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What is the psychological impact of prison?
12/20/13

Prison freedom

Prison bouteilleThe prisoner's notion of space is also profoundly disturbed, partly, but not entirely, because of their confinement. For security reasons, prison cells are all the same. Inmates can put up pictures or posters, but they can't choose their furniture, for example. "We all attempt to set up our own space as we please, just as small territorial animals do," explains Jérôme Englebert. "But prisoners aren't allowed to do this, which can create psychological difficulties."

In some ways, inmates are also disassociated from their own bodies. For security reasons, there are usually no mirrors in prisons, or else they are special mirrors covered in dark film that only show the reflection of a silhouette. "We deprive inmates of the element that forms the basis of our social exchanges and our identity: our own face,” insists the psychologist.

Society has chosen to lock up those who don't respect the rules of society. Jérôme Englebert’s intent is not to comment on this facet of the problem, nor its moral, philosophical, or political components. He is expressing himself purely as a clinical psychologist. In his opinion, and that of Michel Foucault before him, prison is a system that seeks to subjugate individuals, particularly in regards to time, space, and the body. Furthermore, he defines prison as a very pyramidal organisation, with an apex that is never seen... because it doesn't exist. "The inside of the tower is empty", stated Michel Foucault.

"Like capitalism or the Internet, prison is actually a system that has no reality," says Jérôme Englebert. “It's not the prison warden who is at the top of the prison hierarchy, but rather, law and regulations. But what is the law? A disembodied, unattainable entity. When certain severely schizophrenic inmates in social protection centres have demands, they’ll say: ‘I understand how things work, I will address the king’. Then they write to him. Afterwards they try to appeal to God. In short, they keep going higher and higher up the chain."

There is nothing at the top of the pyramid, but for a person subjected to this inalienable system that has no substance, a form of freedom does remain, which the psychologist calls "prison freedom". What is this paradoxical freedom? Jérôme Englebert offers two quotes from Michel Foucault: "Where there is power, there is resistance" and "In this central and centralised humanity, the effect and instrument of complex power relations, bodies and forces subjected by multiple  mechanisms of 'incarceration,' we must hear the distant roar of battle." In other words, faced with a system which seeks to suffocate all subjectivity, the cornerstone of prison freedom is profanation. In his book, Jérôme Englebert writes: "This involves gradually taking back from the system what belongs to human beings; profanation is a restitution of the body, space, time, ... identity.(…) there is freedom hiding in prisons, even if it's hard to see. There is always the possibility of a weak point, in all circumstances, even the most extreme." When confronted with the psychological difficulties or psychiatric pathologies of certain inmates, he considers it essential to talk with them about resistance to the relentless "machinery of subjugation," in order to help them regain a bit of freedom.

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