During Leisure Time

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the prisoners’ spatial, temporal and embodied experience of and during the particular part of the day that is labelled and organized by the prison as ‘leisure time’, taking place in a wide range of contexts. After a brief description of the legal and institutional norms and rules regarding leisure time in Swiss prisons, it presents the prisoners’ multiple approaches to doing leisure time, during which they have various opportunities to encounter the outside world. It is argued that these moments generally intensify their lives and allow them to feel free, or less imprisoned, but at the same time cause them to become intensely aware of their imprisonment, of what they have lost, miss and will probably never experience again.

After a snack in the prison staff canteen, I was ready to join the security officers for the evening shift. At around 5.30 pm, I accompanied one of them, who had to unlock the cells of those prisoners who had registered for a leisure program, such as sports or education. The prisoners immediately started chatting and joking with each other. The mood among them was noticeably more relaxed than in the morning or afternoon when the prisoners gather (at the same place) before going to work. […] At 6 pm, all the other cells were unlocked, but the wings were closed as prisoners must remain in ‘their’ wing during the evening. From time to time, officers walked through the wings in order to check that everything was ‘quiet and orderly’. […] I decided to join one of them and walked with him through the corridors, occasionally catching a glimpse into one of the prisoners’ cells. Many doors were open, the air in the wing was filled with the sound of music and the smell of food; in many cells, I could see them sitting in twos or threes, eating, discussing or playing games together. Some were alone. One was busy cleaning his cell. Others were standing outside in the corridor, having a chat with their neighbours or a fellow prisoner standing on the upper or ground floor. Yet others were in the wing’s common room, playing billiards together. The mood was lively and pleasant. At around 8 pm the prisoners were again locked in their cells – immediately silence returned. (Fieldnotes, 22.2.2016)

As illustrated in this extract from my fieldnotes, in addition to resting and work time, ‘leisure time’ is another specific part of the prisoners’ day. As this first impression suggests, it seems to be a moment where prisoners are generally relaxed and in a good mood.

This first impression corresponds quite well to the common definition of leisure time. According to the Oxford Dictionaries, it can be defined as (1) ‘time when one is not working or occupied, free time’; (2) ‘use of free time for enjoyment’; (3) ‘leisure for/to do something’ (Oxford Dictionaries, 2018). Apparently, there is a dialectical relationship between work and leisure. As emphasized by Matthews (2009), in reference to Thompson (1967), leisure time only became an issue with the rise of industrial capitalism and the commodification of time. From then on, time was no longer ‘passed’ but ‘spent’. As Matthews argues:

[t]he changes in manufacturing technique demanded a greater synchronisation of labour as well as a greater degree of punctuality and exactitude in the routine of work. The twin processes of the social dislocation of time and its technical calibration provided the basis on which labour time could more easily be calculated, while non-work time became seen as ‘spare’ or ‘free’ time. (Matthews, 2009, p. 37)

However, in the academic literature, ‘leisure time’ is often described as something that cannot exist in prison. Various arguments have been put forward. For instance, according to Matthews (2009), as prisoners are ‘removed’ from the workplace and labour market as well as from their communities and families, they are no longer able to experience ‘free’ time (Matthews, 2009, p. 38). Moreover, he argues that time inside prison is fundamentally different from the outside world. Due to the institutional context of confinement, ‘time served in prison is not so much “spent” as “wasted”’ (Matthews, 2009, p. 38).

Clemmer’s (1958 [1940]) argument points to the lived experience of time in prison as well. According to the author, ‘the distinction between leisure-time and non-leisure time, which is clear in the normal community is less evident in the penitentiary where every hour, whether designated leisure or not, is “time” in a very real sense’ (Clemmer, 1958 [1940], p. 206). More concretely, from his point of view, the impossibility of experiencing ‘real’ leisure time in prison results above all from the fact that leisure activities are commonly associated with the experience of a ‘pleasurable state of mind’ (Clemmer, 1958 [1940], p. 206), which is not possible in prison as the ‘prison environment prohibits the development of basically pleasant feeling states’ (Clemmer, 1958 [1940], p. 206): ‘[T]hat deadening sense of confinement’ is constantly present and ‘prohibits the complete release of the personality to the activity at hand’ (Clemmer, 1958 [1940], p. 248). Nevertheless, despite all the constraints, in contrast to work hours, leisure time in prison is a moment of the day where prisoners are less directly monitored and managed. Clemmer therefore suggests adapting the notion of leisure time to the prison context, defining it as ‘that time when the prisoner is not engaged in the more formal and obvious duties which his status as an inmate demands […] and when custody is less strict’ (Clemmer, 1958 [1940], pp. 206–207). He divided leisure time into two general categories: ‘officially regulated leisure time’, such as sport, movies, religious activities, football games or reading and studying; and ‘unregulated leisure time’, such as gambling, drinking and reverie (Clemmer, 1958 [1940], pp. 211–248).

