“Prison didn’t change me, I have changed”: Narratives of change, self, and prison time
| Author | Katharina Maier,Rosemary Ricciardelli |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/17488958211031336 |
| Published date | 01 November 2022 |
| Date | 01 November 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/17488958211031336
Criminology & Criminal Justice
2022, Vol. 22(5) 774 –789
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/17488958211031336
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“Prison didn’t change me,
I have changed”: Narratives of
change, self, and prison time
Katharina Maier
University of Guelph, Canada
Rosemary Ricciardelli
Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada
Abstract
Drawing on interview data with over 50 male former prisoners in Ontario, Canada, we examine
male ex-prisoners’ narratives of change within prison settings. Specifically, we focus on how ex-
prisoners talk about change to self and their persona, as they reflect back on both their pre-prison
selves and the ways they believe prison changed them. We find that these ex-prisoners described
prison as a time where they developed a more general sense of positive change. Ex-prisoners
described how prison living made them “calmer,” “stronger,” and more “patient” overall. These
descriptions stand in tension with the overall hostility of prison environments where prisoners are
forced to focus on survival and basic well-being as they navigate the risks and threats of prison living.
Overall, in this article, we seek to contribute to emerging discussions on positivity within prison
settings, acknowledging that studying the more positive impacts of prison is a delicate yet important
endeavor necessary to help better understand the experiential complexities of punishment.
Keywords
Change, identity, Imprisonment, self, time
A large body of literature documents how prisons operate as hostile, painful, and unsafe
settings where fears for personal safety are pervasive and even omnipresent, and feelings
Corresponding author:
Rosemary Ricciardelli, Department of Sociology, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 230 Elizabeth Ave,
AA 4066, St. John’s, NL A1C 5S7, Canada.
Email: rricciardell@mun.ca
1031336CRJ0010.1177/17488958211031336Criminology & Criminal JusticeMaier and Ricciardelli
research-article2021
Article
Maier and Ricciardelli 775
of emotional and mental well-being are compromised (Hemmens and Marquart, 1999;
Kellar and Wang, 2005; Wolff and Shi, 2001; Wolff et al., 2009; Wolff et al., 2007).
Alongside these studies exists a small body of literature that recognizes, even within
these hostile prison environments, prisoners develop more positive accounts of the
impact prison can have on them (e.g. O’Donnell, 2014). In this article, we seek to con-
tribute primarily to the latter body of work by discussing how self-identifying male for-
mer prisoners narrate self-change in the context of their incarceration. Specifically, we
discuss prisoners’ narratives as they reflect on their sense of self and identity pre and post
prison, and their interpretations of how and why one changes while incarcerated. In
doing so, we seek to contribute to recent discussions that have grappled with the question
of how positive change can ensue within the overall hostile environment of the prison
(Crewe and Ievins, 2019). We argue that imprisonment can provide a space and time to
reinvent or hold on to a narrative of self; for some, the narrative of self includes a new
sense of identification built on promise and hope for what the future may hold, while for
others the narrative is about staying true to self when faced with the complex and multi-
faceted vulnerabilities and challenges that shape prison living.
This article proceeds as follows: We first outline existing research on positivity
within prison settings. Next, we review our methods and data. With the context estab-
lished, we present the findings of our research in two parts: First, we explore how
interviewees described their pre-prison selves and associated desire for self-change.
Second, we examine how, when asked whether they felt they had changed in the course
of their imprisonment, interviewees predominantly discussed positive forms of change
to self, which include getting clean, becoming calmer and more patient, finding greater
appreciation for family and loved ones, and recognizing they had “conned” them-
selves. Considering that prisons, fundamentally, are hostile environments, the discur-
sive focus on positivity in participants’ narratives stands out as a rather surprising
feature of prisoners’ description of prison life. As we have documented elsewhere
(Maier and Ricciardelli, 2018), incarcerated men must spend considerable time think-
ing about how to best self-present to navigate feelings and actual experiences of threat
and victimization. In other words, prison time may be more about survival and endur-
ance (see also Wahidin, 2006) rather than personal reflection. Recognizing these reali-
ties and specifically the demands placed on male prisoners to present as tough, strong,
and at times outwardly violent (see Maier and Ricciardelli, 2018), we add to existing
scholarship by demonstrating how reinvention and positive self-change are created
alongside existing demands of navigating hostility and risk potentiality. We show that
positive self-change can and does happen for imprisoned men and reflect on the sig-
nificance of acknowledging positivity as an important yet understudied facet of pun-
ishment. We discuss what about incarceration may generate positive self-change,
pushing prisoners to “dig deep” and reinvent their self at the same time as they seek to
overcome the challenges of incarceration.
By way of conclusion, we reflect on the seeming reluctance among prisons and punish-
ment scholars to talk about the potential positive outcomes of imprisonment and ask how
further understanding of positivity may change our thinking about prisons and punish-
ment. Overall, we augment existing research by drawing attention to how prisons can
function as places of positive narrative reinvention (Crewe and Ievins, 2019; Scott, 2010).
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