To Be and Not to Be: Adaptation, Ambivalence and Ambiguity in a Danish Prison

doi:10.4236/aasoci.2012.22018

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Advances in Applied Sociology

2012. Vol.2, No.2, 135-142

Published Online June 2012 in SciRes (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/aasoci) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/aasoci.2012.22018

135

To Be and Not to Be: Adaptation, Ambivalence and Ambiguity in

a Danish Prison

Malene Molding Nielsen

Department of Sociolo g y, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, De nmark

Email: malene@molding.dk

Received March 1st, 2012; re v i s e d April 5th, 2012; accepted April 22nd, 2012

In a recent article on Scandinavian Exceptionalism, John Pratt urges that in era defined by a pre-occupa-

tion with penal excess, we need to explore what we can learn from the Scandinavian regimes characterized

by low levels of imprisonment and exceptional prison conditions. This paper complements Pratt’s com-

parative historical work by scrutinizing the realities of people living and working inside one Scandinavian

penal regime. It explores prisoners’ experiences of and adaption to institutional life focusing on imple-

mentation of security and order and the motivational and supportive work. It describes a thriving co-

presence of bewildering realities where prisoners’ adaptation is defined by a straining uncertainty, ambi-

guity and ambivalence, and where moral divides are united in the Modus Vivendi of everyday life. In this

context prisoners are expected to express regrets and aspire to reform by demonstrating they are morally

on course and motivated to commence a life without crime. Instead prisoners mostly use the institutional

reformative stimuli to pursue their own ends that are foreign to the system. The study describes a dis-

crepancy between penal ideals and practices and suggests that penal realities as they are experienced from

within may not match the level of exceptionalism that Pratt observes from the outside.

Keywords: Moral Complexity; Institutional Logic; Adaptation; Ambiguity; Ambivalence; Prison Life

Introduction

In a recent award winning article that reports a comparative

study on Scandinavian penal regimes, John Pratt describes the

regimes as exceptional both with regard to their low levels of

imprisonment and the material prison conditions (Pratt, 2008).

He argues that in an era defined by a pre-occupation with penal

excess, there is a need to change course and focus on what we

can learn from exceptional regimes like the Scandinavian.

While Pratt’s historical analysis and project is both interesting

and sympathetic, it does not, focus on the life worlds’ and reali-

ties of people who live and work inside penal institutions. This

paper complements Pratt’s broad and comparative analysis by

providing a snapshot of a Scandinavian penal regime from

within. It scrutinises prisoners’ experiences of and adaptation to

institutional life as it unfolds in relation to security and control

and the penal supportive and motivational work in a Danish

open prison.

I argue that prisoners’ experiences of a nd adaptation to pr ison

life are first and foremost characterised by ambiguity and am-

bivalence that are enacted by officers and prisoners when they

collaborate on the production of the Modus Vivendi that makes

daily life. It is a Modus Vivendi characterised by pretence,

negotiations, trade-offs and straining levels of uncertainty that

accompany multiple formal and informal agendas and realities

relating to security and control and the motivational and sup-

portive penal work. I explain how, in this ambivalent and am-

biguous penal context, it is difficult to establish a sense of

safety and engage in a dialogue with staff on how to demon-

strate motivation and start afresh without crime. I describe how

prison daily practices make it challenging to distil what is mo-

rally on course from what is morally astray, hence, making

pe nal realit ies—as they are experie nced and enacted fro m wi th in -

painful, uncertain and difficult to navigate. The study describes

a discrepancy between the realities of penal practices and for-

mal penal ideals; a discrepancy that comes with yet another call

to rethink the implementation of punishment.

Adaptation: Doing, Being and Experiencing

There is no single pattern of adjustment to prison life (Crewe,

2005). A wealth of studies have added to the seminal work of

Gresham Sykes and Erving Goffman who emphasised the im-

portance of internally managed deprivations (Goffman, 1961;

Sykes, 1958), and to that of Donald Clemmer who regarded

adaptation as an assimilation process defined by parameters

such as social exposure and time spent in prison (Clemmer,

1958). While contemporary scholars acknowledge the influence

of confinement on identity, they argue that individuals carry

their culture and personal histories with them inside penal in-

stitutions where they are carefully managed (Cohen, 1994).

Place of origin (Crewe, 2009), ethnic affiliation, gang life (Ja-

cobs in Crewe, 2005), personal background, type of crime, age,

networking capabilities and mental health, therefore, also affect

prisoners’ well-being and adjustment (Crawley and Sparks,

2005; Crewe, 2009; Harvey, 2005; Liebling, 1999; Mathiesen,

1965). To this list, I could include penal policies, staff compo-

sition and cultural and historical differences between penal

institutions (Liebling & Arnold, 2004; Liebling & Maruna,

2005). In this article, I will primarily focus on prisoners’ net-

works in- and outside prison and the institutional logic that

accompanies penal policies and interaction.

