CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2010
| Author | Toth, Herta Zsuzsanna |
|---|---|
| Title | Inequality and Discipline: The Production of Inequalities in a Women's Prison |
| Summary | The case-study of the Kalocsa prison explores the relationship between in-prison inequalities and the prison’s strong emphasis on discipline. With focusing on the internal stratification of the inmate world, the thesis hopes to contribute to Goffman’s analysis of total institutions (Goffman 1961). The thesis sets out to test Charles Tilly’s hypotheses about organizations (re)producing durable inequalities; their tendency to take over existing strong and categorical inequalities out of convenience, which helps them accomplish other organizational work (Tilly 1998). The analysis demonstrates that a robust inmate hierarchy is in place in the Kalocsa prison. While members of the elite are the extended arm of prison administration, a group of women are stigmatized as bad girls and warehoused until the day of their release; while the great majority of women are made disciplined workers. The thesis introduces the sorting mechanisms - e.g. job placement; or placement to cell - and the categories the prison uses - e.g. reliability, presentability - to distribute women in the various subgroups. The analysis uncovers the often direct translation between these internal categories and external inequalities – such as for instance the definition of Roma women as unreliable workers – and the resulting massive inequalities along the prison’s internal hierarchies. The thesis is built on ethnographic and participatory research conducted with women at Kalocsa, the largest women’s prison in Hungary, during the years between 2003 and 2009. The research is based on women’s experiences of imprisonment; the data collected during in-prison interviews and two series of seminars conducted in Kalocsa; as well as follow-up interviews and conversations with women following their release. The key contribution of the research is the demonstration that a prison may produce and reproduce inequalities among groups of inmates in order to reinforce discipline and strengthen its legitimacy. These internal inequalities, if they are identical with existing strong social inequalities outside the prison walls, can remain invisible and strong stabilizing mechanism and may provide low-cost and convenient internal controls. If these inequalities are as deeply institutionalized into the prison’s operations as they are in Kalocsa; these can assist the prison in times of change in adsorbing new principles and in adjusting to the new circumstances without changing the basic disciplinary system. As such, inequalities may be one of the mechanisms that produce carceral clawback (Carlen 2002): prison’s remarkable ability to resist and transform reform efforts so that changes ultimately do not threaten its basic operation. |
| Supervisor | Fodor, Éva |
| Department | Sociology PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2010/sphtoh01.pdf |
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