The trauma of the incarceration experience

Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review

Volumn 48, Issue 1, 2013, Pages 257-277

  DeVeaux, Mika'il ^a,b  

^a Citizens Against Recidivism Inc   (United States)

^b CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84886232775     PISSN: 00178039     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (96)

1. Sheryl Pimlott Kubiak, The Effects of PTSD on Treatment Adherence, Drug Relapse, and Criminal Recidivism in a Sample of Incarcerated Men and Women, 14 RES. ON SOC. WORK PRAC. 424, 424 (2004) ("Rarely is trauma discussed in relation to incarceration - either the effect of incarceration on those with trauma histories, prison as a site of new trauma, or the effect of trauma-related disorders on recidivism.").
2. See e.g., VICTORIA R. DEROSIA, LIVING INSIDE PRISON WALLS: ADJUSTMENT BEHAVIOR 8 (1998);
3. JOHN HOWARD SOC'Y OF ALTA., EFFECTS OF LONG TERM INCARCERATION 15 (1999);
4. Ivan Zinger, The Psychological Effects of 60 Days in Administrative Segregation 2-9 (Dec. 1998) (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Carleton University) (on file with Dissertation Abstracts International, 1999).
5. See James Bonta & Paul Gendreau, Reexamining the Cruel and Unusual Punishment of Prison Life, 14 LAW & HUM. BEHAV. 347, 348-49 (1990); Zinger, supra note 4, at 9-26.
6. Lee H. Bukstel & Peter R. Kilmann, Psychological Effects of Imprisonment on Confined Individuals, 88 PSYCHOL. BULL. 469, 469 (1980);
7. see also J. GOETHALS, STUDY ON THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF LONG-TERM IMPRISONMENT OVERVIEW AND EVALUATION (1980);
8. Timothy J. Flanagan, Dealing With Long-Term Confinement: Adaptive Strategies and Perspectives Among Long-Term Prisoners, 8 CRIM. JUST. & BEHAV. 201, 201-203 (1981) ("Early views of the impact of serving time in prison depict a process of systematic destruction of the person.... [T]his deterministic view is simplistic....").
9. See, e.g., MARY BOSWORTH, EXPLAINING U.S. IMPRISONMENT (2010);
10. FACING THE LIMITS OF THE LAW (Erik Claes et al. eds., 2009);
11. CRAIG HANEY, REFORMING PUNISHMENT: PSYCHOLOGICAL LIMITS TO THE PAINS OF IMPRISONMENT 161-62 (2006);
12. Adrian Grounds, Psychological Consequences of Wrongful Conviction and Imprisonment, 46 CAN. J. CRIMINOLOGY & CRIM. JUST. 165, 165 (2004);
13. Adrian Grounds & Ruth Jamieson, No Sense of an Ending: Researching the Experience of Imprisonment and Release Among Republican Ex-Prisoners, 7 THEORETICAL CRIMINOLOGY 347, 347 (2003);
14. Craig Haney, The Psychological Impact of Incarceration: Implications for Postprison Adjustment, in PRISONERS ONCE REMOVED: THE IMPACT OF INCARCERATION AND REENTRY ON CHILDREN, FAMILIES, AND COMMUNITIES 33, 33 (Jeremy Travis & Michelle Wauh eds., 2003) [hereinafter Haney, The Psychological Impact of Incarceration];
15. Lorna A. Rhodes, Pathological Effects of the Supermaximum Prison, 95 AM. J. PUB. HEALTH 1692, 1692 (2005);
16. Clara Geaney, That's Life: An Examination of the Direct Consequences of Life-Sentence Imprisonment for Adult Males Within the Irish Prison System 29 (2008) (unpublished M.A. thesis, Dublin Institute of Technology)
17. (on file with Dublin Institute of Technology Library) ("Psychiatric care provision in prisons is severely lacking and as a result many prisoners are developing mental health problems which may not have existed prior to incarceration, and for those with a psychiatric diagnosis, the experience has been shown to worsen their condition.") (citing CLAIRE HAMILTON, THE PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE AND IRISH CRIMINAL LAW: "WHITTLING THE GOLDEN THREAD" (2007);
18. PAUL MAHONY, PRISON POLICY IN IRELAND - CRIMINAL JUSTICE VERSUS SOCIAL JUSTICE (2000)).
19. HANS TOCH, MEN IN CRISIS: HUMAN BREAKDOWNS IN PRISON 149 (2007).
20. Jude McCulloch & Sharon Pickering, The Violence of Refugee Incarceration, in THE VIOLENCE OF INCARCERATION 225, 225 (Phil Scraton & Jude McCulloch eds., 2009).