To explain and analyse how security, control and order, and

aspects of the penal motivational and supportive work shape

135

M. M. NIELSEN

prisoners’ adaptation to and experiences of imprisonment, I will

draw on Annemarie Mol, particul arly, her work on disease (Mol,

2002). In conceptualising ontology as enacted, she merges be-

ing and doing and situates ontology in hospital daily interac-

tions where she observes how Atherosclerosis is done. With

detailed ethnographic observations in and around hospital de-

partments, Mol unravels the co-existent, multiple realities of

Atherosclerosis. She documents how these realities are enacted

differently in diverse departments, but how they are interrelated

in hospital everyday practices where the differences between

them are bracketed, and they make the disease. With Actor

Network Theory and the mathematical notion of intransitivity,

Mol demonstrates how these diverse enactments of Athero-

sclerosis “contain each other” because they are related, i.e., A

includes B and B is also inside A, while, simultaneously, they

are ontologically incompatible (Mol, 2002). It is against this

background Mol argues, it is possible to understand Athero-

sclerosis as more than one disease, yet, less than many.

With her radical empiricist perspective on social life, Mol

does not aim to account for life worlds and experiences and, as

such, her analysis and approach differ from mine. In this analy-

sis I am, nevertheless, inspired by her praxis-related approach

because it allows me to analyse enactments of safety and order

in prison as practices that are co-produced by officers and pri-

soners; practices that are related, therefore, and that include

diverse realities. I identify, at least two, divergent realities that

shape prisoners’ adaptation to and experiences of imprisonment:

one relating to formal penal ideals and practices established to

implement punishment in a secure and orderly environment,

and another relating to prisoners’ codes, conventions and ideals.

Inspired by Mol’s work on Actor Network Theory and mathe-

matical intransitivity, I have been able to unite these realities

that tend to be accounted for and addressed as separate and

distinct in prison research and, as such, this paper offers an

alternative account of adaptation. In drawing on Mol who em-

phasises the enacted nature of social life, I simultaneously em-

phasise and add bodily rooted dimensions to ambiguity and

ambivalence. I so doing, I give primacy to the experiencing

body whilst honouring the realities I observed in prison.

To connect enactments with emotional experiences and de-

scribe how ambiguity and ambivalence come to constitute pi-

votal characteristics of being in prison as a being-in-the-world

(Gieser 2008), I draw on Vinciane Despret, in particular, her

work on emotional theory (Despret, 2004). Despret argues that

in emotional theory, it is difficult to distinguish between cause

and effect because emotional experience belongs to a sphere

where neither world, nor body, nor consciousness can be clearly

separated and distributed (Despret, 2004). Instead she maintains

that the body and what affects it produce each other, hence

tying enactments to emotional life and experience.

Finally, I use Michel de Certeau’s work (de Certeau, 1988)

to describe prisoners’ adaptive strategies vis-a-vis institutional

routines, aims and expectations. In explaining the operations

and manipulations of the dominated, de Certeau scrutinises the

ambiguity that subverted the Spanish colonizers in imposing

their culture on indigenous Indians. Submissive, and even con-

senting to their subjection, the Indians often made of the ri-

tuals, representations and laws imposed on them something

quite different from what their conquerors had in mind (de

Certeau, 1988). They subverted them, not by rejecting or alter-

ing them, but using them with respect to ends and references

foreign to the systems they had no choice but to accept (de

Certeau, 1988).

Research Context and Approach

This analysis is one result of an ethnographic study con-

ducted in a Danish open male prison during a period of 10

months. With a phenomenological understanding of ethnogra-

phy, I acknowledge that being can never be accounted for with

reference to the subject alone. Being is inter-subjective and

related to the world that surrounds us (see e.g. Rendtorff, 2004)

as a being-in-the-world that is fundamental for generation of

data and our interpretations of experience. However, although I

seek to describe prisoners’ experiences of their social existence

and practical activities that phenomenologists would refer to as

the life world (Jackson, 1996), there is a disjunction between

the world and our understanding of it (Husserl in Hastrup,

2005). When I account for experiences, I refer to prisoners’

articulations of experiences as they surfaced in daily interaction

and in formal and informal interviews. As such my accounts are

informed interpretations of my observations and interactions

with people who lived and worked in prison.

Throughout the study period I conducted informal interviews

whilst observing staff-to-prisoner, staff-to-staff and prisoner-to-

prisoner interactions in and around two prison wings1. My in-

formal presence and interviews were complimented by formal

semi-structured interviews conducted with two representatives

of middle management, one with a senior manager and a ran-

domly selected half of the prisoner and officer populations, i.e.,

with 19 prisoners and 13 prison officers. All but one of these

interviews were recorded and transcribed. My observations

were documented, mostly, by the end of each fieldwork day. To

this end, I sought to recall native language and capture the ob-

servational context. The material I present here stems from both

informal observations and conversations and formal interviews.

