“The intent of the research reported herein was to develop a direct and fairly rapid means of eliciting and scoring inmate attitudes toward the system so as to yield an overall measure of politicization. Specifically, we were interested in assessing to what extent inmates take a 'politicized' view of the socio-political order, seeing the 'system' as a primary causal factor in their criminal activities; and, also, to examine whether the degree of politicization is related to exposure to the criminal justice system. To do this, we constructed an interview schedule that required neither prolonged interviewing of inmates (thus allowing for a greater sample of respondents), nor the administration of pre-structured questionnaire items that might over-determine inmate responses.
A review of the considerable literature authored by self-acknowledged 'political' criminals and by 'new criminologists' identified five major foci of politicization: class consciousness, perceptions of the criminal justice system, acceptance of appropriate ideology, perceptions of the power structure, and beliefs about the law. The calculus of politicization, then, was the degree to which prisoners' 'common-sense' categories corresponded to the 'academic' categories of radical analysts with respect to the five perceptual areas. Neither the accuracy of inmate views nor the likelihood of translating attitudes into action was at issue in this study. The sole consideration was that of documenting the level of politicization revealed by inmates in response to the cues provided....
The interviews were conducted by the co-author, who, at the time of study, was employed as a Classifications Officer at the British Columbia Penitentiary. Sixty inmates were interviewed, twenty from each of three federal corrections institutions in the province - - the maximum security B.C. Penitentiary in New Westminster (now phased out), the Mission medium security institution, and Mountain Institution, a medium-minimum facility in Agassiz, B.C. While these three institutions represented different levels of security, and, to some extent, different types of inmates and institutional routines, they all contained prisoners who had more than a passing acquaintance with the federal corrections system. A total of six refusals over the three institutions indicated general cooperation with the study, and, in many cases, pronounced interest.
Inmates were told that the study was for the purpose of conducting independent university research, that it would have no bearing on their classification, and that it would be confidential. The interviews were held in a classification interviewing office set up for the purpose of asking questions and writing answers. The interviewer knew most of the respondents through his work as a Classifications Officer, and respondents knew that he either knew some of the information requested or had access to it; therefore, there was not much point in lying. In addition to questions corresponding to the politicization indicators, questions were asked pertaining to demographic background data, changes that the interviewees would like to see take place in society, and how these changes might come about. The interview ended with a ten-item current events test in order to permit a rough comparative determination of the level of informational knowledge possessed by inmates. A small 'pre-test' sample was interviewed at the start of the study, which led to some re-phrasing of a few of the politicization indicator questions and to changes in some of the informational quiz items....
Despite gross differences between the socio-economic backgrounds of the study sample and of inmate populations reported in the accounts of major U.S. prison disturbances...[our] findings suggest a fairly high level of politicization, considering the inherent conservative bias in a situation wherein inmates are disclosing their views about the system to a Classifications Officer, regardless of the stated protections. Indeed, in a more qualitative assessment of the data, ten of the sixteen 'moderates' were adjudged to be 'extremely' politicized.
The second hypothesis associating "degree of exposure to the criminal justice system" with overall level of politicization was not statistically supported by a cross-tabulation of these variables. ...the variables correlate positively, except for the number of inmates who had 'no previous exposure' yet who display relatively high levels of politicization. Further analysis of the data showed that the 'no previous exposure' inmates included a disproportionate number of younger inmates, suggesting that younger inmates, socialized in a time of increased exposure of government corruption and malfeasances, particularly around narcotics use and trafficking policies, do not require periods of incarceration in order to catalyze 'political' attitudes.
The findings reported in this quite focussed study reveal a significantly high level of politicization, when it is considered that the factors conducive to prisoner politicization are not conspicuous amongst this inmate group. Even so, over one quarter of the sample were moderately to extremely politicized on the indicators that were applied in order to obtain an overall measure of politicization. A direct relationship between the 'degree of exposure' variable is and level of politicization was not supported by the data, although for older-age groups, previous incarcerations are positively related to level of politicization; moreover, while the younger-age group tends to be fairly politicized prior to or during the initial incarceration, it is likely that subsequent incarcerations will intensify these attitudes, increasing the potential for militancy and broadening the base for recruitment to collective inmate goals.
It is clear from the U.S. experience, however, that whether this will happen does not depend solely on the effects of extended or repeated incarceration, nor on the particular solutions invoked by administrators to quash dissent. The activity of radical groups and prominent individuals outside prisons but working to mobilize inmate protest is probably the vital ingredient in transforming political attitudes into concrete actions and demands. In this respect, Canadian penal administrators are not as hard-pressed as their American counterparts. Populous, powerful, and dissident minority groups indoctrinating recruits and establishing ideological war camps on prison grounds are not endemic features of Canadian society. Canadian prison administrators, therefore, can continue to vacillate between periodic liberalization of correctional practices and occasional clamp-downs. Their main tactical concern is whether to implement policies that provide some legitimate avenues for the expression of inmates' politicized views, or whether to prevent or destroy incipient politicization, bearing the risks of 'non-actionable' prisoner protest. The latter course can be calamitous, but is less likely to result in sustained protest and inter-institutional contagion in the absence of 'outside' constituencies militating against prisons and selective criminalization.”
- R.S. Ratner, University of British Columbia, and Barry Cartwright, “Politicized Prisoners: From Class Warriors to Faded Rhetoric.” The Journal of Human Justice, Vol 2, No. 1, Autumn, 1990. pp. 80-83.
