Prisoner society in the era of hard drugs
| Author | Ben Crewe |
| Published date | 01 October 2005 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1462474505057122 |
| Date | 01 October 2005 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
08_crewe_057122 (jk-t) 2/9/05 9:13 am Page 457
Copyright © SAGE Publications
London, Thousand Oaks, CA
and New Delhi.
www.sagepublications.com
1462-4745; Vol 7(4): 457–481
DOI: 10.1177/1462474505057122
PUNISHMENT
& SOCIETY
Prisoner society in the
era of hard drugs
BEN CREWE
University of Cambridge, UK
Abstract
A telling indication of the decline of ethnographic prison sociology is the paucity of
research on drugs and their influence on the prisoner social world. Based on long-term
fieldwork in a medium-security English prison, this article argues that the key
components of prisoner social life are deeply imprinted by the presence and prevalence
of hard drugs in and around the penal estate. After outlining the appeal of heroin to
prisoners, and the terms of the prison drugs economy, the article shows how heroin
restructures status and social relations in prison in a number of ways. First, users are
stigmatized, particularly when their consumption has consequences that violate estab-
lished codes of inmate behaviour. Second, heroin grants considerable power to those
prisoners who deal it within prison, although this power is not necessarily equivalent
to respect. Third, heroin transforms the terms of affiliation that exist when drugs are
scarce. Meanwhile, for those prisoners whose lives prior to incarceration have been
dominated by drug addiction, the experience of incarceration has a number of distinc-
tive qualities.
Key Words
drugs • prisoner society • prisons • Sykes
INTRODUCTION
In his (2000) article, ‘The “society of captives” in the era of hyper-incarceration’,
Jonathan Simon lamented ‘the disappearance of inmate social life as an object of knowl-
edge outside the precincts of prison’ (2000: 290). For a range of practical and political
reasons, Simon argued, the tradition of ethnographic prison sociology founded by
Donald Clemmer and Gresham Sykes had largely dried up: ‘In the 1990s’, he summar-
ized, ‘the whole question of the prison social order appears distant from the concerns
of both social science and prison management’ (2000: 288). Simon has not been alone
in expressing these concerns. The ‘curious eclipse’ of American prison ethnography has
recently been highlighted by Loïc Wacquant (2002: 381), while, in the UK, where
Simon identified signs of renaissance (inter alia, Sparks et al., 1996; Edgar et al., 2003;
457
08_crewe_057122 (jk-t) 2/9/05 9:13 am Page 458
PUNISHMENT AND SOCIETY 7(4)
Liebling, 2004), Alison Liebling (2000) has called for renewed empirical scrutiny of
what goes on every day inside the prison gates. On both sides of the Atlantic, then, the
inverse relationship between incarceration rates and the available knowledge about the
social organization and culture of prison life is a worrying trend. There is also an asym-
metry between the advances made in penal history and theory (Garland, 1985, 1990,
1997, 2002), and the relative paucity of concrete, sociological investigations of the func-
tioning of penal practices, policies and powers. We understand relatively little about
how life on the landings has been affected by the significant changes that prisons have
undergone in recent years, changes that are embedded in the broader context of late-
modernity that has, likewise, transformed the world outside the prison in which its
inhabitants are socialized.
Among other forces and factors, drugs are central in this world. Drug dealing and
addiction are associated with a large proportion of criminal offending (Bean, 2002).
Within the prison population, high levels of lifetime drug use and addiction would
therefore be expected. A recent survey of UK sentenced male prisoners found that 47
per cent had used heroin and/or cocaine/crack in the 12 months when they were last
at liberty, generally on a regular basis. Thirty-eight per cent of the total sample declared
that they considered themselves to have a drug problem (Ramsay, 2003; see also Boys
et al., 2002). Such levels are significantly higher than among the general adult popu-
lation, around 40 times in the case of heroin use (Boys et al., 2002).