Although there are important differences between the Scan-

dinavian regimes with regard to penal history, criminal law and

sanctions (Pratt, 2008; Uglevik & Dullum 1212; Graunbøl et al.,

2010), the Danish regime resembles, in many ways, the Swe-

dish and Norwegian as described by Pratt. The Danish penal

regime is fostered on egalitarian values and ideals (Borish,

1991) maintaining that punishment should not go beyond de-

privation of liberty, and that prison life should, to the extent

possible, model life outside the penal context (Engbo, 2005). It

is rooted in welfare state security, has a history of low levels of

imprisonment (Christie, 2001; Kristoffersen, 2010) and, in re-

cent years, it has undergone changes defined by more and

longer-term sentences, a tightening of security and control and

an enhanced focus on demonstrating results. Furthermore, Da-

nish prison conditions are what Pratt would refer to as both

humane and liberal.

In Denmark prisoners, ideally, serve time in penal institu-

tions located in relative proximity to their home town although

the Prison and Probation Service may decide against it if capa-

city is limited or it is otherwise considered unjustifiable. The

relatively liberal organisation of everyday life and the mostly

short geographical distances may account for the importance

attached in this analysis to prisoners’ external networks, and the

extent to which they pursue their own agendas in their engage-

ments with the penal institution.

1These wings did n ot offer any drug, alcohol or related treatment schemes. A

special wing was established to cater for prisoners who wanted to enrol in

such programmes.

136

M. M. NIELSEN

Enacting Security and Threat

As elsewhere, the Danish prison infrastructure and formal

division of labour exhibit penal ideals for institutional interac-

tion. They manifest who guards and who is guarded and, they

direct the construction of persons classified by difference in

social quality and moral character, as Goffman has convinc-

ingly described (1961). While such penal ideals certainly frame

the interaction of the Danish officers and prisoners, other diver-

gent realities characterised by their unofficial nature and un-

written rules have a simultaneous presence. As my interview

transcript below demonstrates, the co-presence of formal and

informal ideals and practices typically surface as trade-offs and

compromises that make the Modus Vivendi of everyday life

and that are accompanied by un-predictability and uncertainty.

James is serving time and contrary to the majority of prison-

ers I meet, James did not have a criminal career and lifestyle

prior to conviction. Therefore, he has no practical sense of what

it takes to manage prison life. While James’ experience is not

surprising, it is illustrative because the tacit and informal rules

and regularities that guard everyday interaction surface when

James violates them and demonstrates his social inadequacies.

James: “I tried to explain, they (the other prisoners) had to

take into consideration I have another background (not crimi-

nal).”

Interviewer: “You said that?”

James: “Yeah. So they slapped my face and things like that

and kept on making all sorts of remarks and things—because

they sensed I am different. I don’t have tattoos or anything...so

I told them; ‘I’m not used to this kind of life.’”

Interviewer: “Were you afraid?”

James: “Yes, I was shocked when he slapped me.”

Interviewer: “Did you defend or protect yourself?”

James: “No. I told him; ‘you’ll not get far with that behav-

iour, I’ll go straight to the officers and report you’.”

Interviewer: “Did you say that?”

James: “Yes, and I actually went into the office and told an

officer what had happened, and she explained how it works in

here. She said; ‘you can’t report an incident like that. If you

want us to react, it has to be more serious—otherwise you’re

just making your own life complicated.’ I got her message be-

cause afterwards several of the other prisoners asked: ‘You

didn’t report the slapping, did you?’ and I replied; ‘Yes, I did,

because I didn’t know what else to do.’ But then it sorted itself

out because my roommate, Danial, he knew Ben (prisoner), and

Ben told them (the prisoners who harassed James) that if they

ever even looked at me again, he and Hans (prisoner) would

make sure they would never walk out of here. That’s how you

have the prisoner hierarchy...so that saved me. I felt threatened,

you know. They always approached me two at a time...”

As should be evident, James’ inexperience reveals itself

when he does not embrace the possibility of earning respect by

demonstrating aggression, strength, fearlessness and a willing-

ness not to submit by striking back (Crewe, 2009; Einat, 2005).

It also surfaces in his initial naive belief in the institutionally

defined authorities and their ability to support him. As one

prisoner, who has spent years moving in and out of prisons, has

it: “From time to time you get people (prisoners) who have no

sense of how you operate in here and there has to be space for

them to serve time as well.”

The interview captures one important event from the begin-

ning of James’ short-term prison experience that comes to in-

fluence the way he chooses to manage the rest of his time. He

does not report fellow prisoners again, and he continuously

spends time securing good-will among inmates hoping this will

earn him respect and protection if he is threatened another time.

James is on guard, socialising and networking and, in so doing,

establishing a sense of safety, order and control.

Like other first time prisoners (Harvey, 2005), James is trou-

bled. Young prisoners without a network or who otherwise

appear vulnerable upon arrival tell stories that resemble James’.

They are stories that point to the importance of creating respect

and defining your position and reputation in relation to the in-

mate social hierarchy. Both officers and prisoners are aware of

this, accept it and act accordingly. James’ Contact Person lite-

rally advices James to leave the incident unreported to avoid

negative sanctions from other prisoners who are likely to think

of him as an informer. Furthermore, James’ roommate refers

James to Ben and Hans, two prisoners with social and eco-

nomic capital, whose presence and reputation in prison guaran-

tee James’ security that officers are not in a position to cater for

at that point.

