Under the Penal Gaze: An Empirical Examination of Penal Consciousness Among Prison Inmates.

摘要

This dissertation develops a new theoretical framework that examines the ways in which prisoners orient to and make meaning of their punishment in order to more fully understand the nature of penality writ large. The framework, which I call penal consciousness, moves beyond the limited, objective view of punishment as legal sanction to a more expansive view of penality that privileges subjectivity and meaning. Through the inductive analysis of 80 in-depth, qualitative interviews with Ohio state prisoners, I investigate the ways in which penality defined here that which is experienced as punishing or recognized as punishmentis understood by different populations of prisoners in different carceral settings. This design allows me to examine the patterned nature of punishment across populations (male and female prisoners) and settings (traditional indirect and innovative direct supervision carceral environments) while setting the stage for a broadly applicable theoretical framework. The penal consciousness framework examines punishment along two key dimensions: salience and severity.