Similarly, Goffman (1961) pointed to the lack of any spatial separation of work and leisure in prison. While ‘[a] basic social arrangement in modern society is that the individual tends to sleep, play and work in different places, with different co-participants, under different authorities and without an overall rational-plan […]’ (Goffman, 1961, pp. 5–6), in prison, as in any total institution, the three spheres of life (sleep, play, work) are experienced ‘in the same place under the same single authority’ (Goffman, 1961, p. 6). In his analysis, Goffman was interested in so-called ‘removal activities’ and their function for the institution as well as for the inmates. According to Goffman (1961, p. 69), prisoners can participate, on the one hand, in collective and ‘official’ removal activities provided by the institution. Such activities aim to provide inmates with the means to ‘kill time’ and thus to reduce stress and boredom. However, they are also part of the institution’s strategies to transform the prisoners into ‘co-operators’ and to undergo ‘primary adjustment’ (Goffman, 1961, p. 189). Such activities include, for instance, formal education and the possibility of receiving external visits. On the other hand, inmates themselves develop individual techniques for distraction (Goffman, 1961, p. 69). Such distractions may make use of material provided by the prison, such as a TV, books or newspapers, or involve activities that are unauthorized and more or less hidden from prison staff (e.g. gambling or homosexual activity). The latter constitute what Goffman labelled as ‘secondary adjustment’, which enables inmates to maintain a sense of self and autonomy (Goffman, 1961, p. 189). All these practices, taken together, represent what Goffman called the ‘underlife’ of an institution (Goffman, 1961, p. 199).

In this chapter, I explore what Clemmer (1958 [1940]) designated as ‘regulated leisure time’. This means that I first approach leisure time from the angle of the prison system. From an analytical perspective, however, I propose to look at the concept of leisure less in direct comparison with the outside world (linked to the question of whether leisure or ‘free’ time can even exist in prison) and without focusing primarily on its concrete function from the point of view of the prison (e.g. to exercise social control) or the prisoners (e.g. secondary adjustment). Instead, I look at the prisoners’ spatial, temporal and embodied experiences of and during this particular part of every day that is labelled and organized by the prison as ‘leisure time’ and takes place in a wide range of contexts.

I include in this chapter additional time–spaces that provide prisoners in one way or another a break from the prison (working) routine, such as the daily walk in the courtyard, encountering people from the outside world or going on temporary prison leave. Generally, during leisure time, prisoners are most directly confronted with the outside world—physically, intellectually and emotionally—which not only provides them with a break from the routine, but also evokes ambivalent feelings. Simply put, these moments generally intensify their lives and allow them to feel free, or less imprisoned, while at the same time making them intensely aware of their imprisonment, of what they have lost, miss and will probably never experience again.

The prisons in which I undertook research provide different opportunities for prisoners to pass or spend time outside of work hours. While prisoners spend a large part of their leisure time in the cell (see Chapter 4), this chapter focuses primarily (but not exclusively) on scheduled leisure situations that take place outside the prison cell. In the following section, I provide a brief description of the legal and institutional norms regarding leisure time in Swiss prisons to provide first an idea of what leisure time means from the institution’s point of view. It includes a description of the different internal rules and offers regarding leisure time activities—that is, a glimpse of the prison’s spatio-temporal regime regarding leisure time—in the three prisons where I conducted fieldwork. The following six sections are dedicated to the prisoners’ multiple ways of doing leisure time.

6.1 Leisure Time in Swiss Prisons

At the national level, no explicit norms exist regarding leisure time activities in Swiss prisons; however, every institution offers such activities. According to the Swiss Competence Centre for Law Enforcement, leisure programmes offered in prison shall aim, on the one hand, to foster ‘the meaningful organization of free time’, thus in the broadest sense ensuring security during and after imprisonment and, on the other hand, to allow prisoners ‘on a voluntary basis to increase their level of education, to acquire social skills, as well as to engage in sports’ (Schweizerisches Kompetenzzentrum für den Justizvollzug, 2019, my translation). While training and education is often part of the leisure programme, following Art. 83 para. 3 SCC, it can also constitute an alternative to work and must therefore be adequately remunerated (Baechtold et al., 2016, p. 262). As stipulated in Art. 82 SCC, prisoners shall be given the opportunity for training and (basic and advanced) education appropriate to their skill level. Activities that are not explicitly labelled leisure time but nevertheless (in general) take place during prisoners’ leisure time include walks in the courtyard—according to the Federal Supreme Court, one daily walk of one full hour is a prisoner’s fundamental right (Baechtold et al., 2016, p. 209)—and receiving visitors and cultivating contact with people from the outside world (according to Art. 84 SCC). Finally, leisure time activities are commonly associated with the use of entertainment media. As the prisoners’ access to media is not explicitly regulated on a national or cantonal level, through its jurisprudence the Federal Supreme Court has formulated extensive rules regarding access to TV, radio, books, magazines and newspapers (Baechtold et al., 2016, pp. 190–192).