The incident illustrates key informal principles of the Modus

Vivendi where the real distribution of power is different from

that which is formally claimed because the attempt to realise

power is structurally defective (Sparks and Bottoms, 1995).

Staff make the prison run, but they do not run the prison

(Crewe, 2009) alone: the officer-prisoner relationship is cha-

racterised by reciprocity and officers’ reliance upon inmate

codes and conventions as a means to establish a relatively

peaceful environment for serving time and running daily life.

This comes across, e.g., when older experienced prisoners ex-

plain to me, how they have an interest in maintaining order and

security to avoid the presence of officers on the wing, thereby

making the most of their time and safeguarding a sense of pri-

vacy.

It is, therefore, not surprising that James’ relationship with

prisoners is characterised by ambivalence defined by a simul-

taneous experience of security and threat. Prisoners not only

constitute danger because they threaten him, they (Ben and

Hans) also represent his rescue because they put an end to the

harassment which the officer is not in a position to. It is from

this perspective that prisoners come to surface as strong and

powerful, vis-a-vis staff, despite t heir seemingly weak position.

This does not imply that staff have no role to play with regard

to order and safety. The daily monitoring of prisoners and their

whereabouts, the cell searches and the regular transfer of pri-

soners to solitary confinement exemplify security aspects of the

officer role.

James relationship with staff is not unambiguous either. By

pointing to the importance of developing a positive relationship

with other prisoners, instead of reporting them, and by indicat-

ing there is help ahead, if violence and threats from the other

prisoners escalate, James’ Contact Person offers, on the one

hand, immediate support and potential, although conditional,

rescue. On the other hand, she announces, she is not in a posi-

tion to help James in a situation where he feels insecure and

threatened, hence leaving James in a distressing and ambiguous

place. His interaction with prisoners and staff evokes conflict-

ing feelings that come across, e.g., when he explains; he feels

safe (after three months) but, nevertheless, continues to do

other prisoners favours to make sure they owe him one. In

practice, prisoners’ sense of security, control and order stems

both from the formal ideals and practices of the system and the

M. M. NIELSEN

informal ones that are united in the experience of imprison-

ment.

In discussing how, in emotional theory, cause-effect rela-

tionships blur Despret asks: “am I scared because the world is

terrifying or is the world terrifying because I am scared?” In so

doing, she points to how emotions belong to a sphere of ex-

periences where casual relationships are difficult to distinguish

and neither world, nor body, nor consciousness can be clearly

separated and distributed (Despret, 2004) rather: the world

affects the mind and the mind the world. It is when the body

and what affects it produce each other that Despret argues; we

make ourselves available to the world. Although I recognise

that availability in prison is enforced, I will argue that James’

being in prison is defined in a similar way: he is simultaneously

affecting it and affected by it. He feels both threatened and

secure and he acts on these feelings that come to influence how

he experiences and chooses to manage everyday life. In letting

the other prisoners harass him, James participates in enactments

of threat and, in accepting help from his network among pri-

soners, he enacts safety. Or with Despret’s frame of thinking,

James makes himself available to security and threat. He feels

and enacts secure and threatened, making ambivalence and

ambiguity defining features of his being-in-prison as it unfolds

in everyday life, his relationship with the other prisoners and

with staff. It is from this perspective that ambiguity and ambi-

valence become dominant embedded characteristics of prison

life.

Although James’ story is unique because it simultaneously

points to a lack of network, inexperience and inability to navi-

gate criminal codes and conventions, the thriving co-presence

of ambivalent and ambiguous feelings and enactments also

come across in my i n terviews with other prisoners as a common

feature of their existence in prison.

I also observe ambivalent feelings related to power. An ex-

perienced prisoner, Tim, describes to me how imprisonment

makes him feel powerless and out of control, yet, when we

discuss ethnic tensions on the wing he explains: “...And staff,

well staff, they are actually relieved we (socially powerful

prisoners) are here because we can manage them (ethnic mi-

norities) which they (staff) are not able to.” The reality of

prison life is defined by a complex blend of severe feelings and

beings such as being and feeling powerful and powerless. They

are discrete feelings and beings that co-exist and are connected

in practice because the location of powerful in everyday life is

often also the locat io n of powerless.

With Mol in mind, one could argue that security, control and

order are established and enacted differently by officers and

prisoners because they are guarded by divergent ideals, conven-

tions, norms and practices. With separate value systems, moral

orientations, legal statuses, codes and conventions, and with

different levels of transparency, the criminal world and that of

the penal system are ontologically incompatible. However, their

differences are bracketed in practice where the order and safety

prisoners establish is mostly acknowledged by officers because

it allows officers to operate relatively smoothly and vice versa.

The realities of officers and prisoners are intertwined in prison

life as one makes possible the enactment of the other. As Mol

has it, to be is to be related (Mol, 2002), and it is from this per-

spective that one includes the other. Both officers and prisoners

make order and security, and, in so doing, they become a part

of each others’ realities. As enacted and related realities the

criminal world and penal system and ideals unite in experience.

