‘Always gotta be two mans’: Lifers, risk, rehabilitation, and narrative labour
| Published date | 01 January 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1462474518822487 |
| Date | 01 January 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Punishment & Society
‘Always gotta be two
2020, Vol. 22(1) 28–47
! The Author(s) 2019
mans’: Lifers, risk,
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1462474518822487
rehabilitation, and
journals.sagepub.com/home/pun
narrative labour
Jason Warr
De Montfort University, UK
Abstract
All prisoners have their identity stripped from them and, ultimately, reconstructed by
the institutions in which they are incarcerated. However, for life and indeterminately
sentenced prisoners the effects of this process, reinforced over extended periods,
creates a particular set of burdens. For it is this population, above and beyond that
of other prisoners, who need to address the implications of an imposed carceral
identity in both navigating the day-to-day life of the prison and securing release.
The four core burdens are firstly, an ambiguity on what identity indeterminately
sentenced prisoners were supposed to have. Secondly, reconciling an imposed identity
that they did not necessarily feel adhered to their pre-established sense of self. Thirdly,
recognition that in order to operate or perform within the prison they needed to adopt
an institutionally acceptable form of their self. Fourthly, that they had to manage how
their performance of self was judged and recorded by the prison. This article aims to
contribute to the growing body of work on Narrative Criminology by arguing that
these burdens results in what I define as narrative labour.
Keywords
identity, lifers, narrative, prison, risk, rehabilitation
Corresponding author:
Jason Warr, Lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice, Division of Health and Life Sciences, De Montfort
University, Hawthorne Building, Room H00.02, Leicester LE1 9BH, UK.
Email: jason.warr@dmu.ac.uk
Warr
29
Introduction
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a
mimicry, their passions a quotation.
—Oscar Wilde, De Profundis
As a lifer who the fuck am I supposed to be?
—Smudge, 20, HMYOI Neverland
The prisoner is not allowed their own identity – what they have is imposed, shaped,
constructed (Goffman, 1961). This is a particular problem for indeterminately
sentenced prisoners who, due to extended periods of incarceration and the
parole process, struggle with imposed identities that they do not necessarily rec-
ognise as their own (Jewkes, 2005). They are, in terms of identity and ontology,
adrift. The processes of assault on a prisoner’s identity begin first and foremost at
the point of arrest where the relationship between the individual and the state is
fundamentally altered (Warr, 2016a). From such an assaultive start, the prisoner
then becomes subject to the varying formal and informal rituals of abasement,
mortification and identity stripping that are designed to reshape the person into a
manageable carceral subject (Clemmer, 1940; Goffman, 1961; Thomas, 1973). This
induction is specifically destructive for indeterminately sentenced (hereon in IDS)
prisoner’s and their sense/performance of self as it is they, more than any other
prisoner, that is trapped by this process (McCarthy, 2007).
The IDS prisoner is forced into a situation of having to both perform a self
within the constraints of the institution, whilst at the same time manage the per-
ception of that self as it is seen through the disciplinary lens of that institution.
Both Carlen (2008) and Sim (2008) argue that in contemporary penal systems the
coupling of this disciplinary lens with bureaucratic systems of control results in
prisoners becoming imagined simulacra – representations of the prisoner based
upon multiple symbolically laden disciplinary labels which transmute the prisoner
from a person to a bureaucratic entity. As Smith (2010: 50) notes any ‘normal
human animal rejects being a something and drives mightily to be a someone’, yet
for IDS prisoners in England and Wales this drive is intentionally constrained in
the interests of the institution, the wider criminal justice system, and even the body
politic (Annison, 2018). Clifford (2010) argues that for IDS prisoners in England
and Wales, this collision of an officially ascribed identity with personal perceptions
of self-evinces a dissonance as the prisoner tries to reconcile the denial of their
former self, the imposition of a simulacrum, and the need to perform identity in the
constraining environment of the prison. A point reinforced by Lempert (2016)
when discussing the lived experiences of women lifers in the United States. This
article aims to contribute to the growing body of work on Narrative Criminology
30
Punishment & Society 22(1)
(see Presser and Sandberg, 2015) by arguing that for the IDS prisoner this reality
results in what I define as forms of narrative labour, the outward facing elements
of identity work (Watson, 2008), which coalesces around the performance of a
flagellant self.