Access to leisure activities (as well as contact with the outside world) may be used by management both as a disciplinary sanction (by denying access) (Art. 91 SCC) and a privilege (by providing additional access) (Fieldnotes, 22.2.2016). Thus, as Norman (2017) argues, leisure programmes offered in prisons constitute tools to provide prisoners with the means to cope with imprisonment as well as to exercise control over their behaviour and the general social environment of the prison, for instance, by reducing tensions among prisoners.

To find out what leisure time concretely looks like in prison, a closer look at each prison’s individual house rules is needed. In the Strafanstalt at JVA Lenzburg, leisure activities basically include sports, education and training (JVA Lenzburg, 2011, p. 27). A so-called ‘guided leisure time’ takes place Monday through Friday, from 5.45 pm to 7.30 pm (JVA Lenzburg, 2010). All prisoners have the right to register for courses and other activities, such as going to the gym, yoga classes, political education and language or music lessons.¹ All of these take place in rooms designed specifically for this purpose. Prisoners who do not participate in one of the prison’s official leisure programmes can spend this period of the day outside their cell. From 6.05 pm to 8.20 pm, all the cells are unlocked and prisoners are granted some so-called ‘unguided leisure time’ (JVA Lenzburg, 2010, my translation). This means that they can meet each other in the wing or spend time in one of the common rooms or in someone’s cell. During their spare time, prisoners are also allowed to do handicrafts in their cells. However, tools and materials need to be authorized by the head of security (JVA Lenzburg, 2011, pp. 29–30). The prison further has its own library, and prisoners also have access to the Cantonal Library. Moreover, they have the opportunity to buy books, magazines, newspapers, DVDs and CDs from shops outside the prison, in accordance with the house rules (JVA Lenzburg, 2011, pp. 30–31). Finally, prisoners can buy certain electronic devices, such as a computer, a stereo system or a gaming console, as well as musical instruments, and they have the ability to rent a TV from the prison (JVA Lenzburg, 2011, p. 32) (see also Sect. 4.5). For crime preventive reasons, the prison permits only computer and video games that are released with the age rating ‘under 18 year olds’ (JVA Lenzburg, 2011, p. 35). Mobile devices, such as laptops and those permitting mobile telecommunication (mobile phones, modems), are prohibited (JVA Lenzburg, 2011, p. 34).

In the two units for ill and elderly prisoners, the days are characterized by longer cell opening times and a reduced workload. According to the internal house rules, in the 60plus unit at JVA Lenzburg, on weekdays the cells are open from 7.30 am to 11.30 am and from 1.15 pm to 8 pm (Fieldnotes, 30.4.2013). Compared to the regular prison population in the Strafanstalt at JVA Lenzburg, the prisoners can spend more hours outside the cell, for instance in the common rooms of the unit or in one of the two courtyards. According to the house rules, in addition to health-related offers (including gymnastics for the elderly), a special focus is put on creative or handicraft activities, which, however, take place in the common rooms of the unit (Fieldnotes, 2.5.2013). During my stay in this unit, there was a cooking class going on in the unit’s kitchen (led by an external person). Moreover, prison officers generally would spend a lot of time playing cards or society games with the prisoners. I also came across personal initiatives: for example, there was one prison officer who, from time to time, spent the afternoon baking cookies with one of the prisoners, while another initiated crafting afternoons. In the AGE at JVA Pöschwies, the rules are similar to those of the 60plus unit. In this unit, sport is mandatory for everyone who is physically capable. Sports lessons take place during work hours (twice a week for one and a half hours) and are thus also credited as work time. Those who are physically able but refuse to actively participate are sanctioned, which means in this prison that they are locked in their cells for the whole day (JVA Pöschwies, 2016a). The prisoners in this special unit do not have access to the prison’s official evening leisure programmes offered for the regular prison population accommodated in the same prison. Nevertheless, they can register for basic education programmes, buy entertainment electronics (radio, stereo system) and rent a TV or a PlayStation (see also Sect. 4.5). During my stay in this unit, some activities were offered based on personal initiatives by staff, such as a music lesson over lunch time and gymnastics for elderly people in one of the unit’s workshops.

In general, in all the prisons where I undertook fieldwork, leisure time activities are supervised by an external person. Furthermore, as mentioned, there are specially designed places for leisure time activities, such as the gym, the classroom and the courtyard. Moreover, during leisure time, prisoners can wear clothes other than those worn during work hours. They are allowed to wear training pants or their ‘private’ trousers, such as shorts (JVA Lenzburg 2011, p. 51). Hence, although leisure and working activities all take place in the same building, they are still spatially segregated and very often do not, in a strict sense, take place under the same authority (in contrast to Goffman’s argument), which is crucial to the prisoners’ experience.