Although an element of predictability characterises these in-

compatible, yet, intertwined enacted realities, they are also un-

predictable because they are enactments, and as enactments,

they are dynamic and subject to change. It is this unpredictabi-

lity that evokes doubt about what realities frame everyday life

and when. James, e.g., does not know when his experience of

being insecure may qualify for staff assistance, and he never

knows, when he has networked and socialised enough with

prisoners to secure himself.

Adaptation: Internal and External Networks

Whether prisoners are transferred from a maximum security

prison, from a detention or come directly from home, most

prisoners I meet draw on their established social networks when

they settle in. They have a sense of how to operate the criminal

codes and conventions and, therefore, they are better prepared

than James.

While serving time, the adaptation of most prisoners and

their sense of security, control and order depend to a large ex-

tent on their networking capabilities in- and outside of prison.

Danial, a prisoner who was previously a full-time criminal,

pedagogically expla i n s ;

“As in other spheres of life, introduction matters. I’ve a

friend whose friend, Tim, serves time here so when I arrived

my friend asked Tim (an influential prisoner) to receive me. So

when I checked in, Tim called Hans, introduced us and asked

Hans to look after me—that’s why I know Tim now... So if

something bothers me, I talk to Tim about it, and he’ll sort it

out. He has been here a long time... I look after Brian, the little

guy, but I also expect him to do me a favour, if I ask for it.

That’s how it works... In this way, you end up knowing a lot of

people.”

Prisoners hang out in cliques defined by a variety of factors

such as their criminal networks and interests, personal talents,

age and attitude to imprisonment. Apart from providing for

each others’ safety, they use their networks to socialise and

pass time and share information about the informal and formal

workings of the prison and the services it provides. At all levels

in the prisoner hierarchies, prisoners’ use these networks strate-

gically. As Jimmy (prisoner) describes it:

“The older you get, the more you think about what you do,

and if you’re planning to remain criminal, you may think; “oh

well, it’s a bad idea to fall out with him because if I do, I’ll

close the door behind me at the expense of good contacts and

potential business opportunities.”

Outside realities have a strong presence inside prison in

terms of shaping prisoners’ networks, alliances and activities.

In shaping prisoners’ networks, social life and sense of security

inside, outside realities also influence how prisoners interact

with officers, and officers’ abilities to effectively intervene and

comprehend prisoners’ affairs. As realities operating from out-

side, they surface only subtly in the alliances and obligations

that shape prisoners’ networks and that are not always visi ble t o

staff. In penal institutions prisoners are units in a wider network

that illuminate the functionality and usefulness of alternative,

informal networks, rules and approaches to life.

This does not imply that the penal system has no significance

in terms of shaping prison life. Staff composition and profes-

sional orientation, the implementation of new policies or the

public resources invested in penal institutions obviously in-

fluence daily life. In general, however, I observe that staff play

138

M. M. NIELSEN

a limited role when prisoners’ settle in both in terms of their

capacity to intervene—as James’s story illustrates—and also in

terms of providing information to prisoners about prison rou-

tines and life and the possibilities they offer. Whether prisoners

are novices, like James, or experienced criminals, they have to

take into account the multiplicity that characterise enactments

of security, control and order. Furthermore, they have to cope

with the uncertainties, ambiguities and ambivalences that the

intertwined realties generate; realities that prisoners and staff

enact and embody.

Puzzling Dialogue

The first of April 2004 a new penal policy was introduced in

Denmark. In effect the policy rewards prisoners an early release,

i.e., half time, if they demonstrate a special effort to start afresh

without crime. Along with other policies2, this policy provided

directions for the implementation of the Prison and Probation

Service mission: to complete punishment with control and se-

curity, and support and motivate convicts to live a life without

crime through personal and social development (Kriminalfor-

sorgen, 2000).

Although the first of April 2004 policy, in practice, involves

only a fraction of the total prisoner population (RoPaD, 2006-

2009), the way in which prisoners respond to it exemplifies

well how I generally observe prisoners adapt to and navigate

the possibilities and constraints of the penal system. As such,

the response of prisoners to this policy provides a typical exam-

ple of institutional penal interaction relating to the supportive

and motivational work.

The possibilities available for convicts to demonstrate their

non-criminal aspirations typically involve participation in of-

fender behaviour courses, e.g., cognitive skills programmes,

and anger management- and drug programmes (RoPaD, 2006).

Other possibilities relate to prisoners’ educational skills and

their efforts to improve these. The policy, hence cultivates

compliance with the moral values and normative orientation of

mainstream society and the capabilities of individuals to lead a

life without crime.

Prisoners who decide to pursue an early release typically

regulate their behaviour or align it with institutional goals as

they sign up for different programmes or apply for courses. In

so doing, they appear to take responsibility for their own per-

sonal development (see also Bosworth and Carrabine, 2001;

Crewe, 2007) whereby one could argue that aspects of ac-

countability and governance shift from the institution to the

individual prisoner.

Not all prisoners are equally competent or strategic in terms

of the way they choose to navigate institutional possibilities.

