The Wall Has No Name: The Persistence of the Prison in the Face of Change

Abstract

Prison reform in Colorado has been halting, despite political and cultural conditions that are broadly conducive to making meaningful changes to correctional policies and practices. These conditions led to Colorado being chosen for the Prison Research and Innovation Network—a five-state consortium given funding to engineer change in one facility in each state through an action research process using community-based participatory methods. This article describes findings from the action research process in Sterling Correctional Facility—the selected project site in Colorado. The management, the staff, and the people incarcerated in this facility have generally welcomed reform efforts, but change has occurred slowly and with less effect than expected. Using an engaged participant observation approach, along with survey and in-depth interview data collected during the research process, we map the ecology of facility-level change and how local conditions have shaped the pace and reach of innovation efforts. We offer recommendations related to the reality of state-level and facility-level prison reform, especially around the need to deeply understand and be responsive to the cultural, political, and institutional environments in which change is expected to occur.