Stumbling on the rehabilitation gold? Foucault vs. Foucault in San Quentin and beyond

Abstract

This article examines GRIP, a rehabilitation program currently spreading through California’s state prison system. While most ‘violent offenders’ come to GRIP hoping to increase chances of parole, this yearlong program with four main components – stopping violence, mindfulness, emotional intelligence, understanding victim impact – is meant to create conditions in which inmates can ‘do the work’ leading to genuine transformation. A central claim is that due in part to the trauma-treatment model GRIP follows, inmates end up ‘stumbling on the gold’ and going through changes (involving recovery of an ‘authentic self ’ rooted in childhood) that helps enable skillful responses even to ‘moments of imminent danger’. Understandably, researchers of such programs may seek theoretical inspiration from the ‘dominant’ version of Foucault. Yet this paper sets out to change the conversation about prisons and rehabilitation in part by demonstrating the utility of the ‘other’ Foucault’s pragmatic recovery of body-based self-disciplining practices and regimes.