Kim, an educated prisoner with a job on stand-by outside, con-

fides with me that he is planning to apply for an early release,

and he had looked, therefore, at ways in which it will be sensi-

ble for him to demonstrate his aspirations to start afresh. But

how do you express will and motivation in a penal institutional

context? With what you say or do, or with what you refrain

from saying or doing? As my fieldnote extracts below illustrate

this is not an easy task.

Kim: “I don’t want to apply for an apprenticeship or a truck

licence—as most people do. I have applied for a course that

adds to the educational background I already have. I have been

discussing this with the prison for months now—the idea be-

ing, of course, eh... I apply for an educational course so I can

get an early release. But I am stuck. When the social workers

here call the Prison and Probation Service at the Municipa-

lity, staff at the Municipality claim they provide financial sup-

port to such courses whereas the social workers and the offi-

cer here (Kim’s Contact Person) argue that, if you already have

an education, the Prison and Probation Service doesn’t sup-

port additional courses. Meanwhile, time passes and now I have

so little time left, it nearly doesn’t make sense to apply any-

more.”

As Kim clarifies his application process has been long and

painful, and when I leave, i.e., ten months after he started to

prepare for an early release, his application is still not processed

or approved, and Kim has served half time months back. I un-

derstand that Kim has had a conflict with the social workers

and his Contact Person on what he experiences as bureaucratic

inefficiency, lack of transparency in decision making processes

and slow progress. When I meet Kim’s Contact Person I learn

that Kim initially told him (the Contact Person) that he (Kim)

would apply for an educational course in order to get an early

release. The Contact Person tells me:

“I told Kim, he has to do something exceptional to get an

early release, and he hasn’t. So, Kim tells me, he’ll apply for an

education in order to get an early release, although, he knows,

he’ll never make use of it. It doesn’t make sense to apply for an

education, if you know, you’ll never use it... so he’ll have to

apply, and we’ll have to reject his application.”

Kim’s story resembles those of other prisoners who staff

come to look upon as unreliable and difficult. They become

prisoners who take advantage of the system; prisoners who

pretend to be, do or want things that do not correspond with

reality, in this case applying for a course Kim does not believe

he will ever use. They become prisoners who staff do not trust

and, therefore, resist. As Kim’s Contact Person rationally notes:

“It doesn’t make sense to apply for an education, if you know,

you’ll never use it...” In revealing that he actually wants an

early release and, therefore, applies for an educational course,

instead of simply and subtly expressing, he is planning to take a

training course because he wants to reform his life or seeks to

improve himself, Kim comes to appear insincere. The applica-

tion process accentuates the image of Kim as a kind of person

who does not subject to collectively defined ideals and ideas of

right and wrong; a criminal who is morally astray.

Similar to the role religion was ascribed by prison reformers

in the establishment of the modern Danish prison during the

second half of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth

century (Scharff Smith, 2003), the implementation of the new

policy extends the moral project of the institution. This is a

moral project where the ideal prisoner is expected to reform and

repent; a moral orientation also observed in recent studies of

social work (Jarvinen & Mik-Meyer, 2003). In this study re-

form refers to a morally informed change in the individual

prisoner towards compliance with collectively defined ideals of

right and wrong. Repent refers to an institutional expectation

towards prisoners to express regret. I will primarily focus on

reform in this analysis.

2Other initiatives introduced in this period included, e.g., the implementation

of a zero drug tolerance with mandatory drug testing; an initiative that like-

wise promoted compliance with rules and regulations (Flerårsaftale, 2004-

2007).

The moral project likewise reflects the orientation of Danish

penal policies from the beginning of the twentieth century and

until the 1970 ties that were marked by a treatment ideology.

M. M. NIELSEN

Crime and deviancy were considered pathological, and crime

was essentially related to the individual rather than to society’s

failure to cater for its citizens and, as a result, it could only be

attended to through treatment and moral rehabilitation. The last

three decades have seen a rejuvenation of the treatment ide-

ology although treatment now has a status similar to that of

education and employment (see also Engbo, 2005).

The moral project emerges as an ideal in staff discussions

and assessments of prisoners, and it surfaces in institutional

expectations, i.e., in what is said, done, rewarded and punished.

For example, upon arrival of re-offenders, or when they leave

prison, I often hear staff saying either: “so you didn’t get the

message,” or “you better learn to behave,” indicating, in a

friendly tone, the moral distinction between staff and prisoners

and the necessity of prisoners to continue to aspire for reform.

While it is possible Kim aspires to reform and regrets his

criminal acts, he does not communicate it in a way that owes

justice to the institutional moral logic and imperative. To ap-

propriately honour the moral project, Kim should ideally ex-

press determination to reform through the choices he makes. In

addition, he should silence any personal doubts about or devia-

tions from institutional ideals; a behaviour that requires strategy,

self-control and discretion. As should be evident from the

fieldnote extracts, you certainly do not reveal the possible miss-

ing link between the relevance or quality of institutionally

available possibilities such as training courses and offender

programmes, your aspirations to reform your life and start

afresh, and your plea for release.