21. Donald Clemmer was a pioneer whose work focused on the psychological effects of prison life. His work extended more than three decades and included a directorship at the District of Columbia Department of Corrections and in varying capacities in Illinois prisons, the federal penitentiary in Atlanta, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. For more information about Donald Clemmer, see Nicolle Parsons-Pollard, Clemmer, Donald, in 1 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PRISONS & CORRECTIONAL FACILITIES 137, 137-38 (Mary Bosworth ed., 2005).
22. DONALD CLEMMER, THE PRISON COMMUNITY (1940).
23. Samuel G. Kling, The Prison Community, 54 HARV. L. REV. 722, 722 (1941).
24. FACING THE LIMITS OF THE LAW, supra note 7;
25. see also Terry A. Kupers, Prison and the Decimation of Pro-Social Life Skills, in THE TRAUMA OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TORTURE 127, 129 (E. Almerindo Ojeda ed., 2008).
26. Richard A. Schill & David K. Marcus, Incarceration and Learned Helplessness, 42 INT'L J. OFFENDER THERAPY & COMP. CRIMINOLOGY 224 (1998).
27. JOYCELYN M. POLLOCK, PRISONS: TODAY AND TOMORROW (2d ed. 2006);
28. Shelley Johnson Listwan et al., How To Prevent Prisoner Reentry Programs From Failing: Insights From Evidence-Based Corrections, 70 FED. PROBATION 19, 23 (2006);
29. William J. Morgan, Jr., Major Causes of Institutional Violence, AM. JAILS, Nov.-Dec. 2009, at 62 (2009);
30. Steven Patrick, Differences in Inmate-Inmate and Inmate-Staff Altercations: Examples from a Medium Security Prison, 35 SOC. SCI. J. 253, 253 (1998);
31. Rebecca Trammell, A Qualitative Approach to Understanding the Connection between Race, Gender and Prison Violence 1 (2006) (unpublished conference paper, American Sociological Association Conference), available at http://citation.allacademic.com/meta/p-mla-apa-research-citation/1/0/3/2/4/ pages103246/p103246-1.php.
32. See, e.g., ERVING GOFFMAN, ASYLUMS: ESSAYS ON THE SOCIAL SITUATION OF MENTAL PATIENTS AND OTHER INMATES 14 (1961);
33. Derek R. Brookes, The Possibility of a Correctional Ethic, in DISCRETION, COMMUNITY, AND CORRECTIONAL ETHICS 39 (John Kleinig & Margaret Leland Smith eds., 2001).
34. GRESHAM M. SYKES, THE SOCIETY OF CAPTIVES: A STUDY OF A MAXIMUM SECURITY PRISON 64 (1958)
35. (citing Abraham H. Maslow, Deprivation, Threat, and Frustration, in READINGS IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 364, 366 (Theodore M. Newcomb & Eugene L. Hartley eds., 1947)).
36. Jesenia Pizarro & Vanja M.K. Stenius, Supermax Prisons: Their Rise, Current Practices and Effects on Inmates, in CORRECTIONS: A TEXT/READER 238, 242-44 (Mary Stohr et al. eds., 2009).
37. See generally Craig Haney & Philip Zimbardo, The Past and Future of U.S. Prison Policy: Twenty-Five Years After the Stanford Prison Experiment, 53 AM. PSYCHOLOGIST 709 (1998);
38. Anders Kaye, Does Situationist Psychology Have Radical Implications for Criminal Responsibility?, 59 ALA. L. REV. 611 (2008);
39. Philip G. Zimbardo, On the Ethics of Intervention in Human Psychological Research: With Special Reference to the Stanford Prison Experiment, 2 COGNITION 243 (1973).
40. Kaye, supra note 25, at 623 (citing Craig Haney et al., Interpersonal Dynamics in a Simulated Prison, 1 INT'L J. CRIMINOLOGY & PENOLOGY 69, 81 (1973)).
41. Haney, The Psychological Impact of Incarceration, supra note 7, at 37.
42. LAURENCE J. KIRMAYER ET AL., UNDERSTANDING TRAUMA: INTEGRATING BIOLOGICAL, CLINICAL, AND CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES 5 (2007).
