Merleau-Ponty by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Published: 2015-03-14T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

INHABITING THE HOUSE THAT HERMAN BUILT: MERLEAU-PONTY AND THE PATHOLOGICAL SPACE OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

Lisa Guenther

The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature

To be a body is to be tied to a certain world. . . . Our body is not primarily in space, but is rather of space.

—Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception

Solitary confinement in prison can alter the ontological makeup of a stone.

—Jack Henry Abbott, In the Belly of the Beast

Since the mid-1980s, supermax prisons have multiplied across the United States, with at least 57 supermax facilities in current operation and approximately 80,000 prisoners held in extreme isolation for 22–24 hours a day.1 The rapid growth of the supermax prison industry both reflects and helps to accomplish a shift in US penal policy from the goal of rehabilitation to the task of perpetual control. Critics call supermax prisons control prisons,2 warehouse prisons,3 and even “cold storage” for prisoners.4 Advocates of supermax prisons portray inmates as “the worst of the worst”: serial killers, rapists, and terrorists who pose an incontrovertible threat to society at large, and even to other inmates. But in practice, many people who are convicted of nonviolent crimes end up in control units as a result of breaking prison rules or because they are presumed to be members of a gang. A disproportionate number of these prisoners are people of color, and many are labeled as “security threats” because they are politically active or perceived as “leaders” within the general prison population.5 Once an inmate has landed in a supermax unit, it can be extremely difficult to get out; even minor infringements or perceived infringements of prison rules can set back one’s date of release into the “mainline” or general prison population. Decisions about so-called “administrative segregation” are made internally within the prison, without the presence of judges or lawyers, and so the prisoner is at the mercy of prison officials who may or may not be sympathetic to her case.6

What is it like to be confined in a supermax unit? A typical control unit or security housing unit (SHU) ranges from 6 x 8 feet to 8 x 12 feet. It is usually painted white or pale gray to reduce visual stimulus. Furnishings consist of a bed, a table and seat, a toilet, and a sink—all bolted into place. There is a slot in the door, called a trayport or cuffport, through which food trays are exchanged and the prisoner’s hands are cuffed or uncuffed. There are either no windows at all or just a small, high window that lets in light but does not afford any view of the outside. Fluorescent lights are kept on twenty-four hours a day, and surveillance cameras are continuously running. In many supermax prisons, inmates communicate with guards through intercoms; some even employ “tele-medicine” and “tele-psychiatry” sessions to minimize direct contact between inmates and staff.7 Prisoners are confined in solitude for 22 to 23.

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