in helping them get through prison time. This is especially true for those persons who are parents, those with strong family ties, and those who had family members who depended on them before incarceration (Fairbrother, 2011; Hairston 2001).
Due to the isolated, hyper-regulated, largely single-sex nature of the prison environment, the dynamics of the prison are so radically different from the outside world that we should consider “the prison as a society within a society and a society in itself” (Sykes, xii). Because prisons are communities with hundreds of individuals working, eating, sleeping and living together for long periods of time, “such aggregates enduring through time must inevitably give rise to a social system” (Sykes, xii). This social system in not only the social order imposed by the prison staff, but also arises from relationships between people in prison, which we will refer to in this research as peer relationships. Because people in prison are isolated from free society, are geographically distanced and may be emotionally distanced from family as a result of their incarceration, considering peer relationships that are formed within prison is a critical part of understanding what social support means for people in prison. At the same time, for some people in prison, family serves as a constant link between their life in prison and free society and acts as a constant source of support in helping them get through prison time. This is especially true for those persons who are parents, those with strong family ties, and those who had family members who depended on them before incarceration (Fairbrother, 2011; Hairston 2001).
There are four major ways that we generally receive social support from the people in the world around us. They include: Emotional Support, Direct Help, Sharing Points of View, and Sharing Information. These four methods of receiving successful social support for healthy daily living is undermined by NYS correctional policy, thereby paralyzing the social development of people who are incarcerated, both young and old.
These four major forms of social support are defined and briefly contextualized within the prison as follows:
- Emotional Support is given when we express direct love, care and concern for other people. An example of this would be if you suffered the loss of a loved one and a friend called every day after for a month just to check on you so that you knew that they cared about you. Emotional support is not easily attainable for people in prison because there is an abundance of rules within the NYS prison directives that discourage opportunities for family preservation and limit peer to peer bonding for people serving time together.
- Practical Help, which are gifts, monetary and other direct provisions that we receive from other people. For people in prison, getting this support from preexisting relationships is incredibly difficult, as DOC policy places unreasonable financial obstacles and discouraging limitations on visitation, telephone usage, and U.S. mail options for people in prison to retrieve the practical help that is necessary for years of living behind bars and away from loved ones. This requires people in prison to rely on practical help from their peers in prison, which often takes the form of exchanging a resource another needs for something they need.
- Sharing Point of View can be understood as the different perspectives and understandings we receive from other people about the same situations. This support is most beneficial as it relates to troubleshooting difficult life circumstances and learning new innovative strategies for managing conflict and stress. Because of the limited and untimely access to consulting professionals and close family and friends, when facing immediate strife or uncertainty, people in prison are limited to the different perspectives of other people doing time with them, who are in similar situations, also seeking similar counsel about the very same issues.
- Sharing Information is a form of social support that is most beneficial to us when friends, family or even expert professionals give us accurate and factual information that we did not have about a specific topic. This can be as simple as providing directions to a lost patron or warning a person about a road closure. One example for a person in prison is when a new person has been recently admitted to a prison facility and seeks help from peers to learn more about the process for signing up for meals, recreational options, and/or medical services.
The rules and regulations of the prison environment make it immensely difficult for people in prison to receive or provide social support within prison. As support is critical in helping us overcome challenges and develop healthy ways to rationalize and manage ourselves in hard times, it is no wonder that research suggests that incarceration has negative psychological effects on people in prison, such as:
- A dependence on institutional structure and contingencies.
- Hypervigilance, interpersonal distrust, and suspicion.
- Emotional over-control, alienation, and psychological distancing.
- Social withdrawal and isolation.
- Incorporation of exploitative norms of prison culture.
- Diminished sense of self-worth and personal value.
- And post-traumatic stress reactions to the pains of imprisonment (Haney, 2001).
All of these harms can be reduced and/or completely circumvented with adequate social support programming targeted specifically towards family preservation, mentoring, and counseling during incarceration as well as with policy modifications for those regulations which undermine advantageous social support programming.
During incarceration, people in prison are subject to the arbitrary authority of prison officials and share a diminished social status with other people serving time in prison. These imbalanced power dynamics—implicitly and explicitly—may cripple a people in prison’s ability to positively engage with other people, and consequently impede their ability to meet social obligations, in prison or post-incarceration. In focus groups held at the Center for Justice at Columbia University, formerly incarcerated men and women reported that because prison relationships must exist within the context of imbalanced power dynamics, incarceration often alienates people in prison from sources of support, negatively influences self-perception, and causes people in prison to carry an internalized status of subservience with them when they rejoin free society post-incarceration. Formerly incarcerated individuals typically cited daily mistreatment from prison staff and limited communication with the outside world as punitive methods used to disfigure their self-esteem and increase their levels of social alienation.
This mistreatment is not conducive to a successful re-entry back into society. The US rate of recidivism in 2014 was 76.6% compared to Norway’s 20%. This difference is attributed to Norway’s implementation of the concept of “restorative justice” (Sterbenz; 2014). This concept prioritizes the humanization and rehabilitation of people in prison and acknowledges their humanity and treating people in prison as people instead of irredeemable and unworthy of acceptance (Dreisinger; 2016). Despite the above research, existing information, and efforts made by activist and organizations lobbying against these conditions, the inhumane treatment continues to occur (Blackler, 2015). This would suggest that a larger constituency remains compliant with, and/or ignorant to, these abuses.
