Violence Isn’t Only Physical: Mental Violence While Incarcerated

• Date: 01 May 2022
• DOI: 10.1177/10439862221096733
• Published date: 01 May 2022
• Author: Lukas Carey

https://doi.org/10.1177/10439862221096733

Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice

2022, Vol. 38(2) 221 –224

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/10439862221096733

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Essay

Violence Isn’t Only Physical:

Mental Violence While

Incarcerated

Dr. Lukas Carey

You see the heading violence and I bet you are thinking something physical, I am

heading in a different direction and have viewed some extraordinarily mentally and

emotionally violent people that have inflicted untold damage to many. The violence

people experience mentally during incarceration is individual to all, but I propose that

not a single person leaves incarceration without the additional and possibly more dam-

aging scars of mental violence. The mental violence that occurs in prison and the dam-

age inflicted, regardless of their mental and emotional strength is a paramount story to

why many things happen here. The mental damage and anguish on the loved ones of

those inside is also immense and is something I will discuss later in this essay.

The mental violence experienced by everyone that grace the walls of incarceration

varies. To be isolated from family, friends, social interactions and depending upon the

facility often, daylight, exercise and fresh air takes its toll. I understand that people

who commit crimes are inside due to their actions, but getting through each day

requires the strength of Hercules as the toll of the mental violence being dispatched

upon them takes its toll. Nothing can be simulated to explore this violence and the

damage from it and more importantly the only way it can be shared and explored is

through lived experience and ethnographic pieces like this.

The large majority of staff encountered while incarcerated and also many of the

inmates come across as respectful people that treat you the way you treat them. There

is however a small amount of both who do not and use whatever physically and men-

tally violent means possible to try and assert their will over you. The ways in which

this mental violence occurs is often barbaric and takes an immense toll on your mental

and emotional wellbeing.

The stress from this mental violence from officers and inmates on top of being

incarcerated is often overbearing and is highlighted by the reality that you can’t just

slip away for some time to yourself to process as you could on the outside. No matter

where you go there is always noise, people and others who are suffering as well. Don’t

get me wrong there are places in which you can try and escape such as the garden or

gym but with these places so few and far between and the access times available to

visit them being limited often the noise makes it busier than what you’re trying to

1096733CCJXXX10.1177/10439862221096733Journal of Contemporary Criminal JusticeCarey

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