Research also confirms that drug use during incarceration (predominantly cannabis
and heroin) is common, though at levels lower than before imprisonment, and at rates
that differ greatly between establishments (Edgar and O’Donnell, 1998; Hucklesby and
Wilkinson, 2001; Ramsay, 2003). In Boys et al.’s (2002) sample, 62 per cent of lifetime
heroin users and 64 per cent of lifetime cannabis users had used these drugs at some
time while in prison. Other studies in UK male establishments have found similar levels
of in-prison drug use: around 70 per cent of prisoners at some time during their current
sentence (Hucklesby and Wilkinson, 2001; Edgar and O’Donnell, 1998), though recent
Home Office research (Ramsay, 2003) reported slightly lower figures. In terms of more
immediate use, using figures from five establishments, Edgar and O’Donnell found that,
in the month before being interviewed, 49 per cent of prisoners had used cannabis and
27 per cent heroin. Research into the regularity of use reported that 64 per cent of pris-
oners using heroin and 68 per cent of prisoners using cannabis did so on a less than
weekly basis (Ramsay, 2003). Overall then, it has been argued that ‘few prisoners
maintain problematic levels of use’, mainly because of the lack of availability of desir-
able drugs, but that occasional drug use in prison is widespread (Bullock, 2003).
Given the prevalence of drugs in the pre-incarceration experiences of prisoners, and
in daily prison life, it would be surprising if drugs had no effect on the prison as a social
system. However, there exists no sustained, contemporary analysis of the role of hard
drugs – heroin being the primary consideration here – in the prisoner social world.
Where drug use has been discussed in relation to imprisonment, the focus has tended
to be on public health implications, particularly around the issue of HIV/AIDS (Keene,
1997; Swann and James, 1998; Shewan and Davies, 2000), and on policy initiatives,
such as mandatory drug testing (MacDonald, 1997; Edgar and O’Donnell, 1998; Gore
et al., 1999; Hucklesby and Wilkinson, 2001; Duke, 2003).
Drugs have also been considered in the context of the debate about whether inmate
458
08_crewe_057122 (jk-t) 2/9/05 9:13 am Page 459
CREWE
Prisoner society in the era of hard drugs
behaviour is better explained through functionalist theories (Sykes, 1958), which see
prison social life as primarily determined by prison specific variables, or importation
theories (Irwin and Cressey, 1962), which highlight the significance of pre-prison and
extra-prison factors. Irwin (1970) related in-prison behaviour patterns to pre-prison
identities, and argued that prisoners involved in dealing and drug use prior to their
imprisonment adapted to prison life differently from other inmates. In contrast, Akers
et al. (1974) found that the amount of drug taking in a prison was more a function of
institutional character than the social characteristics imported by inmates. However, the
character of inmate society and its relationship to drug use receives little attention in
such research. In the more recent literature on some of the broader social dimensions
of prison life, such as violence (Edgar et al., 2003), inmate subculture (Grapendaal,
1990; Winfree et al., 2002) and order (Sparks et al., 1996), drugs feature only paren-
thetically, if at all.
Munson et al.’s (1973) discussion stands out for its explicit concern with the contri-
bution of drugs to the social character of prison life. Primarily focused upon the prac-
tices and logistics of drug distribution and consumption in the Californian prison
system, their account registers the complex social relationships and affiliations that
maintain the contraband chain: for example, the key role of ‘trusties’ in the delivery
system, the importance of friendship and credit-worthiness in securing drugs and the
ambiguous status of the drug user in the prisoner community. The trafficking of
narcotics is also suggested to have a social and psychological function,
for it provides a community activity that binds together, at least the younger cons, into a
working system that exalts cunning and ruthlessness in the service of inmate solidarity [. . .]
it is an exercise in the subversion of the straight world’s morality and power. (Munson et al.,
1973: 197–8)
There are echoes in this statement of Sykes’ (1956, 1958) seminal observations about
the content, function and broader significance of ‘the inmate code’. Sykes identified five
maxims as the tenets of a value system that he regarded as a collective response to the
intrinsic pains of imprisonment. Put simply, these were: don’t grass on other prisoners,
don’t interfere in other prisoners’ business or interests, don’t exploit other prisoners, be
tough, dignified and manly and don’t give respect or credibility to staff. The more that
prisoners adhered to this normative system, Sykes argued, the more they could allevi-
ate the deprivations of liberty, goods and services, heterosexual relations, autonomy and
personal security that imprisonment entailed. Those prisoners who embodied this set
of norms, and encouraged the same collective orientation in others, were the most
admired members of the prisoner population and could operate as inmate leaders.