In the following, I explore the lived experiences and various meanings prisoners ascribe to leisure time situations by looking more closely at their concrete ways of doing leisure time. As mentioned, I thereby take into consideration official leisure programmes as well as walks in the courtyard and prisoners’ various approaches to having contact with the outside world, because all these moments, or ‘fragments’, to put it in Leo’s words, provide prisoners with a break from the (work) routine and sometimes even with the feeling of being imprisoned. When I asked him if there are any places in prison where he likes to go, he replied:

Of course [in the gym], during sport, when you can let off steam. [During] badminton, for example, where you can just forget the whole thing for one and a half, two hours. Where else do I like to be? Outside [in the courtyard] of course, while walking. The fresh air, the sun shines. Receiving visitors outside [in the special open-air area for visitors]. Yes, these are always like fragments, like moments. It’s not always good, visits are not always good. Sometimes you talk about more serious issues, the uncertain future, or what if this or that happens, or the parents die. But basically, it’s always nice when I’m outside, when I see the sky. (Leo, 23.3.2016)

6.2 In the Courtyard: Sensing the Outside World

Parts of this section have been published as Marti (2021): ‘Sensing freedom: Insights into long-term prisoners’ perceptions of the outside world’, Incarceration SAGE, Vol. 2(2): 1–20.

The walk in the courtyard was the first thing I imagined to be part of the prisoners’ leisure time activities. As mentioned above, the one-hour walk per day is one of a prisoner’s fundamental rights (Baechtold et al., 2016, p. 209). Therefore, it is often not listed in the category ‘leisure time’, but ‘daily routine’, such as at JVA Lenzburg (JVA Lenzburg, 2011, p. 19).

In the Strafanstalt at JVA Lenzburg, there are two courtyards (see Fig. 6.1), and prisoners spent time there (divided into groups) either in the morning or in the afternoon. During summertime, they have the chance to spend some additional time there in the evening. Once they have decided to go outside, however, they have to stay there for the whole hour; they cannot independently go in and out. During this particular moment of the day, prisoners have the opportunity to spend time out in the open air: they can walk on the grass, or sit under a tree, meet fellow prisoners, play games or do exercises. Prisoners can also experience some degree of privacy among themselves as the courtyard is one of the places that is less directly observed by staff, and officers who are in charge of monitoring generally keep a certain distance. Thus, as I was told by prisoners, this hour of the day can also be used for talking about or engaging in more or less illicit activities (so-called ‘deals’). From the prisoners’ perspective, the courtyard is generally a ‘public’ area and thus also a social space where boundaries among them are redrawn and defended, and where prisoners can experience both inclusion and exclusion.

Fig. 6.1

(Source Google Maps)

The courtyards in the Strafanstalt at JVA Lenzburg

In the 60plus unit in the Zentralgefängnis at JVA Lenzburg, prisoners also have access to two courtyards (see Fig. 6.2). One is located on the same floor as the unit; the other, larger one is on the ground floor. While the one on the same floor as the unit is open the whole day (except during lunch) and prisoners are allowed to go in and out as they wish, the one on the ground floor is only accessible during two periods of the day (one in the morning, one in the afternoon), and prisoners must be escorted there by a prison officer who has to unlock the many doors on the way. Like in the Strafanstalt, once the prisoner is out, he has to remain there until the official time is up. While the courtyard next to the unit is entirely constructed of concrete, equipped with a table tennis game in the middle of it and covered with steel grate (as it was initially designed for prisoners on remand), in the one downstairs, prisoners have an unrestricted view of the sky. Moreover, they have access to diverse plants in the raised bed (and can help plant them), including herbs they can gather for cooking. They can walk around or sit at the pond. The ground, however, is made of concrete.

Fig. 6.2

(Source Google Maps)

The courtyards for ill and elderly prisoners in the Zentralgefängnis at JVA Lenzburg

During my stay in this prison, I noticed that this second courtyard was very rarely used. While one prisoner went there every day—no matter how ‘bad’ (from my perspective) the weather was—the others usually said that it was too complicated for them to go there (a lot of stairs, no flexibility in terms of the duration one stays there). The courtyard on the same floor as the unit, however, was frequently, if only briefly, used. As I observed, the prisoners often went there during their leisure time to have a cigarette or a chat with fellow prisoners. Sometimes, they played a round of table tennis or darts, sometimes with a prison officer.

