Aristotle's Prison

Abstract Prisons are full of moral experience. Some of these experiences are positive, but many are corrosive, particularly as sentences lengthen and conditions decline. Drawing on data from rare, outstanding prisons, as well as the depriving majority, the author describes the key differences between survivable, disabling, and enabling prison moral climates. We learn much about the significance of humanity and its absence by studying what goes on in prison. The author shows, based on her studies of suicide attempts, violence, anger, and personal growth in prison, that the life force is affirmed or may be extinguished by the presence or absence of a particular vision of personhood; by I-Thou relations, or a concept of ‘the between’. Our need to be treated as ‘experiencing subjects’ is urgent and visible in prison and true of human lives generally. In I-It climates we become experienced objects, the world becomes mute, sterile, and damaging; and we become devitalised. This book draws on a professional lifetime in prisons research where ordinary human responses to different forms of treatment by others are intensified. The author shows, via creative research methods, where the line between humanity and inhumanity might be drawn. She explains why being treated with humanity and survivability are linked and how, in the face of indifferent or hostile treatment, violent outcomes follow. Human persons need the affirming presence or deep regard of others in order to find life. We all need fairness, safety, and opportunities to develop agency and experience growth. The absence of these ordinary virtues—in and out of prison—endangers survival.