#systems of control

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Internalized Repression “Predictably, where increasing politicization combines with increased institutional repression, the situation has taken a violent turn. The 'contemporary prison' (Irwin, 1980) of the 1970s in the U.S. degenerated into a racial-ethnic battleground with inmate cliques and gangs organized apolitically for the purposes of defense and attack. This new mentality erupted in Canada with the bloody escape attempt and hostage-taking at Archambault Institution, Quebec, in 1982, where the number of long-term prisoners and inmates subject to special security precautions had been steadily increasing (Amnesty International, 1983). But while serious prison disturbances continue to occur, the political consciousness of prison inmates in both the U.S. and Canada has plainly eroded. As in the 1950s Big House era, inmates, especially in the context of increasing inter-personal violence, are simply trying to survive. It is unsurprising, therefore, that prisoners are distancing themselves from the contradictions and futility of their situation. For many, a fatalistic attitude prevails which blurs any meaningful distinction between those condemned to live inside prison walls and those who believe themselves to be beyond the shadow of the penitentiary. As one inmate stated in deprecating the goal of 'freedom' (expressed by Matsqui Institution inmates at the Matsqui Educational Institute, January 24, 1985):

What we have in here is our future. Soon they'll have as intensive a surveillance out there as they do in here. We'll all be in this situation soon. This place is just a 'testing ground' for the surveillance devices that will be used outside, everywhere.

In this Orwellian void, prisoners content themselves with meagre hedonistic pleasures, preferring institutional 'privileges' to vain protest. The logic of repression is internalized precisely because it is pervasive and inescapable. Conversely, the attempts by correctional staff to obstruct politicization are not understood by themselves as a calculated conspiracy, but as earnest attempts to re-integrate the offender into the larger 'social order'. The problems facing people are the same on the outside as on the inside;i.e., everyone could either see himself as behind the societal eight ball or can decide to pick himself up by the bootstraps.

And should prisoners fail to make the required adjustment, "common-sense' logic dictates an ironically smug explanation - - "Why expect prisoners to become social in the prison when they haven't been social outside it?" But it is not only prisoners and their keepers who have embraced resignation in the wake of stifled revolt. Radical criminologists, too, have lowered their sights, confessing to a romantic overestimation of the revolutionary potential of the prisoner movement. Staunch 'liberal' criminologists, while granting the reality of massive social injustices, argue the need to persist in the struggle for reforms that would mitigate the specific injustices of the correctional system. A newer breed of sociologists question the very possibility of change, citing the ubiquity of power as evidence of the haplessness of revolt. Amidst this intellectual default, criminologists are drawn deeper into the vortex of state control, fashioning theoretically specious analyses  which lay to rest the faded rhetoric of prisoner protest in the 1980s”

- R.S. Ratner, University of British Columbia, and Barry Cartwright, “Politicized Prisoners: From Class Warriors to Faded Rhetoric.” The Journal of Human Justice, Vol 2, No. 1, Autumn, 1990. p. 86-87.

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Bounded Choice with Dr. Janja Lalich

10 May 2023 Cult Education with Lauren Marie

What’s the real reason why cult leaders love to tell you that you create your own reality (hint: it’s not because they’re empowering you)?

An international authority on cults, Dr. Janja Lalich joins me today to discuss her paradigm of Bounded Choice, how to recognize if you’re in a coercive control group, and some tips for getting out.

Dr. Lalich’s four dimensions of “bounded choice” are:

Charismatic Authority

Transcendent Belief System

Systems of Control

Systems of Influence

These 4 aspects combined with the indoctrination program make it nearly impossible for people inside coercive control groups to make any choices that are not aligned with the leader or group.

Find out more about Janja’s nonprofit, the Lalich Center On Cults and Coercion, a collaborative approach to cult information and recovery; and learn about their classes and discussion groups by visiting: https://lalichcenter.org/

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“Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, 'ghosting', or the practice of transferring prisoners from one prison to another, was used increasingly as a means of control. Initially, transfers tended to be used mainly in the wake of disturbances to split up the participants. By 1990, a television documentary revealed the extent to which ghosting had become official policy. In the 'ghost train' system of such transfers, authorized by Home Office Circular 37/90, a governor was allowed to move to a local prison for 28 days any prisoner suspected of causing disruption, a practice condemned by the National Association of Probation Officers (NAPO) (Campbell, 1991, p. 4).  .... [These] sudden transfers or 'ghosting' formed part of the tactics of control though constant disruption to prisoners' sense of group identity. The prison officer in charge of the punishment block at Arrnley prison, a local prison in Leeds in the North of England catering for over 1100 prisoners in 1979, described how staff prevented those whom they anticipated would fight the system from becoming trouble-makers:

The way we stop the subversives is by getting in early and shanghaiing them before the roof blows off. It's known round here as ghost training. When the security officers get wind of what's going on, we make a plan to grab the ringleaders when they aren't expecting it, when they're on their own. Get them straight out under guard into a taxi and whip them away to another institution. Keep 'ern on the move. (Kettle, 1979, p. 294)

- Robert Adams, Prison Riots in Britain and the United States. Second Edition. Consultant Editor: Jo Campling. London: MacMillan, 1994. p. 155, 182.