Abstract
New research from the USA suggests that what you wear affects how you think.
A chain gang of prisoners in Arizona, USA
Credit: David Alan Harvey/Magnum Photos
But for many prisoners, clothing is degrading and humiliating, according to director of the American Civil Liberties Union national prison project, David Fathi. He said: “So much of incarceration is about stripping away your identity and I’ve been struck by how people in prison, where everything is terrible from food to medication to housing, cling to some shred of individuality and by how important clothing is to them.
“I know prisoners care about their clothing. When it’s stained or dirty or illfitting (which it often is), it causes them distress and is just another gratuitous humiliation and form of depersonalisation that we inflict on prisoners while they struggle to retain some vestige of self-respect. Prisoners complain to me. It’s notable. They hold up their clothing to me, full of holes and tears and tell me they’ve asked for a new one but can’t get one.”
Prison, in Fathi’s view, should replicate the society to which prisoners are going to return. “More than 95% of these inmates will be getting out and living somewhere near you and we need to help prepare them, not demoralise them,” said Fathi.
Long-serving Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who lost his bid for a 7th term in office in November 2016, was well known for forcing male prisoners at his Maricopa County jail to wear bright pink underwear. When Tea Party supporters raffled off a pair of the same style pink underpants at an event attended by the sheriff, the proud winners declared they would have the pants framed and display them in their living room.
Needless to say Fathi is not a fan of Sheriff Arpaio’s approach. “Personally,” he said. “I see it as counter- productive to basic human dignity but we have very limited resources and can’t fight everything.
“Since 1972 our mission has been to defend the rights of prisoners under the law to meet minimal standards of human decency and to roll back policies in the US that give us the highest incarceration rate in the world and we have to pick our battles.
“Incarceration in the US is a very decentralised process. We have 51 separate prison systems and thousands of jails so it’s a Sisyphean task to deal with all complaints.”
Monica Sklar, vice president of technology for the Costume Society of America, said: “It was the beginning of early industrialisation in the USA that led to the mass production of uniforms for prisoners, slaves and soldiers and was spurred on by the Civil War.”
The practical purposes of prison uniform are well documented, but the psychological effects are less well defined. A UN declaration set down standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners in 1955, including the use of prison uniform. The rules were revised in 2015 under the newly named Nelson Mandela Rules which stated: “Every prisoner who is not allowed to wear his own clothing shall be provided with an outfit of clothing suitable for the climate and adequate to keep him in good health. Such clothing shall in no manner be degrading or humiliating.”
One complaint that did get some attention and went beyond lack of freedom of expression and firmly into the role of humiliation and control was a prisoner made to wear a see-through jumpsuit exposing his genitals and buttocks when being transferred from jail to the state prison system in Illinois. After his case was thrown out by the district court, the prisoner took his complaint to appeal, where it gained some traction. The court decided the jumpsuit might violate the prisoner’s eighth amendment rights and could be considered “cruel and unusual punishment”. Caught up in the red tape between the separate jail and prison systems however, the prisoner was unable to bring a case against the jail.
Abraham Rutchick is a leading light in the area of study known as “enclothed cognition”– roughly speaking the theory that clothes make the man. Rutchick, associate professor of psychology at California State University Northridge, explained: “We feel a sense of difference when putting on any uniform, be it a lab coat, a police uniform or a prison jumpsuit. Clearly there’s a difference with prison uniform in that there’s an interplay between issues like security and safety and obviously a reduction in personal freedom which includes freedom of expression. I’m a great proponent of the first amendment but it changes its meaning in this context.”
In recent studies Rutchick and his team looked at the differences in perception of formal and casual clothes.
“The results showed a shift in those dressed in formal wear towards a more abstract focus which includes more longterm thinking and being able to delay taking small rewards for larger ones later on, whereas lower status, casual clothes showed a leaning towards more concrete ideas. In essence, the more powerful the clothing, the more abstract the thinking and the less powerful the clothing the more the wearer would not be thinking in broad terms but focusing on survival and day-to-day issues. It would be logical to conclude that in the case of prisoners who have a total lack of power, and vulnerability, this would be even more pronounced,” he said.
Could this affect their chances of successful rehabilitation? While he knows of no actual evidence to support this idea, Rutchick, who is currently working on a new study into clothing which makes people feel less powerful, said: “It’s reasonable to think an inmate is less likely to think about engaging in programmes that might be helpful in terms of rehabilitation, or something that benefits them later if we follow this line of thought about the importance of clothing.”
Some inmates attempt to improvise with what they have in order to maintain a sense of individuality. Writing on the blog prisonwriters.com, Texas lifer Kevin Foster explained how fellow inmates, especially younger ones, use small details like different patterns in the lacing-up of trainers in a desperate attempt to express themselves.
“Defying the prison administration at every interval, you find shoelaces zigzagged, criss-crossing and hanging out wildly. Without Timberlands, guys shine up their black boots so tough that the sun reflects off of them. Some buy liquid wax to coat the boots with shiny gloss. The laces are blow out, dangling, maybe tied in braided loops, others with trinkets carved from pen tops or plastics to make it look like free-world medallions.
“Because what it means to be fully human is to have colour, flare and edge. Freedom of expression. What the inmate lacks in access to colours and sounds and smells, he makes up for with sharp creativity over the plain white, dull crew cut and wrinkled uniforms. Anyone who has walked within these walls (as visitor, resident or employee) will know exactly what I’m talking about,” wrote Foster.
Improvisation versus depersonalisation is something that resonates with 23-yearold South Korean student Joo Young Kim, who recalls his compulsory national service on a lonely air base close to the North Korean border.
“We would do subtle things to our uniform like change the lace-up patterns in our boots, turn up our cuffs or collars – just to express our individuality,” said Kim, currently studying English in Los Angeles.
Rutchick sees a common thread. He said: “I’m not surprised at prisoners or soldiers forced to do national service making modifications to uniform in any subtle way they can – we all want to express ourselves. If you make people unlike others [in society] they seek to be distinct.”
Real life influences fiction. In the Emmywinning TV comedy show Orange Is the New Black female inmates make shower shoes out of sanitary pads. The show has been such a hit since launching in 2013 that some prison authorities decided it had made the orange jumpsuit too cool, and have reverted to black and white stripes. They include Saginaw County jail, whose sheriff, William Federspiel told The Washington Post: “Lines get blurred between the culture outside the jail and within the jail. I have to do something to redefine these boundaries because they’ve been blurred far too often in public culture.”
David Fathi would like to see prisoners allowed to wear their own clothes.
“North Dakota’s prison system is now allowing this in certain circumstances. It’s a small but significant step and I’m hopeful that we’ll move further in this direction of continuing humanity,” he said.
Meanwhile prisoners must make do with the uniforms they are issued.