Another prisoner, Hans, convincingly explains how it should

be done. Hans confides with me, he uses other prisoners to

scrutinise and plan the possibilities for an early release; in this

case, a release that includes participation in a training course

outside prison during his last months of confinement:

“When my Contact Person comes, I’ll have everything in

control, you know, so I appear to be a person with a drive; a

person who has a plan, you know, instead of saying—ehh, I

don’t know, what I want, I just want a life where I get out of

prison every day—that doesn’t really work, you know.”

As the extract from my interview with Hans illustrates, most

prisoners are aware how they should appear in order to conform

to the penal moral project. This does not imply that some pri-

soners do not withdraw from contact with staff altogether, but it

implies that those who engage with staff mostly plan their en-

gagements carefully. It also does not imply that prisoners do

not think they might benefit from the educational and other

skills, they may acquire whilst attached to the prison system.

However, they mostly express, they use their participation in

offender or educational programmes to get a good report or to

spend parts of their day outside prison so they can attend to

other interests, in particular, being in regular contact with fa-

mily, partners and friends, or maintain different income gener-

ating activities. It also does not imply, they cannot reveal to

staff their strategic interests or “amoral” thinking. This, how-

ever, is typically done with a smile that frames such utterances

as humorous only.

As my field work progresses, I come to realise that prisoners

are not rewarded with the benefits on offer through penal po-

licies and daily practices if, like Kim, they do not manage to

circumvent the moral project by carefully disguising their aspi-

rations. The puzzling concern related to this observation is, of

course, that Kim transparently reveals what he (and most other

prisoners) intends to do, and that he from this perspective is

both sincere and trustworthy. His transparency and trustwor-

thiness are not rewarded, however, because his intentions are

not considered legitimate and in line with the ideal implementa-

tion of the penal moral project and policy.

In other words, while Kim was punished with exclusion from

society because he did not behave in accordance with collec-

tively defined ideals of right and wrong, i.e., he was unreliable

and jurisdictionally and morally astray—he may have been

rewarded with goodwill or a rapid inclusion back into main-

stream society, had he convincingly pretended to be reliable

and morally on course. Meanwhile, prisoners, like Hans, who

are strategic in their communication with staff; they are the

ones who benefit from staff goodwill and, at times, possibly

also an early release.

As such and in comparison with the penal institutional work

related to security and control, the supportive and motivational

work is also characterised by ambiguity and ambivalence. In so

being, ambiguity and ambivalence not only typify the institu-

tional logic and incentive system, it cultivates specific kind of

clients: prisoners who simultaneously enact and embody com-

pliance and non-compliance.

Adaptive Strategies: Soft Power, Resistance, or

Means to Personal Ends?

If one uses a Foucaudian perspective, it is difficult not to

understand the self governance and endless manoeuvring and

circumvention of the system as a blend of resistance, i.e., reac-

tions to the disciplinary grip of the penal regime, and manifes-

tations of soft power. With soft power I refer to versions of

power that do not constrain, command or suppress the indivi-

dual as much as stimulate the subject, and where the distinction

between choice and necessity is, therefore, blurred (Crewe,

2009; Garland, 1997).

While this is probable, the interpretive road I will take, in

this analysis, is simply to note that prisoners’ compliance and

aligning of their behaviour with the expectations of governing

authorities is, mostly, impression management implemented as

opportunist and pragmatic attempts to pursue personalised ends.

In other words, while penal institutional life clearly is sought to

stimulate individuals to proactively take responsibility for their

own development and improved moral performance, the stimu-

lation mostly, does not imply moral or normative compliance.

Prisoners rather use available stimuli as means to other ends.

Time and again prisoners describe how they use rules and

regulations to advance their own agendas both in and outside

prison. Thomas, e.g., has a small company that he would like to

attend to from prison which has not been easy to organise. Like

many other prisoners, he has used official rules and procedures

to make this possible, and he has had to accept both frustrations

and delays related to the penal bureaucracy. When I meet him,

he has successfully established himself in a position where he is

formally doing an apprenticeship that is being monitored with

control calls and visits while, in reality, and through an infor-

mal set-up, he is attending to his company.

Another prisoner, Frank, describes to me how, in a similar

fashion, he used his high blood pressure as an excuse to get a

cell on his own thereby avoiding to share a cell with a prisoner

he dislikes (prisoners are initially placed in a cell that sleeps

two).

Frank: “When you have been in and out of prison, like me,

you get to know a few tricks.”

140

M. M. NIELSEN

Interviewer: “Yeah?”

Frank: “So I got hold of my General Practitioner (GP) who

wrote, eh, if you know your GP you can sort out things. So the

GP wrote to the prison nurse.”

Interviewer: “And then you what?”

Frank: “Well, then, when I got my pills (against high blood

pressure), I just didn’t take them, and then my blood pressure

went up. So when I went to the prison doctor, well then, I got a

room on my own very fast—cause I needed calm, right?!”

Frank does not question, he has to share a cell with another

prisoner. Instead, he uses one local authority, the prison nurse,

to push for a single room in a way that is considered legitimate

in the penal system. By not taking the pills his GP prescribed,

Frank demonstrates, how his blood pressure rises in relation to

imprisonment, and how, urgently, he needs calm and a room on

his own.

