The Supermax Prison: A Blunt Means of Control, or a Subtle Form of Violence?

• In Event: Spectacles of Policing, Crime, and Punishment in the United States

Abstract

Supermaxes are a modern American invention. They are technologically advanced prisons designed to keep individuals in long-term solitary confinement, structurally eliminating all physical, human contact for months, years, and sometimes decades at a time. Supermax designers and prison administrators explain that supermax prisons contain “the worst of the worst prisoners” – those too dangerous or anti-social (or, in many cases, mentally ill) to live in a general prison population. This article explores and challenges the (legally and publicly) accepted idea that supermaxes control violence. Drawing on interviews with and the writings of former supermax prisoners, the article documents the often-invisible ways supermax prisoners experience violence. Indeed, a growing body of evidence suggests that supermax prisoners exaggerate their bodily experiences of punishment, sometimes in spectacular performances. I argue that supermaxes should be viewed not just as tools of violence control, but as tools of violence production. As such, they do not represent either a decrease in the barbarity, or an increase in the civilization of punishment, in the way that their sanitized walls and physically un-bruised occupants might at first suggest. Supermaxes are a novel and uniquely modern form of state violence, and their legal and ethical implications should be reconsidered.

Author

• Keramet Reiter, University of California, Irvine