43. AM. PSYCHIATRIC ASS'N, DIAGNOSTIC AND STATISTICAL MANUAL OF MENTAL DISORDERS TEXT REVISION 463-64 (4th ed. 2000);
44. Bruce Carruth & Patricia Burke, Psychological Trauma and Addiction Treatment, 8 J. CHEMICAL DEPENDENCY TREATMENT 1, 2-6 (2006);
45. Barbara Davis, Psychodynamic Psychotherapies and the Treatment of Co-Occurring Psychological Trauma and Addiction, 8 J. CHEMICAL DEPENDENCY TREATMENT 41, 43-45 (2006).
46. See, e.g., CAROLYN M. ALDWIN, STRESS, COPING, AND DEVELOPMENT: AN INTEGRATIVE PERSPECTIVE 211 (2d ed. 2007);
47. Shelley Johnson Listwan et al., Victimization, Social Support, and Psychological Well-Being: A Study of Recently Released Prisoners, 37 CRIM. JUST. & BEHAV. 1140, 1141 (2010).
48. AIDA ALAYARIAN, TRAUMA, TORTURE AND DISSOCIATION: A PSYCHOANALYTIC VIEW 57-89 (2011);
49. Edwin F. Renaud, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: An Overview of Theory, Treatment, and Forensic Practice Considerations, in FORENSIC NURSING: A HANDBOOK FOR PRACTICE 197, 198 (Rita M. Hammer et al. eds., 2d ed. 2013).
50. CHRISTOPHER RAOUL CARRANZA & JANE R. DILL, BANISHING NIGHT TERRORS AND NIGHTMARES: A BREAKTHROUGH PROGRAM TO HEAL THE TRAUMAS THAT SHATTER PEACEFUL SLEEP 166-67 (2004).
51. Brookes, supra note 20; Haney, The Psychological Impact of Incarceration, supra note 7.
52. See William H. Sledge et al., Self-Concept Changes Related to War Captivity, 37 ARCHIVES GEN. PSYCHIATRY 430 (1980).
53. Victoria M. Follette & Aditi Vijay, Mindfulness for Trauma and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, in CLINICAL HANDBOOK OF MINDFULNESS 299, 301 (Fabrizio Didonna ed., 2009).
54. Andrew Rasmussen et al., The Subjective Experience of Trauma and Subsequent PTSD in a Sample of Undocumented Immigrants, 195 J. NERVOUS & MENTAL DISEASE 137, 137 (2007).
55. See, e.g., CHRISTOPHER B. BOOKER, "I WILL WEAR NO CHAIN!": A SOCIAL HISTORY OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN MALES 205-26 (2000);
56. JOHN A. RICH, WRONG PLACE, WRONG TIME: TRAUMA AND VIOLENCE IN THE LIVES OF YOUNG BLACK MEN (2009);
57. TERRIE M. WILLIAMS, BLACK PAIN: IT JUST LOOKS LIKE WE'RE NOT HURTING (2008);
58. John A. Rich & Courtney M. Grey, Pathways to Recurrent Trauma Among Young Black Men: Traumatic Stress, Substance Use, and the "Code of the Street", 95 AM. J. PUB. HEALTH 816 (2005).
59. See, e.g., JUAN BATTLE & SANDRA L. BARNES, BLACK SEXUALITIES: PROBING POWERS, PASSIONS, PRACTICES, AND POLICIES (2010);
60. PRISCILLA DASS-BRAILSFORD, A PRACTICAL APPROACH TO TRAUMA: EMPOWERING INTERVENTIONS (2007);
61. RON EYERMAN, CULTURAL TRAUMA: SLAVERY AND THE FORMATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN IDENTITY (2001);
62. KEVIN POWELL, BLACK MALE HANDBOOK: A BLUEPRINT FOR LIFE (2008);
63. RE-CENTERING: CULTURE AND KNOWLEDGE IN CONFLICT RESOLUTION PRACTICE (Mary Adams Trujillo et al. eds., 2008);
64. Kristin N. Williams-Washington, Historical Trauma, in HANDBOOK OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HEALTH 31 (Robert L. Hampton et al. eds., 2010).