In the AGE at JVA Pöschwies, the courtyard (see Fig. 6.3) is open the whole day, from 7.30 am until 7 pm (4 pm on weekends) (JVA Pöschwies, 2016c). As I observed, the courtyard fulfils several functions, and the majority of the prisoners spend most of their non-working hours there. It is also the place where they would go during their short work breaks: to smoke a cigarette, drink a coffee, have a chat with a fellow prisoner, walk a few steps or read some lines in the newspaper. According to my observations, prisoners often also went there to simply pass time or wait for lunch or dinner. On Wednesday, the prisoners have the afternoon off, and, depending on the weather, many of them spend this time in the courtyard: reading, playing games, doing exercises, smoking, chatting, sunbathing, sitting in the grass, feeding the ducks if they are around (in the pond) and interacting with fellow prisoners. The same applies to the weekends.

Fig. 6.3

(Source Google Maps)

The courtyard in the AGE at JVA Pöschwies

The courtyard in the AGE was also frequently used by prison officers during their breaks. It is thus not only a place where prisoners meet, but also a social space for interactions among prison officers and between officers and prisoners. As I could observe, during these particular moments, institutionally ascribed (opposed) roles and individual status were both accentuated and blurred. For example, while the staff uses the whole courtyard, including its equipment (such as the billiards table, chairs or ashtrays), and also participates in some of the prisoners’ activities (e.g. smoking, playing a round of billiards), there is some territory that staff members have seized for themselves: a table and a chair in the rear area of the courtyard where they spend their breaks when the weather allows it and from which they have a perfect view of the activities ‘on the other side’.

6.2.1 Having Access to ‘Nature’

Generally, being in the courtyard means being outside—in the ‘open air’ (Markus, 28.9.2017). Even though long-term prisoners get to know ‘each spot’ of the courtyard (Theo, 3.5.2016), they can experience change and variety in terms of the courtyard’s ‘ambiance’ (Thibaud, 2011). While the ambiance inside the prison is described with reference to the prison’s materiality, social environment and surroundings (see Sect. 4.2), the courtyard is the place where prisoners have the most direct access to ‘nature’, mainly in the form of the weather and the changing seasons.

Indeed, prisoners referred to their sensory experience and mentioned that in the courtyard, they can smell and feel the ‘fresh’ (Darko, 6.5.2016) or ‘warm’ air (Paul, 29.3.2016), the sunlight—or the lack of it (because of the fixed time they are allowed to spend in the courtyard)—and the rain or snow on their skin. As mentioned above, during the warm seasons in the Strafanstalt and in the AGE, prisoners can lie on the grass—on ‘a real lawn’ (Anton, 24.3.2016), which is not possible in every prison as the lots are often made of gravel or concrete, and which is thus for certain prisoners ‘already quite a particular feeling’ (Leo, 31.8.2017) (see also Moran et al., 2018). They can see (and touch) trees and plants growing and blooming; they can hear, observe and maybe even feed animals (mostly birds, but also fish or ducks in the units for ill and elderly prisoners).

Leo::

There are quite a lot of birds in these trees. We already saved two. Two young ones, but they were then eaten by the dogs that patrol at night. We tried to feed them up a bit, but we knew they would not survive. […] Up there [at the roof] it often has swallows. Two also fell down once, two young ones. They fell out of the hole, there on the floor. Then we supplied them with water. Yes, but they didn’t have a chance.

Irene::

Yes, and I think once they got touched by a human being …

L::

Yes, then they are no longer accepted by the mother. The mother probably had too many young ones and then she had to throw some out. Because they don’t just throw them out like that, they do not. Maybe she didn’t have food, or not enough. (Leo, 31.8.2017)

Finally, it is also a place where prisoners can gain sensory impressions of the outside community, especially its sounds (airplanes, cars and people). In sum, it is a place that potentially stimulates the prisoners’ senses in various yet particular ways, which is crucial as prisoners are generally suffering from sensory deprivation (see also Cohen & Taylor, 1972; Moran & Turner, 2018). Moreover, in contrast to the institutionally established ‘ever-same present’ (see Sect. 2.3.2), the experience of the changing seasons and rhythms of ‘normal’ life gives prisoners a sense of the passage of time (see also Turner et al., 2020).

Due to this access to ‘nature’, which is assumed to have positive effects on the prisoners’ well-being (Moran & Turner 2018; Wener, 2012), I used to associate the courtyard with a feeling of freedom. I always assumed that the courtyard must be the best place in prison and was astonished to find out that many prisoners actually avoided this place. In the beginning, it was not easy to uncover the reasons for this attitude. One prisoner told me that he avoided going out because of the social exclusion he had experienced in the past. He told me that he had been subjected to psychological harassment by fellow prisoners because of rumours that have been circulating about him for several years now. As noted in the literature, within the prisoner hierarchy, prisoners who were sentenced for sexual violence, especially child abuse, are generally at the very bottom of the social order (see e.g. Crewe, 2009, p. 272). As there were many sex offenders among the prisoners I talked to, I assume that their stigmatization could indeed be a reason for their avoidance of the courtyard, although they never mentioned it explicitly. There are, however, additional reasons. After I found out that Lars had not been outside for the past five years and asked him for his reasons, he explained: ‘It’s always the same, the same people, going around in circles, I’m not interested’. I countered by saying ‘but the weather is different each time!’ He ended the conversation by saying that he preferred to remain in his cell in order to use this time ‘constructively’ for studying (Fieldnotes, 3.2.2016). As I later came to understand, the courtyard may indeed provide prisoners with a ‘little piece of freedom’ (Fieldnotes, 7.7.2016)—however, not everyone can deal with it.

