I would like to use a personal experience to expound on this concept of using shame as a social tool. There has only been one time in my life where I was able to live in an environment where everyone knew everyone else, and that was in prison.
I did the bulk of my time in the Booneville Correctional Center. This is where the state of Missouri places all the younger offenders who have less than 15 year sentences; the majority of the inmates were under 25 years old with less than 8 year sentences. The way this prison is set up logistically is not the typical style in which most prisons are; it is not like the ones you see on TV. The main difference is that there are no cells. In B.C.C. most of the housing units hold approximately 100 inmates. The only housing unit that had cells though, was 8house, which was the segregation house, aka "the hole." This is where inmates go who are being punished, because the worst punishment that can be placed on an individual is solitary confinement. In 8house one is only allowed out of his cell two times during any given week and that is to shower, which means an inmate gets out of their cell maybe 30 minutes in a week. The only other human contact is when food is provided through a slot in the door or when a correctional officer is walking down the hall doing head counts and he acknowledges through the door to make sure you are still alive. Oh yea, there is always a bible in the cell too, just in case someone gets bored, but I am not going to go there right now. There is of course the constant sound of all the other inmates in their cells going as crazy as I was whenever I was in there; the noise never stops in there, not ever. Sometimes one has a cell mate, depending on the reason for segregation, but other than that, it is a very lonely place.
Anyways, back to the regular housing units at B.C.C. They are open units, like a military barracks. Just bunk beds going down the two long walls of a room, with small lockers between the bunks. Shared bathrooms and showers; shared almost everything. Typically the person with the bottom bunk gets his locker along the wall near where his head would be and the top bunk has his locker out at the end of the bunk where ones feet are. This means at any time, one can stretch their arms out to either side of their own bunk and touch the neighboring bunks. It is tight quarters, and some of these guys lived together like this for years. There were guys who had been bunkies for years. Each housing unit was designed a little different; sometimes a room would only have 20 to 25 inmates, with 4 to 5 rooms per housing unit while other housing units would have 50 to 60 inmates per room. This is obviously an environment where everyone knows everyone intimately. You cannot imagine all the shenanigans that go on in such a hyper masculinized community.
When I was first released from prison I used to complain bitterly about being out. People would always look at me like I had lost my mind because I was often heard saying "I would rather be in prison!" People never understood this, not even my wife at the time, and we had always been really close. You see there are some major social differences between a close quarter environment and one where no one is held accountable, aka our current society. One of my biggest complaints back then was all the lying everyone does. On the outside people tell lies like it is going out of style, everywhere I went (and this is still true today, I just have gotten used to it, unfortunately!) people would just say whatever they wished, to get their way, to appease others, because they were afraid to tell the truth, the list is endless. You never know who is going to stab you in the back. But you see this never happens in prison, not in B.C.C. anyways. In B.C.C. a liar is shamed to the point that his physical person is in jeopardy if he chooses to lie, you see in a hyper masculinized society nothing is more shameful than being beat up and made to look weak. Sounds counter intuitive huh? The one place where it's nothing but 'criminals' and yet no one lies. You see, in there, if you are caught up telling lies, within a day or two, everyone else knows about it. You should see what happens if word gets out that a pedophile is in town, the whole prison knows within a matter of a day, it gets passed along like wild fire through all the ranks, which means a couple thousand individuals know within hours.
This is important to realize. All those inmates in B.C.C. were for the most part ignorant; none of them were consciously initiating these rules of conduct. A great many of them could not even read. There was not some master mind controlling us, or a leader calling the shots, decreeing that no one lie. It was a simple fact that no one wants to be in the presence of a liar and the main difference between prison and being out of prison, is in prison one can be and usually is immediately punished for lying. It is critical when your surroundings are dangerous because one needs to be able to depend on the word of another. Now, one might argue that no one wants to be subjected to violence either, and this is true, but the majority of inmates were raised violently themselves and are hyper masculinized to top it off, so violence is natural to them. Society made us violent, not prison. It’s true too, that if violence is used outside of the social norm, if it violates 'prison etiquette', consequences immediately follow. To just go beat someone up for no reason, gets you beat up, if for no other reason, than just on principle alone. When everyone knows your business, you cannot offer up lame excuses, you are always held accountable for what you do.
