Section 3: Prisons as Producing Violence

• DOI: 10.1177/10439862221096897
• Published date: 01 May 2022
• Date: 01 May 2022

https://doi.org/10.1177/10439862221096897

Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice

2022, Vol. 38(2) 213 –214

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/10439862221096897

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Essay

Section 3: Prisons as

Producing Violence

Essays

Reflections on Prison’s Soft Violence, by Dr. Jason Kahler

Violence Isn’t Only Physical: Mental Violence While Incarcerated, by Dr. Lukas

Carey

Violent Institutions: The Hidden Brutality Within American Prisons, by Christian

L. Bolden

It’s Been Going On for a Long Time, by Richa

Odoc Fines – The Scars of Our Poverty, by Toby Michael

Incarcerated Reflections, by Andrew Kicking Horse

“Against the Odds” For a Worthy Cause. . ., by Antwann Johnson

Thoughts of an Inmate, by Alex Calderon

Introduction

There is a wealth of literature that chronicles the “pains of imprisonment” (Sykes,

1958) and the devastating impact that imprisonment has on an individual. The overrid-

ing theme of this chapter describes the process by which the culture of prisons produce

and perpetuate conditions for violence. Present across all of these essays in one form

or the other is the notion that the culture created and upheld within prisons not only

provokes but often necessitates violence through adaptation to an inmate code of sur-

vival first explored by Clemmer (1940). This is best exemplified by one of the authors

in this section: “violence breeds violence within these captive walls and inside these

walls lies a different world than what society assembles its citizens to abide by”

(Kicking Horse, this issue).

In the first essay, Dr. Jason Kahler distinguishes between “hard” and “soft” vio-

lence while reflecting on his time at a low-security prison. While hard violence refers

to physical forms of prison violence, covert forms of “soft” violence are much more

pervasive and sinister, disguised within seemingly innocuous daily activities such as

being called to the lieutenant’s office, or exerted through control over the mail room,

and persistent even after release through barriers to housing and employment. Dr.

Lukas Carey observes that while not everyone experiences physical violence while

incarcerated, mental violence is ubiquitous. Christian Bolden also reflects on soft

1096897CCJXXX10.1177/10439862221096897Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice

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