6.2.2 Encountering ‘a Little Piece of Freedom’

Many of the prisoners mentioned that the courtyard is a place where they like to spend time. Often, together with the cell, prisoners declared the courtyard their ‘favourite place’ in prison. The well-being certain prisoners experience in the courtyard is, on the one hand, the result of the fact that it is an open-air place with trees and other plants. Due to this connection to ‘nature’, it is for these prisoners a place where they may find ‘peace of mind’ (Leo, 23.3.2016) and even forget for a while that they are in prison. On the other hand, the courtyard is also a particular social space ‘out of the prison routine’ (Leo, 23.3.2016), which also lets prisoners forget that they are actually behind the walls. As explained by Anton:

There [in the courtyard], most inmates feel free. And there it is the most … where I forget the walls all around, the fences; I forget that it’s a prison. Because what counts in that moment is that you’re together [with fellow prisoners] and that you have fun with each other and that’s good. (Anton, 24.3.2016)

However, as revealed in most of these interviews, the courtyard is not a priori a nice place, but has to be actively transformed or arranged into one. This transformation becomes visible by looking more closely at the prisoners’ individual perceptions and their corporal and practical engagement with the courtyard, mobilizing their ‘spatial competences’ (Lussault & Stock, 2010, p. 13).

Anton, for instance, mentioned that he intentionally ‘filters’ out everything that reminds him of being in prison and instead focuses on all the elements from which he gains the feeling of being free:

I just see what I want to see, and I don’t want to see the fence in the courtyard. I see the trees, I see the birds, hear them chirping. Another inmate, too, is like this, he said: Do you see this bird? It’s a Milan! […] And these are moments when I say: This is it. I don’t want to see that I’m imprisoned; I don’t want to feel as if I were imprisoned. (Anton, 24.3.2016)

The importance of focusing on elements that do not relate to the prison also surfaced during the walking interview I conducted with Leo. Following this encounter, I became aware of his perception of this particular place in situ, filtered through his values and emotions, and in particular his intention not to focus on the fences and the walls, which are particularly close in that area, but instead to emphasize the elements that allow him to feel free, or less imprisoned (see Fig. 6.4).

Fig. 6.4

(Source Photo taken by a prisoner)

The wall or the chapel: ‘you can see what you want to see’

His attitude was also expressed while he was taking pictures of the courtyard. For instance, Leo took a picture of a flower arrangement in order to point out that ‘the prison is not only about walls’ (Leo, 31.8.2017) (illustrated in Fig. 6.5).

Fig. 6.5

(Source Photo by a prisoner)

Plants in the courtyard: ‘the prison is not only about walls’

Our conversation continued as follows:

Leo::

You can see what you want to see.

Irene::

This means you can also decide to stand like this [having the wall in the back] and to look in this particular direction?

L::

Exactly, and the longer I’m here, I just do it. If I keep looking at the wall, I’m not feeling any better, of course. And this became automatic: I simply ignore certain things, look through them, yes. But at the beginning, of course, that [the wall] was overwhelming. (Leo, 31.8.2017)

To transform the courtyard into a space where one feels free (or less imprisoned) can also be reached through particular bodily practices and by making use of spatial elements in a way that allows them to create personal and intimate spaces. This again became apparent to me during the conversations I had with Leo. During our first interview, he told me about a particular tree in the courtyard, under which he likes to lie down, read a book, take a nap or spend some time sunbathing. By doing this, he again filters out everything that reminds him of being in prison and focuses on things he can perceive that remind him of the outside world (e.g. the sound of birds, the smell of the summer air). But there is more at stake than simply relaxation and blocking out the prison environment. It is a moment when Leo recalls nice memories and relives them:

I push myself to recall the memories that are still present and to put myself back into them. I then concentrate on the odours, the sounds. When I’m lying under this tree, I try to listen carefully and also to smell this summer air, or that I’m outside. Then I maybe hear a bird somewhere, and all the people [fellow prisoners] who walk around, and all these different languages, this I filter out so that I won’t hear it anymore, only the birds, so that [it feels as if] I am lying in a meadow outside somewhere or recall nice memories from the past, my childhood, holidays, nice experiences. […] And sometimes I succeed and sometimes I don’t. And if it goes well, then I feel like totally reenergized, like a newborn, as if I had been outside (laughs). (Leo, 23.3.2016)

