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. 22