ABSTRACT
How do you measure the success of supermax prisons, and what criteria should be used for evaluating their operation? One obvious measurement is their success in achieving their declared objectives, which emphasise controlling violent and disruptive prisoners and managing risk. As we will recall, it is claimed that by removing ‘predators’ from the general prison population and holding them in solitary confnement in separate, specially designed facilities (the
‘concentration’ model), the entire prison system will be safer. Security arrangements in general-population prisons can then be relaxed and programme delivery improved, enabling prisons to operate without disruptions while maintaining prisoner and staff safety. Consistent with this line of reasoning and with ‘new penology’ discourses, one supermax administrator suggested that
You measure the success of supermax based on the ability of the rest of the prison system to programme in a functional manner … that the majority of time the inmates are allowed to go out to their programme – to go to work, to get education, to be out on their yards without having to suffer violent activities out there.
