Out of the `Digger'

Abstract

Inside prisons, situations of intractable conflict between certain prisoners and correctional authorities arise. The choices available to either party in escaping the sometimes desperate consequences of these battles are usually severely limited. One effect, desire for which is usually disclaimed by the authorities, can be the creation of a yet deeper level of incarceration for the most recalcitrant. Recalling fieldwork experiences in Scotland in the early 1990s, this article describes both this situation and a notable attempt to discover a route out of it. That route lay through the Barlinnie Special Unit, once one of the most internationally celebrated penal innovations of its day. However, the fieldwork immediately preceded, and was marginally and unintentionally implicated in, a decision to close the Special Unit. The article attempts, first and foremost, to recover what was once special about the Special Unit and, second, to discuss the factors and conditions surrounding its elimination. The latter include the uneasy question of the researcher's own involvement and the uses made of aspects of the research by the authorities and the media. While affirming that field research in prisons is unavoidably important, it sounds a note of caution concerning the terms under which it is undertaken.