Interview with Kelli Bush, Co-Director of the Sustainability in Prisons Project 3/26/2021
Sypnosis of Interview with Lucas Lopez, Doctorate Student in Sociology 3/28/2021
A fundamental aspect to understanding the benefits that programs like SPP bring to inmates and correctional facilities, is the ways in which incarceration is a dehumanizing experience. My interview subject can speak to this, not only from an academic perspective, but also from personal experience. Lucas Lopez was born and raised in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, New York. The son of political activists, visits from the FBI was a reality he came to understand at a young age. Growing up incarceration was a constant reality. Whether it be a parent, sibling, or relative, most everyone from the neighborhood could connect themselves to someone in prison directly or through a friend. As these children came of age, they began their entrance into the system through juvenile detention or “Gladiator school.” Lucas points out that kids would often lie about where they had been, signaling a beginning of the negative effects on the psyche, due to being separated from the community and labeled a delinquent.
This institutionalization from a young age, allows for a fairly seamless transition from Gladiator school to the Colosseum. By this time, segregation has been established and divisions solidified. The individual understands these divisions by race, religion, gang affiliation, and security level, among others. Lucas points out that individuals will enter the prison system “normal and come out racist,” using the example of a former inmate who recalled it took about a year for him to stop scanning the races in the room. The term racist here is misleading, as it refers more to race consciousness as opposed to prejudices, despite not being mutually exclusive.
This segregation is not by accident, but rather constructed by facilitators. This has two purposes; primarily, divisions ingrained upon prison populations act as a self-regulator. Keeping tensions heightened between prisoners, equalizes the guard to prisoner ratio in favor of the prisoner. If an inmate is concerned about an opposing group of inmates, their focus is taken away from the guards to an extent. This division also achieves the objective of preventing collaboration across facilities. Lucas talks about how inmates organize by educating one another, passing around the texts of Marx and Fanon. Theses teachings could become problematic if it were to create unity among inmates as they realize they have been turned into a commodity to be exploited and those who are exploiting them. This structured segregation furthers the dehumanizing effect, deliberately creating hostile environments. What others may see as self-destructive or criminal behavior, can also be seen as an attempt to hold on to what many incarcerated people understand of humanity. Resisting authority becomes a source of pride, dignity, and a preservation of self when avenues to achieving these goals are removed. Lucas notes that often times, entering a program, whether it be educational, religious, or therapeutic, many individuals have not experienced an inclusive environment where group barriers are broken down. When these barriers crumble, in there place we see collaboration, connection, and community emerge, bringing with it a new sense of pride, dignity and self.