ABSTRACT
The trend towards risk governance encompasses all sorts of organizations and both sorts of power. Increasingly, considerations of risk direct the programmatic attempts to shape behaviour on a day-to-day basis. The implications are different depending on context. In the global financial sector, risk governance involves self-regulation, standard-setting, and mutual trust (Alexander et al. 2006). But it may also imply the opposite: state regulation, fixed rules and distrust. Risk governance of institutional order in the prison is associated with the latter characteristics. Given that, generally, ‘risk is the way organizations make sense of their environment and act upon it’ (Ericson 2007a: 11), how does the Swedish prison service communicate risk to make sense of its environment and act upon security threats? This question will be pursued in this chapter. It assumes that a change occurred in the 1990s. In Sweden, as in many other countries, the introduction of risk technologies in the prison system involved a fundamental reorganization of repression. In their study on prison order, Richard Sparks, Anthony Bottoms and Will Hay note that ‘the nature of the “game” has changed’ following the implementation of techniques that appear ‘to offer powerful tools for modernizing archaic practices’ (Sparks et al. 1996: 94). As a consequence, the conditions of incarceration, as they come to form daily life for the individual inmate, are now the end result of a complex series of assessments and selections based on the risk of disorder. In this particular case, and in the case studied in the next chapter, the state’s prerogative to use force is not triggered by actual rule violations, but by the anticipation of such violations. The assessed risk that somebody might violate a rule is sufficient ground for the use of force. In administrative practice, this involves a shift of attention from the rule violations themselves to a universe of high risk populated by a whole range of signifiers, factors and indicators. The prison punishment is not the same for everyone. While the court
determines the length of prison stay, the prison administration decides on any further use of force, that is, the specific deprivations of the inmate’s liberty that are imposed in addition to the sentence. Taken together, they constitute
the conditions of incarceration. By ‘conditions of incarceration’ I mean, first, the restrictions pertaining to the building where the inmate is placed. The physical security of the building, the fixed security systems attached to it such as fences, closed circuit television and detection systems, as well as the accompanying security regulations, restrict the inmates’ freedom of movement and communication. Higher security translates into more restraints; being placed in a wing with a higher security level means more extensive restrictions on the ability to move and communicate. Second, there are restrictions pertaining to the individual inmates. Prisoners on the same wing may differ from one another in terms of restrictions on furloughs and other periods outside prison, or the possibilities of transfer to a prison with more open conditions. Finally, there is the varying frequency of physical controls, such as urine screening, cell inspections and body searches. Physical control routines differ widely within the prison system. The conditions of incarceration are constituted by this combination of restrictions pertaining to the wing, restrictions pertaining to the individual and physical control routines. In general, a prisoner serving a long prison sentence and with many
documented acts of misbehaviour is likely to be incarcerated under more closed conditions than a short-term prisoner with few reports of misbehaviour. But as will become apparent, many other circumstances are considered to be of significance for the risk assessment that underlies decisions. The resulting set of restrictions differs substantially from inmate to inmate. On the one hand, there are very open forms of incarceration. A prisoner placed in an open prison who is admitted into the work release system has a relatively high degree of freedom of movement and is not, or is only very seldom, subjected to intrusive physical controls. The prisoner can leave the prison during the daytime and is able to communicate freely with the outside world. At the other end of the spectrum, there are extremely closed forms of incarceration. High-risk prisoners are placed in maximumsecurity wings, with severe restrictions on their ability to associate with other inmates or to communicate with individuals other than members of the family. Urine screening, cell inspections and body searches are more frequent, and opportunities to spend periods outside prison may be completely withdrawn. Between these two extremes, there is a wide range of conditions of incarceration. One could speak of a spectrum of conditions of incarceration. Prisoners find themselves somewhere on this spectrum, depending on their combinations of restrictions. In practice, the conditions of incarceration, in the sense outlined above, are intertwined with access to amenities, treatment programmes and service supply which might also be regarded as part of the conditions of incarceration. Indeed, one could argue that the conditions of incarceration differ not only in terms of restrictions and controls but also in terms of inmate access to amenities and services. Yet the restrictions belong to a conceptually distinct category of repressive interventions. Decisions on restrictions, moreover, constitute part of a separate risk
communication system. Determining the service provision, on the other hand, constitutes part of the rehabilitation strategy and of the risk communication system operating within that strategy. The interventions must also be distinguished from the use of force that
serves as punishment for rule violations. The conditions of incarceration are not a punishment for transgressions but constitute an administrative use of force grounded in a risk assessment of the individual inmate. There is a separate disciplinary system in the prison service that targets those who actually violate regulations (CPT 1992; KVVFS 2005). The disciplinary sanctions mainly involve postponements of the release date. In 2003, the prison service decided to prolong stays in prison by a total of 27,000 days distributed across 3,300 different occasions, as sanctions for disciplinary offences (KVS 2004a: 83). In each case, a decision is taken following an investigation of the rule violation, in which the inmate may dispute the accusations. The distinction between disciplinary sanctions and the conditions of incarceration is not always sharp. In particular segregation (solitary confinement) and forced transfer to another prison are located in something of a grey area between the two. Both interventions are frequently used; in 2003, 4,800 decisions were issued on segregation and 2,300 on forced transfers (ibid.: 83; SOU 2005a: 323). These decisions need not be based on a violation of the rules specific to the institution. Legally, segregation is not a disciplinary sanction. A prisoner may be placed in solitary confinement for administrative reasons, to preserve order, or on the basis of a risk assessment. Yet segregation is often perceived as a disciplinary sanction by inmates. ‘Placement in the Unit PI at the Tidaholm Prison,’ wrote the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, ‘was perceived as a punitive and often arbitrary measure by the vast majority of inmates interviewed on this subject’ (CPT 2004: § 69). If the statement holds true, segregation works as an informal disciplinary sanction – as a punishment for unwanted actions that are not formally prohibited. The same applies to the use of forced transfers to another prison. Although not legally disciplinary sanctions for rule violations, they can be used in a way that is reminiscent of disciplinary sanctions. In this chapter, I will first account for the way drugs, personality disorders
and prison gangs are conceptualized as threats against prison order at the policy-level, and then the way these threats are broken down into guidelines and balanced against other administrative concerns to culminate in the goal of an individualized prison term. The drive to individualize repression questions a common theme in the literature on imprisonment: the warehousing of collectives. Entire social groups may be criminalized, but the prison service has not abandoned its interest in the individual. The section on targeting analyses the way in which the conditions of incarceration are in practice tailored around individuals. The process involves three steps: referral to a risk category, the individualization of the control level, and the
accommodation of new information. The management of the risk of disorder is then followed up through the organization by statistical reporting routines and special auditing bodies. The prison staff are integrated in the governance of risks by means of a triple process that turns risk of disorder into rules for decision-making; makes the decision-making visible for inspection; and monitors the rule compliance of the decision-making retrospectively. In the concluding part, I will raise the question of what directs the use of power, arguing that it is one and the same thing throughout the strategy. The firstorder control of the inmates as well as the second-order control of the staff is directed by the risk of disorder. Finally, I will discuss how the first-order interventions relate to the assumed characteristics of repressive power (R1R4). The conclusion that risk rather than law directs the use of force calls the legal paradigm of repressive power into question.
