International Journal on Criminology Volume 3, Number 2, Fall 2015 | Page 27
International Journal on Criminology
On October 7, 2008, Texas Senator John Whitmire, chairman of the Senate
Committee on Criminal Justice, received a call which, he said later, “made me
horribly afraid.” “I know the names of your daughters, a voice said to him, I know
how old they are; I know where they live.” The voice went on to provide precisely that
information—their surnames, first names and addresses.
The person who uttered these phone threats was at least a double, and
probably four-time murderer. He was at the time in a Death Row cell in Polunsky
Prison, 4 southern Texas. He was in theory under close guard, yet Richard Tabler had
managed to terrify one of the most powerful politicians in the state using a smuggled
mobile phone. 5
Among the panoply of contemporary criminal threats, one is particularly
insidious and unappreciated, and that is the crime that abounds within prison walls.
The laws of all countries provide for the deprivation of physical liberty for
specific reasons, with penalties to be served in prisons. 6 These custodial sentences 7
serve to punish and correct the convicted person if possible and prevent them
from further harming society. Yet in prisons around the world, we see astonishing
events unfold, and ever more frequently. We see elaborate trafficking, bloody battles;
individuals already imprisoned for many years being tried and convicted anew,
inside.
A general trend towards leniency and compassion, often in the name of
atonement, has led to the establishment of spaces of freedom, both intellectual and
physical, inside prisons, in the cells and the common areas. Thus, we see prisoners
studying, for example, an activity that is perfectly aligned with one of the stated
purposes of sentencing. Others, however, take maximum advantage of this generosity.
The general increase in prison population density generates a promiscuity which
complicates surveillance and control, while the increasingly collective nature of
crime predisposes the prison population to coalesce into groups.
In prisons, the natural propensity of individuals to congregate together is
enhanced. Where survival in a closed environment requires both discretion and a
capacity to react to immediate violence, it also calls for gregarious cohesion and
discipline. These skills develop according to the pace of life and with time. Each
day allows the inmate to adapt to the environment and its repressive mechanisms.
“Prisoners have twenty-four hours a day to figure out how to beat the system,” as one
prison administrative official has remarked. 8
4
Southwest of Livingston, Texas.
5
Beiser, Vince. “Prisoners Run Gangs, Plan Escapes and Even Order Hits with Smuggled Cellphones.”
Wired, May 22, 2009.
6
According to a generic terminology: Guinchard Serge and Thierry Debard. Lexique des termes
juridiques, 14th edition. Paris: Dalloz, 2003, 457.
7
Decoq, André. Droit pénal général. Paris: A. Colin, 1971, 380.
8
Brian Parry, Deputy Director of the California Prison Administration, quoted by the Santa Rosa
Press Democrat, April 24, 2001.
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