Beneath them in the inmate hierarchy were a range of social types who sacrificed inmate
solidarity for individualistic ends, for example, by grassing to the authorities, display-
ing weakness or exploiting others physically,...
Copyright © SAGE Publications
London, Thousand Oaks, CA
and New Delhi.
www.sagepublications.com
1462-4745; Vol 7(4): 457–481
DOI: 10.1177/1462474505057122
PUNISHMENT
& SOCIETY
Prisoner society in the
era of hard drugs
BEN CREWE
University of Cambridge, UK
Abstract
A telling indication of the decline of ethnographic prison sociology is the paucity of
research on drugs and their influence on the prisoner social world. Based on long-term
fieldwork in a medium-security English prison, this article argues that the key
components of prisoner social life are deeply imprinted by the presence and prevalence
of hard drugs in and around the penal estate. After outlining the appeal of heroin to
prisoners, and the terms of the prison drugs economy, the article shows how heroin
restructures status and social relations in prison in a number of ways. First, users are
stigmatized, particularly when their consumption has consequences that violate estab-
lished codes of inmate behaviour. Second, heroin grants considerable power to those
prisoners who deal it within prison, although this power is not necessarily equivalent
to respect. Third, heroin transforms the terms of affiliation that exist when drugs are
scarce. Meanwhile, for those prisoners whose lives prior to incarceration have been
dominated by drug addiction, the experience of incarceration has a number of distinc-
tive qualities.
Key Words
drugs • prisoner society • prisons • Sykes
INTRODUCTION
In his (2000) article, ‘The “society of captives” in the era of hyper-incarceration’,
Jonathan Simon lamented ‘the disappearance of inmate social life as an object of knowl-
edge outside the precincts of prison’ (2000: 290). For a range of practical and political
reasons, Simon argued, the tradition of ethnographic prison sociology founded by
Donald Clemmer and Gresham Sykes had largely dried up: ‘In the 1990s’, he summar-
ized, ‘the whole question of the prison social order appears distant from the concerns
of both social science and prison management’ (2000: 288). Simon has not been alone
in expressing these concerns. The ‘curious eclipse’ of American prison ethnography has
recently been highlighted by Loïc Wacquant (2002: 381), while, in the UK, where
Simon identified signs of renaissance (inter alia, Sparks et al., 1996; Edgar et al., 2003;
457
08_crewe_057122 (jk-t) 2/9/05 9:13 am Page 458
PUNISHMENT AND SOCIETY 7(4)
Liebling, 2004), Alison Liebling (2000) has called for renewed empirical scrutiny of
what goes on every day inside the prison gates. On both sides of the Atlantic, then, the
inverse relationship between incarceration rates and the available knowledge about the
social organization and culture of prison life is a worrying trend. There is also an asym-
metry between the advances made in penal history and theory (Garland, 1985, 1990,
1997, 2002), and the relative paucity of concrete, sociological investigations of the func-
tioning of penal practices, policies and powers. We understand relatively little about
how life on the landings has been affected by the significant changes that prisons have
undergone in recent years, changes that are embedded in the broader context of late-
modernity that has, likewise, transformed the world outside the prison in which its
inhabitants are socialized.
Among other forces and factors, drugs are central in this world. Drug dealing and
addiction are associated with a large proportion of criminal offending (Bean, 2002).
Within the prison population, high levels of lifetime drug use and addiction would
therefore be expected. A recent survey of UK sentenced male prisoners found that 47
per cent had used heroin and/or cocaine/crack in the 12 months when they were last
at liberty, generally on a regular basis. Thirty-eight per cent of the total sample declared
that they considered themselves to have a drug problem (Ramsay, 2003; see also Boys
et al., 2002). Such levels are significantly higher than among the general adult popu-
lation, around 40 times in the case of heroin use (Boys et al., 2002).