This paper will argue that narrative labour is a particular burden for indeter-
minately sentenced prisoners (see Honeywell, 2015). For it is this population,
above and beyond that of other prisoners, who need to address the implications
of an imposed carceral identity in both navigating the day-to-day life of the prison
and securing release via the parole process (Annison, 2018; Rose, 2012). The
nature and forms of indeterminate sentences imposed by the courts in England
and Wales have changed significantly and often since the advent of the Criminal
Justice Act of 2003 (Roberts and Ashworth, 2016). Whilst the Mandatory Life
Sentence (the only sentence available for a conviction of murder) remained largely
unchanged, the 2003 Act introduced an Indeterminate Sentence for Public
Protection (ISPP) which replaced the pre-existing Two-Strike life sentence
(Criminal Justice Act, 2003). These sentences were designed to give the judiciary
the means of sentencing those considered a danger to the public (those convicted of
repeated violent and sexual offences, arson, as well as a wide range of nonlethal
terrorist offences) to indeterminate periods of custody. The ISPP sentence was
itself replaced by a new iteration of the Two-Strike life sentence in the Legal
Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act of 2012 (LASPO, 2012;
Rose, 2012).
The Ministry of Justice statistics for 2018 (MoJ, 2018) indicate that 14% of the
prison population of England and Wales (10,800þ) are serving one of the varying
forms of indeterminate sentences that can pertain under this current criminal jus-
tice system. Of these, 67% (7275) are serving a mandatory life sentence and the rest
either an Indeterminate Sentence for Public Protection or either of the iterations of
the Two-Strike life sentence. What makes these sentences unique is that they have
no determinate ending – the sentence is fundamentally 99 years in length with a
recommended minimum period of incarceration being set by the sentencing judge
and the Lord Chief Justice (Annison, 2018). Prisoners are not released from these
sentences until such a time that their minimum period of incarceration has expired
and the Parole Board deem that their risk to the public has been so diminished that
they are safe to release (Nichol, 2007). Once released into the community they are
on a Life licence – a form of probation/community supervision which exists for the
remainder of their life.
The research
This article arises from fieldwork conducted whilst working for a third sector
organization in two distinct prisons between 2011 and 2014, and 10 focus
groups conducted in one of those prisons. This latter prison was a Young
Offender Institute, which holds 400þ early stage, long termer young men between
the ages of 18 and 22 of which a disproportionate number (62%) were of BAME
Warr
31
backgrounds, which I have named HMYOI Neverland. The second establishment
was a mid-sized (600þ), Category C special function prison with a rapidly chang-
ing foreign national prisoner population which I here refer to as HMP Lazaretto
House. My role in both of these prisons was to act as an independent Prison
Council facilitator. As part of that role, it was my responsibility to observe and
report on the prison by engaging both prisoners and staff in formal and informal
dialogue in order to uncover their collective experiences of the prison. Informed
consent was sought for all quotes, case studies or instances utilised in the produc-
tion of any report and subsequent academic publication.
The focus groups were conducted in HMYOI Neverland who, at the time of the
fieldwork, had nearly 40% of their population serving some form of indeterminate
sentence. The purpose of the focus groups was to gain an understanding of how life
and indeterminately sentenced prisoners experienced dedicated provisions in
HMYOI Neverland for those serving such sentences. However, each of the focus
groups rapidly moved from discussions on what services were or were not available
to in depth discussions about what it meant to be a ‘lifer’. In total, 83 indetermi-
nately sentenced young offenders were involved in the focus groups. In HMP
Lazaretto House, the population who were serving formal1 indeterminate senten-
ces was far less. During the 30-month period of the fieldwork, I encountered and
had extensive conversations with 27 IDS prisoners in this establishment. The
majority of these prisoners were from either East Africa or the Caribbean, and
8 from Eastern Europe. These IDS prisoners were consulted, especially after
having conducted the focus groups in HMYOI Neverland, on the topic of what
it meant to be a ‘lifer’. In total, I had contact with...
To continue reading
Request your trial