We visited the tree—‘his’ tree (illustrated in Fig. 6.6)—during our walking interview, which Leo presented in the following way:

This is my tree. That’s just the one I told you about //yes, you told me about it//, and so when I’m outside, during the summer, I’m mostly under that tree, on the towel, next to the shower, because I quite like that, when people take a shower, then there’s a fog, a wet fog, and just the sound, lido-like noises, and when I’m lying there with the book, yes, it’s comfortable, it’s really comfortable. (Leo, 31.8.2017)

Fig. 6.6

(Source Photo by a prisoner)

A prisoner’s tree in the courtyard

While daydreaming can be described as a simple distraction that allows prisoners to ‘temporarily [blot] out all sense of the environment’ (Goffman, 1961, p. 309), for prisoners like Leo, daydreaming is not only a means of escape but a way to transcend the here and now and gain personal experiences far from the prison context. As explained in the quotes above, daydreaming is something Leo is consciously practising—he actively and specifically recalls his pre-prison memories and relives them. This helps him not only to relax but also to keep his most precious memories alive, to feel connected to the outside world and maybe also to retain a part of his pre-prison identity. Thus, Leo tries to make the routine of going for the one-hour walk in the courtyard as rewarding as possible. However, as he told me later, this practice does not always work. Whenever he is stressed or in a bad mood, this stage of feeling free is difficult or even impossible to reach:

It depends on my mood. If I feel like it, then I want to enjoy it, then I want to feel the freedom, then I can do it … I cannot do it every day, when I’m in a bad mood or stressed out, or don’t feel like, then I just cannot do it that way … cannot reach this stage. […] I have to really concentrate. (Leo, 31.8.2017)

Being in the courtyard also means being physically closest to the walls and therefore also to the outside community (see Fig. 6.7), which evokes mixed feelings among the prisoners with whom I spoke. Certain prisoners mentioned that they like the possibility of sensing the outside world and realizing that ‘normal life’ goes on as it makes them feel less isolated and (still) connected to it.

Fig. 6.7

(Source Photo by a prisoner)

In the courtyard: being close to the outside community

There are others, in contrast, who told me that by standing so close to the outside world, they above all are reminded of what they miss—what they have lost and will probably never experience (again). In other words, the courtyard may also be the place where prisoners have sensory experiences (especially through hearing and smelling) that remind them not only of their physical but also their social exclusion from society (see also Turner et al., 2020, p. 231)—their former lives, rhythms and routines. Hugo described this (once during our formal interview, and again during our walking interview, one year later) as follows:

I get reminded of the outside. When the weather is nice, then you go out, the sun is shining, and you realize that all your friends out there are sitting somewhere in the garden or somewhere by the lake and enjoying the nice day and you are actually sitting in here and at half past seven you are again locked up in the cell. This makes you think a lot, and during a period you don’t feel well it can be too much. (Hugo, 23.3.2016)

Hugo::

Yeah, sometimes you can hear the highway, sometimes you can hear when the ambulance or police are on the move again, when there was a crash somewhere and so on. If it is very quiet then you […] hear the train down there from time to time, and the people around here, when they are having a party in the garden outside or something, then you can sometimes hear children screaming. […] And then, when they are having a barbecue during summer, over there (laughs).

Irene::

Can you smell that?

H::

You can smell it, yes; the smell comes from there (laughs). And that’s actually what annoys you a little bit, you know. (Hugo, 7.9.2017)

As I noticed, being outside in the courtyard and thus physically (and sensorially) closest to the outside world, from which they are separated by a wall, evokes bittersweet feelings for many prisoners. The wall, fences and cameras (see Fig. 6.8) cannot easily be filtered out by everyone. Lars, for instance, agreed that the courtyard provides prisoners with ‘a little piece of freedom’; however, whenever he stands outside, ‘in front of the wall’, he ‘start[s] to cry like a baby’ and gets terribly ‘homesick’. After his prison friend made him aware that he returned in an ‘edgy’ mood whenever he had been to the courtyard, Lars finally decided to go there no longer. As long as he stays inside and keeps himself busy, he is not constantly reminded of where he is (Fieldnotes, 7.7.2016).

Fig. 6.8

(Source Photo by a prisoner)

The courtyard: a ‘little piece of freedom’

It is similar for Erwin, who lives in the unit for ill and elderly prisoners, as the courtyard (see Fig. 6.9) is the place where he is reminded most strongly of being in prison:

Irene::

Do you often come here [to the courtyard]?

Erwin::

I don’t like to be here, because I feel like in a dog kennel, wall and fences, which is not needed, because nobody will go over this wall.

I::

So here you actually feel quite locked up?

