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Edney, Richard --- "Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing by Ted Conover" [2000] AltLawJl 116; (2000) 25(6) Alternative Law Journal 313

Reviews

Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing

by Ted Conover; Random House, New York, 2000; 321 pp; $US19.95; hardcover.

Ted Conover's Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing may become a minor classic in prison sociology. The author has developed a well-deserved reputation for the use of the relatively neglected social science research method of participant observation in his work. He brings to the prison site a forensic eye and an anthropologist's understanding (the author has a Doctor of Philosophy in anthropology) that is often forsaken in criminology and other disciplines which have attempted to 'know' the prison. This particular account of prison life is fresh, innovative and, unlike most understandings of the prison, does not attempt to claim to know how the prison would work better, nor outline in a prescriptive manner how the ideal prison would function. Instead, Conover's aim is more limited and he seems more interested in providing the reader with a privileged, or insider's view, of the prison environment.

Although this work is not academic in the strict sense, this is often the case with the research method of participant observation, as classic sociological texts on institutions such as Gresham Syke's The Society of Captives (1958) or Erving Goffman's Asylums (1961), demonstrate. Newjack does, however, provide an excellent understanding of the life of a correctional officer in a maximum security prison in late 20th century America. It is also a welcome addition, or counter point, to the works of prisoners who have painted the experience of imprisonment in great detail through the medium of writing. And like the writings of prisoners, it provides an unmediated perspective on the social order of the prison and the relationship between the two key groups in the prison environment: prisoners and correctional officers.

Conover's concern seems to be to describe a social world that is hidden and discrete, where access generally is by way of offending or, by doing one of society's dirty jobs, being a correctional officer. Conover chooses the latter option. The result is a work of great detail and discernment. It allows those who may never have the opportunity to enter a prison to imagine that world without relying on stereotypical thinking or caricatures of prisoners or officers as individuals seemingly predestined to act in a certain manner. Thus Conover's book conveys in a fascinating way, and in stark relief to traditional understandings of the prison put forward by criminologists and others, the complicated social world of the prison.

Newjack presents a first-hand extended account of how the prison social order operates in a late 20th century prison in the United States. Daily prison life is described as more problematic and uncertain than is often the case. The reader is also referred to the history of Sing Sing Prison itself and to other more general texts of punishment to place the management regime at Sing Sing in proper historical perspective. Newjack provides a contemporary account of prison life with its gang violence, overcrowding and highly bureaucratic structures for both staff and inmates. However, it also shows how meaning is created in that environment so that both groups can get by and deal with the problems thrown up by the contradictory nature of that order.

The moral nature of the prison order is presented with great clarity and the issue of agency, in particular for correctional officers, and how it is mediated by the exigencies of the prison environment, is also thoroughly explored. What is clear for Conover is that in the real prison world, rules and their application are not quite as they should be. Their implementation is more about pragmatism and a desire to protect one's actions from reproach by supervisors who would seek to lay blame and responsibility at the lowest level of the staff hierarchy. Conover masterfully describes the culture that develops in such a setting where the aphorism 'cover your ass' becomes the working ideology for correctional staff.

We see Conover's obvious frustration with the transition from correctional officer training school to the day to day reality along the wings of the divisional block at Sing Sing as he attempts to enforce the prison rules. He soon learns the nature of power in the correctional context. While the author notes early on the extent to which inmates outnumber staff, he also explains that the rule of prisoners by correctional staff is not achieved by the rigid enforcement of rules. Instead it is through the pragmatic use of that power and a realisation that correctional staff must continue to deal with prisoners in an ongoing relationship and negotiate their power relationship because of that indubitable fact.

Getting access to correctional institutions has often been difficult for students of the prison. In Newjack, Conover avoids this problem because he enters the prison as an employee correctional officer thereby achieving the highest degree of access possible. Because his project is undisclosed and clandestine for the duration of his employment with the New York Department of Corrections, the terms of his research are not circumscribed by any security or other conditions set by the institution itself. The term of employment that the author sets himself is one year. There is no explanation why this time length is set, and given his acceptance of the correctional officer viewpoint that it takes approximately five years to become proficient at that occupation, it is necessary to be circumspect about any conclusions drawn by the author.

It may come as a surprise to some that an occupation such as a correctional officer would require such a lengthy period before one became proficient at the 'job', especially given that the training period for Conover and other recruit officers was a mere three months. However, a moment's reflection suggests that Conover's acceptance of this claim made by a more experienced colleague is not entirely unreasonable. The work of a correctional officer is not the mere application of rules or the use of violence on belligerent inmates (although it can be those things), but rather the creation of a social order that allows prisoners a degree of freedom consistent with the security of the institution. Achieving a balance of freedom and security is the key obligation of correctional officers to ensure the prison social order continues to run smoothly so as to allow both inmates and correctional officers to 'do their own time'. Too much of either, according to a theme that persists in Conover's book, is extremely dangerous for the social order of any prison. Nothing noble or revelatory about that claim but something fundamental to the organisation of prison life that is often forgotten when the role of prison within society is examined.

RICHARD EDNEY

Richard Edney is a Solicitor with the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service. Prior to that he worked as a prison officer at Pentridge Prison, Victoria.


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