Frank and Thomas have their own references and ends and

similar to how de Certeau depicts the reaction of Indians to

their colonizers (de Certeau, 1988): they make of the rituals,

representations and laws imposed on them something quite

different from what their conquerors have in mind. They sub-

vert them not by rejecting or altering them, but by using them

with respect to ends and references foreign to the system they

have to accept (de Certeau, 1988). In so doing, they deflate its

power and come to appear to escape the regime without leaving

it.

In pursuing their own interests, prisoners draw on their per-

sonal talents, institutional experiences and criminal habitual

behaviour that for obvious reasons promote oppositional values

but that do not necessarily come about as a reaction to the penal

regime per se. While Thomas clearly expresses he regards the

police and the penal system as his enemies, his accounts of how

he handles both in-and outside of prison, respectively, do not

differ radically: both in-and outside prison he acknowledges

their official status and devices strategies to circumvent them.

As such, the adaptive strategies of Thomas, Frank and many

other prisoners bring to light the furtive forms taken by groups

or individuals who make the most of imprisonment.

Concluding Discussion: To Be and Not to Be

In analysing prisoners’ experiences of and adaptation to

prison life, as I have done in this text, the being and doing of

officers and prisoners merge in a praxis-bound ontology at the

expense of a clear moral divide as, e.g., Goffman has described

it (Goffman, 1961). Officers and prisoners become co-partici-

pants in enactments of realities characterised by criminal codes,

conventions and practices, and penal ideals, procedures and ac-

tions. I have argued that these realities with their diverse value

systems, legal statuses, moral orientations, ideals and means of

establishing order and security are incompatible. I have also de-

monstrated how they are intertwined in daily practices where

they are related because one makes possible the enactment of

the other.

The result is, on the one hand, bewildering because we have

lost an ideal conception of right and wrong as each others’ op-

posites where one excludes the other. Furthermore, we have

added a dimension to the uncertainties of prison life, the pains,

by pointing to the doubts that the presence of multiplicity

evokes because it is not always clear what realities are enacted

and when. On the other hand, we have also gained: namely the

necessity to rethink the two as simultaneous and united in the

same locations, i.e. in prison and the enactments and expe-

riences of people who live and work there. In so doing, prisons,

officers and prisoners not only manifest a moral divide; they

also enact a moral sameness that includes moral opposites.

Following this line of argument, it is not a question of being

trustworthy or untrustworthy, right or wrong, sincere or insin-

cere, morally astray or morally on course, but rather a question

of being and not being: a question of being both at the same

time.

With Despret I have connected enactments with experience

making ambiguity and ambivalence pivotal characteristics of

adaptation and being in prison; characteristics that reflect the

multiple realities of officers and prisoners and the relationships

they have with each other.

In adapting to prison life, prisoners draw extensively on their

networks in-and outside of prison to provide safety and collect

information about staff, rules, regulations, daily life and the

possibilities that this offers. In this context, I have argued staff

play only a limited role. I have also argued that although pri-

soners’ adaptive strategies are subject to change, and it is pos-

sible to diversify them, a general picture emerges nevertheless.

In relation to the penal supportive and motivational work, ad-

aptation mostly comes with a circumvention of a penal ideal

moral project that staff assess prisoners in terms of, i.e.: by

rewarding those who comply with it and resisting those who do

not.

The moral project provides an institutional imperative and

logic that, together with the implementation of penal policies,

seek to stimulate individual prisoners to take responsibility for

a morally aligned future and life. I have explained how pri-

soners mostly do take responsibility for their lives, however, in

ways that are foreign to the penal system and its moral ideals.

By pretending an alliance with institutional ideals, prisoners

circumvent the moral project while, simultaneously, using in-

stitutional stimuli to pursue diverse individual ends. Against

this background, I argue that prisoners deflate institutional

power and appear to escape the regime and its ideals without

leaving it.

I have also argued that in this context, institutional interac-

tion can be perplexing when prisoners are met with staff resis-

tance because they do not manage the art of convincingly pre-

tending moral alliance, whereas prisoners who pretend with

conviction are rewarded with good will. This typically happens

when staff comes to regard prisoners as morally astray, insin-

cere and untrustworthy because they communicate intentions in

ways that do not honour the institutional logic and policies. It is

against this background, staff appears, simultaneously, to im-

plement ideals and policies that promote moral rightness and

incentives schemes that favour those who are morally astray,

hence, adding layers of ambiguity to prison life.

Although the Scandinavian regimes expose exceptional cha-

racteristics through their extraordinary good material conditions,

their low levels of imprisonment and their ideal emphasis on

punishment as deprivation of liberty only, these regimes may

also come with additional challenges, as this analysis demon-

strates. Prisoners’ experiences of and adaptation to prison life

are characterised by a striking lack of clarity that unveils a dis-

crepancy between penal institutional ideals and practices; a

discrepancy that calls for a rethinking of the implementation of

punishment that is visionary and relevant because it reflects an

awareness of penal everyday realities as they can be observed

from within.

M. M. NIELSEN

142

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