65. Tiffany L. Green & William A. Darity, Jr., Under the Skin: Using Theories from Biology and the Social Sciences to Explore the Mechanisms Behind the Black-White Health Gap, 100 AM. J. PUB. HEALTH S36, S36-40 (Supp. 2010);
66. see also Barack Obama, Democratic National Convention Keynote Address (July 27, 2004), available at http://www.americanrhet-oric.com/speeches/ convention2004/barackobama2004dnc.htm.
67. LAUREN E. GLAZE, BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS, CORRECTIONAL POPULATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES, 2010 1 (2011), available at http://njs.ojp.usdoj.gov/ content/pub/pdf/cpus10.pdf.
68. John F. Pfaff, The Empirics of Prison Growth: A Critical Review and Path Forward, 98 J. CRIM. L. & CRIMINOLOGY 547, 547-619 (2008);
69. GLAZE, supra note 50, at 2 tbl.1. People in residential correctional facilities include those sentenced and confined in a state or federal prison and those in jail, including prisoners awaiting trial or sentencing. Id.; see also MICHELLE NATIVIDAD RODRIGUEZ & MAURICE EMSELLEM, NAT'L EMP'T LAW PROJECT, 65 MILLION "NEED NOT APPLY": THE CASE FOR REFORMING CRIMINAL BACKGROUND CHECKS FOR EMPLOYMENT (2011);
70. Michael Pinard, Reflections and Perspectives on Reentry and Collateral Consequences, 100 J. CRIM. L. & CRIMINOLOGY 1213 (2010);
71. Anthony Calabrese, One in 31 Adults in U.S. Corrections System; Overall Population Growth Slows, STATE OF THE USA, July 22, 2010, http://www. stateoftheusa.org/content/locked-up-a-look-at-crime-and.php.
72. ROY WALMSLEY, INT'L CTR. FOR PRISON STUDIES, WORLD PRISON POPULATION LIST 1 (2012), available at http://www.idcr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/WPPL- 9-22.pdf.
73. PAUL GUERINO ET AL., BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS, PRISONERS IN 2010 26 app. tbl.12 (2011), available at http://bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p10.pdf.
74. Pollock, supra note 18, tbl. 3-2; Solveig Spjeldnes & Sara Goodkind, Gender Differences and Offender Reentry: A Review of the Literature, 48 J. OFFENDER REHABILITATION 314, 316 (2009).
75. DAN BERNSTEIN, STATE OF N.Y. DEP'T OF CORR. SERVS., UNDER CUSTODY REPORT: PROFILE OF INMATE POPULATION UNDER CUSTODY ON JANUARY 1, 2011 2-3 (2011), available at http://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/nydocs/UnderCustody-Report2011. pdf.
76. Richard P. Seiter & Karen R. Kadela, Prisoner Reentry: What Works, What Does Not, and What is Promising, 49 CRIME & DELINQUENCY 360, 366 (2003). Today, reentry of formerly incarcerated people back into society is a social problem.
77. TIMOTHY HUGHES & DORIS JAMES WILSON, BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS, REENTRY TRENDS IN THE UNITED STATES (2003), available at http://bjs.ojp.usdoj. gov/content/pub/pdf/reentry.pdf.
78. HEATHER C. WEST ET AL., BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS, PRISONERS IN 2009 4 (2010), available at http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/p09.pdf.
79. People who reenter the community following long periods of incarceration face many challenges. They often return in the same or worse condition than they were in before entering prison. They are likely to have few marketable skills and are hard to employ. Some suffer from mental illness. A portion of those in prison are HIV-positive or have AIDS. Overall, among people returning from prison and jail, very few have positive social supports; they have high rates of death by suicide, homicide, or overdoses from drug use. In addition, people released from prison have high rates of recidivism: three in ten reoffend within six months of their release, a rate that increases to two of three within three years after release. INCREASING PUBLIC SAFETY THROUGH SUCCESSFUL OFFENDER REENTRY: EVIDENCE-BASED AND EMERGING PRACTICES IN CORRECTIONS 7 (M.M. Carter et al. eds., 2007).
