Book Review- A Sin Against The Future: Imprisonment In The World

Vivien Stern
Northeastern University Press 1998 407 pages
ISBN 1-55553-362-0

What is the purpose of prison? This is the primary question that Vivien Stern will echo throughout the book. Depending upon what section of the world you are reading about, responses may vary. Prison is different for countries in Europe, with older prisons, and Africa, like Kano in Nigeria and Robbens Island in South Africa. Her research has determined that the purpose of prison can be punishment, torture, changing unfavorable behavior, isolation, death, or coercion into submission. Although prison conditions differ in the east/west hemisphere between men and women, and varying levels of security, imprisonment is not in the best interest of our future.

A Sin Against The Future: Imprisonment In The World is a valuable document that has been compiled over a period of years. It is a genuine effort to review the use of the penal institution within the criminal justice system and to examine the abusive treatment of prisoners. America is a world leader in prison construction, known as the industrial complex, and the US prison population has grown from 500,000 in 1980 to over 2,000,000. This is occurring even though FBI reports a decrease in violent crime. A vivid expose of the prison (federal and state) and jail system in this country is available for the reader in the chapter "The Great Incarcerator: The United States," where 3 states (California, Texas and New York) have a larger prison population than most European countries. Super-max prisons and control units have been designed to further isolate and brutalize the incorrigibles from the general inmate population.

In 1996, the United States imprisoned 615 per 100,000, while Russia has 690 per 100,000 in chains. The author points out that America has an image of freedom and liberty, yet the barbaric treatment of human beings in an over $40 billion (annual) industrial complex is atrocious, though highly profitable. Russia certainly has a history of imprisonment, physical suffering and exile. Leo Tolstoy, a noted Russian author, offers descriptions of the lengthy journey on filthy trains and the final walk in leg irons and handcuffs to prison. Both Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn wrote about the primitive conditions in the Siberian prisons and although such writings reflect different eras, very minor changes have been made. The Russian system was based upon punishment and many human beings were banished to desolate areas, never to resurface. Butyrka prison was built in 1771 and Tolstoy wrote about it in Resurrection. Solzhenitsyn was confined there in 1946. Sickness and disease continue to be rampant in the "Gulag" system, most notably Kresty prison in St. Petersburg.

China has a complex system much like Russia, with 684 prisons holding over 1.2 million prisoners. In comparison, Japan has 45,000 in 59 prisons and enough space for another 19,000. Japanese prisons are authorized by a 1908 law and does not recognize any rights of prisoners. During a typical morning cell search, the prisoner must squat on heels (silently) in the corner during the entire ordeal. The human rights watch in 1993 determined that punishment in Japanese prisons was too restrictive, as the bar federation states "...officials force upon the inmates the feudal ethos of shame and munificence."

Prisoners are nameless and faceless, merely a number. They may spend many years in an abnormal environment without physical human contact, interaction by a loving cadre of family/friends, or positive recognition from peers about their existence. Support is very limited and the majority of prisoners suffer indignities daily at the hand of the authorities and other prisoners, and a percentage may not survive the physical and emotional abuse of imprisonment. In this book, several survivors are introduced to display the resilience of freedom fighters and men of vision. Nelson Mandella of South Africa and Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic are examples of successful navigation within the prison system and lived to write about the experience. Both eventually became presidents of their country.

Success stories are very rare in the prison system, and there are not many in this book. Recidivism is high. Instead, the reader will discover that human beings are destined to fail again, upon release, because no systemic effort is made to prepare one to return to society as a contributor.

To violate societal law has never been a significant moral dilemma for those intent on criminal behavior. It's the shame of being caught: public humiliation, that prevents a segment of the world population from involvement with criminal activity. Continual shaming of the convicted felon, by hanging labels around the neck, however, undermines many rehabilitative efforts. What is the impact of referring to a convicted murderer as "teenage killer" thirty years after the offense? Convicted felons are prohibited from voting in political elections and obtaining employment in community agencies receiving public funding. Reintegrative shaming, a term used in the chapter "A Better Way" is the process of disapproving specific behavior, invoking sanctions, practicing forgiveness and returning one to the community. As long as the offense is the focal point, the individual offender will never be welcome home again.

Vivien Stern does an excellent job presenting the capital punishment issue and the world attitude about life sentences. The issue of racism in the criminal justice system, the treatment of women and the taboo subjects of drugs, sex and violence in prison are explored in the various chapters. I believe the major point in A Sin Against The Future: Imprisonment In The World is that one can't be prepared to live in society, while being abused in captivity. The prison sentence is the punishment and prisons should be geared towards rehabilitation, as well as reducing crime, instead of contributing to the prison industrial complex and the privatization of human suffering.

Review written by Arnie King from a Massachusetts prison cell which he has occupied since 1971. He can be contacted by writing

throughbarbedwire@yahoo.comor Arnie King, Bay State Center, Box 73, Norfolk MA 02056