The worst thing to have happen in prison is to lose allies. In a close social network, allies are the most important thing a person can have. And breaking any of the social rules strips one of allies immediately. You are a liar? Then get away from me! You just beat that guy up for no reason? Then get away from me! You’re a pedophile? Everyone get him! The skinniest guy in B.C.C. was a guy we called 'chicken' and it was rare to see him in the chow hall; this individual usually went without food because he was a pedophile. Those with no allies are the ones preyed upon the most by the majority. All humans everywhere establish a pecking order which means the lowest guy on pole gets pecked the most. It is the immediate gratification of social wrong doing. It is a much better way to live. I can honestly say for the first 5 or 6 years that I was out of prison, prison was 100 times less stressful socially. In there, one knows the rules and they know the rules will be followed no matter what. Out here, it’s totally hectic, completely stressful, chaotic, and utterly dishonest. The rules seem to change with each new individual you meet because with millions of individuals free of a social network, they go unchecked.
It is probably hard to see how this creates a much less stressful environment if one has never experienced it. Your probably envisioning all the violence, or thinking you would be getting raped all the time or something. But in B.C.C. they had to have a good reason to do violence without being punished themselves. In prison one can go about their day, routinely, without the fear of being back stabbed, or lied to, or cheated by those that are in close quarters, as long as one has an ally base anyways. Imagine waking up tomorrow, and not having to worry about anyone lying to you? Now of course there are exceptions to this rule, and I am not saying that lying didn't happen; it does not matter where you are there are always people of low character, but at the same time everyone knows those rules too, and if they don't, they learn them really fast. Even the seemingly dumbest of human beings tend to be incredibly smart socially; it is the reason why we have "superior" brains in relation to the rest of the animal kingdom; we are highly social beings. In these tight living quarters, the rules are all well known by all, and followed strictly. 'Prison etiquette' as I used to call it, is much like what you see on TV if you watch Italian Mafia movies. Violence is condoned and being weak is shamed, which means socially it is acceptable to be violent and it is extremely unacceptable to be weak, or maybe it is better to say "soft." It also means that all the social groups within a housing unit has a pecking order too. To try and explain all of these rules in this note would be extremely complicated. The idea that I want to get across is that this way of socializing is extremely effective and comfortable. Imagine a society where people rarely lie, can you even do it? Liars should be sent to prison, it would break them of the habit real fast.
I bet the alcoholic down the street beating his kid at night would not being doing that if we all knew about it. But we don't because his blinds are drawn, he works a full time job, he goes to church on Sunday, we still see him at the park watching junior play baseball, he is a 'productive' member of society. Tucked away safely in his house he can commit any atrocity he wishes and we will never ever know. The pedophile can just move to a different town or city and no one knows they have a pedophile in their midst preying on their children. If these individuals were shamed everywhere they went, they would cease that behavior, and their own brains would do it for them due to the shame. (I don’t remember the book now, but I have read about this, the experience of shame will cause the brain to change, to rewire to avoid the shame) I know so many people in this small community in which I live who do not handle business, that do not take care of their children, and yet everyone just goes about their business like it doesn't happen. This would never happen in prison because that individual would be made to answer for their wrong immediately, or better yet, he would never do it at all because he would know everyone else would know what he was doing. Messed up huh? And yes, one can say, rapes happen in there still, and many other violent things, but these things were put in there by society, these things happened to the inmates first, and that is why they end up in prison in the first place. It is possible though, that the social environment of the Booneville Correctional Center was healthier than the one in which I find myself living now, safer even. I have no idea who the people living in the houses next to me are, I can't count how many people have stabbed me in the back. I know for a fact it is way more stressful living out here than it was in there. Always has been.
But, damn, I like girls!
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