80. Many return to prison following violations of conditions of release or commissions of crime; either scenario has a negative impact on public safety. Id.; Nicholas C. Larma, Changes and Challenges for Counseling in the 21st Century, in 1 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF COUNSELING 116, 116-19 (Frederick T.L. Leong et al. eds., 2008);
81. HUGHES & WILSON, supra note 60; PATRICK A. LANGAN & DAVID J. LEVIN, BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS, RECIDIVISM OF PRISONERS RELEASED IN 1994 (2002), available at http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/rpr94.pdf.Finally,
82. when people do return from prison or jail, they tend to be concentrated in areas that are characteristically poor and that provide little economic opportunity. "The key tasks of communities, such as providing a sense of security and pride, a healthy environment for families, jobs, and open exchanges and support, are hampered when large numbers of the population are recycling in and out of correctional facilities and carrying with them the lasting consequences of incarceration." Ram A. Cnaan et al., Ex-Prisoners' Re-Entry: An Emerging Frontier and a Social Work Challenge, 7 J. POL. PRAC. 178, 186 (2008).
83. Letter from Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney Gen., U.S. Dep't of Justice, to The Hon. Andrew J. Spano, Westchester Cnty. Exec. 2 (Nov. 19, 2009), available at http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/spl/documents/Westchester- findlet-11-19-09.pdf.
84. See, e.g., Letter from Grace Chung Becker, Acting Assistant Attorney Gen., U.S. Dep't of Justice, to Todd H. Stroger, Cook Cnty. Bd. President, & Thomas Dart, Cook Cnty. Sheriff (July 11, 2008), available at http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/Cook-County-Jail-Findings- Letter.pdf.
85. Trends in the New York State Correctional System, PERSPECTIVES FROM THE NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY'S COMMITTEE ON WAYS & MEANS (Occasional Paper 1998), available at http://assembly.state.ny.us/Reports/WAM/Perspectives/199803/.
86. PRISON VISITING PROJECT, CORR. ASS'N OF N.Y., SING SING CORRECTIONAL FACILITY 1 (Apr. 2009), available at http://www.correctionalassociation.org/wp- content/uploads/2012/05/sing-sing-4-28-09.pdf.
87. TED CONOVER, NEWJACK: GUARDING SING SING 8-9 (2002).
88. Population Statistics for Clinton County, CLINTON CNTY. PLANNING DEP'T, http://www.clintoncountygov.com/Departments/Planning/population.pdf (last visited Oct. 28, 2012).
89. Rarely do complaints made by the incarcerated make it out of prison. There have been complaints of prisoners being "beaten, handcuffed, thrown down stairs, taken to the prison hospital and beaten again, sometimes in the presence of sergeants and a lieutenant who failed to intervene." New York to Pay $40,000 to Inmate In Brutality Case, N.Y. TIMES, Apr. 19, 1996, at B4, available at http://www.nytimes.com/1996/04/19/nyregion/new-york-to-pay- 40000-to-inmate-in-brutality-case.html.
90. The official culture of violence has not disappeared. Reports show that "inmates at Clinton Correctional Facility have won seven Federal claims of excessive force by correction officers, and the state has settled 10 brutality lawsuits with Clinton inmates rather than defend them in court." Matthew Purdy, Brutality Behind Bars - A Special Report; Prison's Violent Culture Enveloping Its Guards, N.Y. TIMES, Dec. 19, 1995, at A1, available at http://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/19/nyregion/brutality-behind-bars-special-report- prison-s-violent-culture-enveloping-its.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm. At the time, these seventeen closed claims constituted almost half of the thirty-seven successful suits that had been won or settled by Prisoners' Legal Services in the state since 1990. Id. Not all violence came from the guards. I witnessed stabbings, murders with baseball bats, fistfights, fights with rocks in socks, and more. More than any other prison, I wanted out of Clinton.
91. CORR. ASS'N OF N.Y., LOCKDOWN NEW YORK: DISCIPLINARY CONFINEMENT IN NEW YORK STATE PRISONS 9 (2003), available at http://www.correctionalassociation. org/wp-con-tent/uploads/2012/05/lockdown-new-york-report.pdf.
92. For more information about the history of higher education in prison, see Overview of Prison Education Policies, PRISON STUDIES PROJECT, http://prisonstudiesproject.org/overview-of-prison-education-policies (last visited Oct. 22, 2012).
93. VIKTOR E. FRANKL, MAN'S SEARCH FOR MEANING (2006).
94. GEORGE L. JACKSON, BLOOD IN MY EYE (1996).
95. GEORGE L. JACKSON, SOLEDAD BROTHER (1970).
96. For more information about our organization, Citizens Against Recidivism, Inc., visit www.citizensinc.org.