Research also confirms that drug use during incarceration (predominantly cannabis
and heroin) is common, though at levels lower than before imprisonment, and at rates
that differ greatly between establishments (Edgar and O’Donnell, 1998; Hucklesby and
Wilkinson, 2001; Ramsay, 2003). In Boys et al.’s (2002) sample, 62 per cent of lifetime
heroin users and 64 per cent of lifetime cannabis users had used these drugs at some
time while in prison. Other studies in UK male establishments have found similar levels
of in-prison drug use: around 70 per cent of prisoners at some time during their current
sentence (Hucklesby and Wilkinson, 2001; Edgar and O’Donnell, 1998), though recent
Home Office research (Ramsay, 2003) reported slightly lower figures. In terms of more
immediate use, using figures from five establishments, Edgar and O’Donnell found that,
in the month before being interviewed, 49 per cent of prisoners had used cannabis and
27 per cent heroin. Research into the regularity of use reported that 64 per cent of pris-
oners using heroin and 68 per cent of prisoners using cannabis did so on a less than
weekly basis (Ramsay, 2003). Overall then, it has been argued that ‘few prisoners
maintain problematic levels of use’, mainly because of the lack of availability of desir-
able drugs, but that occasional drug use in prison is widespread (Bullock, 2003).
Given the prevalence of drugs in the pre-incarceration experiences of prisoners, and
in daily prison life, it would be surprising if drugs had no effect on the prison as a social
system. However, there exists no sustained, contemporary analysis of the role of hard
drugs – heroin being the primary consideration here – in the prisoner social world.
Where drug use has been discussed in relation to imprisonment, the focus has tended
to be on public health implications, particularly around the issue of HIV/AIDS (Keene,
1997; Swann and James, 1998; Shewan and Davies, 2000), and on policy initiatives,
such as mandatory drug testing (MacDonald, 1997; Edgar and O’Donnell, 1998; Gore
et al., 1999; Hucklesby and Wilkinson, 2001; Duke, 2003).
Drugs have also been considered in the context of the debate about whether inmate
458
08_crewe_057122 (jk-t) 2/9/05 9:13 am Page 459
CREWE
Prisoner society in the era of hard drugs
behaviour is better explained through functionalist theories (Sykes, 1958), which see
prison social life as primarily determined by prison specific variables, or importation
theories (Irwin and Cressey, 1962), which highlight the significance of pre-prison and
extra-prison factors. Irwin (1970) related in-prison behaviour patterns to pre-prison
identities, and argued that prisoners involved in dealing and drug use prior to their
imprisonment adapted to prison life differently from other inmates. In contrast, Akers
et al. (1974) found that the amount of drug taking in a prison was more a function of
institutional character than the social characteristics imported by inmates. However, the
character of inmate society and its relationship to drug use receives little attention in
such research. In the more recent literature on some of the broader social dimensions
of prison life, such as violence (Edgar et al., 2003), inmate subculture (Grapendaal,
1990; Winfree et al., 2002) and order (Sparks et al., 1996), drugs feature only paren-
thetically, if at all.
Munson et al.’s (1973) discussion stands out for its explicit concern with the contri-
bution of drugs to the social character of prison life. Primarily focused upon the prac-
tices and logistics of drug distribution and consumption in the Californian prison
system, their account registers the complex social relationships and affiliations that
maintain the contraband chain: for example, the key role of ‘trusties’ in the delivery
system, the importance of friendship and credit-worthiness in securing drugs and the
ambiguous status of the drug user in the prisoner community. The trafficking of
narcotics is also suggested to have a social and psychological function,
for it provides a community activity that binds together, at least the younger cons, into a
working system that exalts cunning and ruthlessness in the service of inmate solidarity [. . .]
it is an exercise in the subversion of the straight world’s morality and power. (Munson et al.,
1973: 197–8)
There are echoes in this statement of Sykes’ (1956, 1958) seminal observations about
the content, function and broader significance of ‘the inmate code’. Sykes identified five
maxims as the tenets of a value system that he regarded as a collective response to the
intrinsic pains of imprisonment. Put simply, these were: don’t grass on other prisoners,
don’t interfere in other prisoners’ business or interests, don’t exploit other prisoners, be
tough, dignified and manly and don’t give respect or credibility to staff. The more that
prisoners adhered to this normative system, Sykes argued, the more they could allevi-
ate the deprivations of liberty, goods and services, heterosexual relations, autonomy and
personal security that imprisonment entailed. Those prisoners who embodied this set
of norms, and encouraged the same collective orientation in others, were the most
admired members of the prisoner population and could operate as inmate leaders.
Beneath them in the inmate hierarchy were a range of social types who sacrificed inmate
solidarity for individualistic ends, for example, by grassing to the authorities, display-
ing weakness or exploiting others physically,...
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