American Furies: Crime, Punishment, and Vengeance in the Age of Mass Imprisonment by Sasha Abramsky (Beacon Press, 240 pages)The horrifying images that emerged from Abu Ghraib jolted citizens into recognizing the outright brutality and sadism that our own military personnel were quite gleefully capable of inflicting upon their captives. These pictures and stories of hooded men strapped to electrodes, of men forced to pile atop one another naked, of men forced to expose their genitals in the proximity of snarling dogs, represented the dark underbelly of what had once been touted by the Bush administration as a necessary quest for the "liberation" of Iraq.
The administration, of course, moved swiftly to distance itself from what had been revealed, and then to pin the blame on a few rotten apples in the mix. Though the White House's arguments failed to stem popular outrage over the abuse, two key components of the story never quite seemed to breach the intense reaction to Abu Ghraib. Not only had the men assigned to set up the prison once held high positions of power in the American prison system, but many of the sickening psychological and physical abuses inflicted upon Iraqi captives had long since been used to terrorize our own citizens as well. Abu Ghraib was cleaned up; no such luck for many of the 2.3 million men and women currently held in captivity in jails and prisons on domestic soil.
"Many commentators purported to be shocked by the prisoner-abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib," writes Sasha Abramsky in American Furies. "The images of hooded, manacled prisoners being electric-shocked, humiliated, set upon by dogs, and beaten by guards were, pundits and politicians proclaimed, simply un-American. Yet over the decades many of those very techniques have been used, with or without official approval, in prisons throughout the United States, from Quaker penitentiaries to southern chain gangs."
One in every 32 Americans is currently under some form of correctional supervision, a ratio that surpasses that of any other country in the world. As such, the pressing issue of mass incarceration -- and the unforgiving laws that underlie this phenomenon -- should be at the forefront of political debate. Why is it, then, that rarely a peep is heard on the subject, with the notable exception of the tough-on-crime platforms so commonly touted leading up to local, state, and national elections? For one thing, prisoners are, by and large, out of sight and therefore out of mind. For another, an attitude prevails that these perceived 'dregs' of our society fully deserve whatever fate they meet behind bars. (Consider, for instance, the incessant don't-drop-the-soap jokes that abound in our popular culture, all of which are predicated on the notion that the commonplace rape of men in prison was somehow a laughing matter.)
Abramsky's rightful contention is that cruel and unusual punishment has always been the modus operandi of our criminal 'justice' system and the nation's prisons, particularly where the poor and people of color are concerned. As he explains, mercy has rarely been shown to even the most vulnerable of our citizens: the mentally ill, the infirmed, the elderly, the drug addicted, juveniles, and women who have endured lifetimes of repeat emotional, sexual, and physical abuse. Compassionate prison administrators and guards certainly do exist, and their genuinely well-intentioned efforts should not go unacknowledged. In similar fashion, Abramsky notes that "rehabilitation" has always been a popular buzzword in corrections, and that some effective pre-release education and counseling programs also exist. Despite these bright spots of truly rehabilitative-minded individuals and programs in American jails and prisons, the overall picture of incarceration is utterly dismal, as made obvious by the fact that two-thirds of former prisoners will eventually be re-incarcerated.
It is with an exemplary and multifaceted understanding of the history and modern-day reality of incarceration that Abramsky is able to grasp the full context of why callous negligence and brutality so abound in the American prison system. Despite the justifiable criticism that we should heap on our methods and modes of incarceration, Abramsky emphasizes that our approach toward criminality did not develop in a vacuum -- hence the inspiration for the title of his book:
In ancient Green mythology, the Erinyes, or Furies, rose periodically from out of the dark, cavernous underworld of Tartarus to avenge wrongs and hound unpunished criminals … So feared were these goddesses, these incarnations of humanity's elemental need for retribution, for the shedding of blood when wrongs have been done, that those pursued by the Furies were generally driven insane.Throughout history, Abramsky explains that prisons have granted governments the power to "control not just the bodies but also, through a supposedly scientific implementation of imprisonment, the minds of inmates. It served to pacify not only individuals but, through the spectacle and fear of prolonged punishment and humiliation, entire classes of people."
In the past decade, Abramsky's extensive travels have taken him to jails and prisons from coast to coast; he writes with the authority of someone intimately familiar with the many facets of the criminal justice system. As in his two previous works, Hard Time Blues: How Politics Built a Prison Nation and Conned: How Millions Went to Prison, Lost the Vote, and Helped Send George W. Bush to the White House, Abramsky powerfully conveys the crux of our criminal justice policies as well the conditions within this nation's ever-increasing sprawl of jails and prisons.
Reading about the subject of incarceration and suffering behind bars is always difficult, even for those of us who research and cover these subjects with regularity. It is thus of particular note that Abramsky is able to bring these kinds of issues to light in a vivid and engaging manner. American Furies is a brilliantly crafted piece of creative non-fiction replete with non-dogmatic, accessible, and lyrical prose. In the space of less than two hundred pages, Abramsky incorporates references to Plato, de Tocqueville, and Foucault's musings on the personal and social impact of the deprivation of liberty and freedom; a solid and concise grasp of the reasons behind the escalation of our drug war; and the painful words of men who have lived nearly their entire lives confined in "supermaxes" and have experienced the gradual deterioration of their mental health. (These highly controlled facilities consist of 23-hour-per-day lockdown units where every movement of a prisoner is observed. Any movement outside of a cell involves strip and cavity searches. The right to feel the touch of a loved one is usually denied altogether.)
Abramsky captures revealing interviews with politicians, wardens, sheriffs, prison guards, prison reform advocates, prisoners, and ex-offenders. No prison or detention center (no matter how notorious or violent it might be) seems to intimidate him from experiencing the culture contained within. In the difficult realm of prison reporting, Abramsky is unquestionably among the best and brightest, and American Furies is clear evidence of such.