E::

Down here? Yes. […]

I::

But it’s actually the only place where you can see the sky, right?

E::

Yes, yes. This is the advantage, yes. But here I really realize, because of these bars and so on, that I’m in prison. That’s the only place [in prison] I don’t like that much. (Erwin, 18.10.2017)

Fig. 6.9

(Source Photo by a prisoner)

In the courtyard: ‘like in a dog kennel’

Thus, due to the experienced closeness to ‘nature’ and the ‘free world’, the courtyard signifies for some prisoners the time–space in which they feel the least imprisoned and thus physically (and mentally) the freest, while for others, in contrast, it is a context where they feel the most captured, or most unfree—depending on how they manage to deal with the walls. This experience is therefore similar to that of sensing the outside world through the window of the cell (see Sect. 4.2.3). This potential (sensory) connection to the outside world therefore constitutes a source of both well-being and discomfort, as it can intensify as well as ease the ‘pains of imprisonment’, in particular the ‘deprivation of liberty’ (Sykes, 1971 [1958], pp. 65–67).

This ambivalent experience of the courtyard is also strongly shaped by the prisoners’ particular legal status—that is, the indeterminate and preventive nature of their incarceration. As Hugo explained, this little piece of freedom he gains in the courtyard would be more bearable if he had a clear perspective, a concrete date of release. Thus, their experience of time and ways of dealing with the indeterminate nature of their imprisonment strongly shape their experience of and ways of dealing with this particular place:

Hugo::

I think if you somehow knew that you would get out again and when, then it would be something else. Then you know, then and then I come out, then it’s a different feeling too.

Irene::

It would be a different feeling to go out, to the courtyard?

H::

Yes. Because then, then you have a perspective, you know exactly when you will be out again and have the experience [of really being outside] again. But if you just have to expect that you spend the rest of your life here inside … it’s hard. (Hugo, 7.9.2017)

Serge, too, evaluates the experience of being in the courtyard against the background of his situation of being held in indefinite incarceration. He defines the garden of the AGE, which he describes as ‘beautiful’, as a ‘deception’ that aims to ‘lull’ the prisoners so that they do not really realize (and complain about) where they actually are and probably will have to be for the rest of their lives. He drew parallels to sedatives, which make it impossible for consumers to feel ‘real’ life. Thus, for him, the nice courtyard is in fact a tool to manipulate prisoners and transform them into ‘co-operators’, as described by Goffman (1961):

Here where I am, I feel very much … the garden, the beautiful garden, the two floors [where the cells are located], that doesn’t suit me, it’s kind of a fraud (laughs), it’s kind of a deception, it’s like drugs that people receive to be sedated, and then they sit in this crap and if you ask someone: how long have you been here now, [he replies:] yes, for 19 years. And then they enjoy the garden and … that’s just not right. Then I [prefer to] really feel what is, I mean I’m still alive, I’m not dead, I want to feel […] I cannot stay here, that’s a fraud what they do, a fraud. I cannot go up and down the two floors, go to work, say nothing, and then sit in the garden, that’s not possible. (Serge, 25.9.2013)

Not going outside makes some prisoners who suffer from being incarcerated feel better, but at the same time it has negative consequences for their health as they may develop a vitamin D deficiency, which was quite common among the prisoners I met. That the human body needs some fresh air and sunlight, however, is something that was nevertheless mentioned. Among those who try to avoid this place, there were prisoners who agreed that being outside from time to time ‘is doing you some good’ (Hugo, 7.9.2017). Certain prisoners also spoke about ‘the urge to go outside’ (Markus, 28.9.2017).

Irene::

There are also certain people who don’t go out because they cannot bear this anymore, right?

Leo::

Yes, I also know these statements, yes. But it doesn’t get better staying inside. Especially if I haven’t been outside for a really long time, then I feel the urge to go outside. Then I go out because I have to go out.

I::

What is a long time?

L::

Two and a half months, three months.

I::

Ah yes, this is … //yes//

L::

Especially in winter I’m rarely outside. And then I really, I realize that I need some fresh air again or just once again, yes, to have this feeling. (Leo, 31.8.2017)

However, I nevertheless met prisoners who categorically rejected the idea of stepping even one foot into the courtyard and who prefer to stay in their cells, often behind closed curtains, immersed in their own world:

I followed [a prisoner] to his cell as he wanted to show me some of his drawings. It strongly smelled of cigarette smoke, both curtains were drawn, and he hung a bath towel in the middle of the window; one could no longer look outside. I asked him if he sometimes goes to the courtyard; he demurred and explained that he got used to being in his ‘room’. Preferably, he plays computer games where ‘you just have to shoot without thinking’. (Fieldnotes, 12.2.2016)

The courtyard is hence a highly ambiguous place, which causes multiple, contradictory and sometimes even overlapping bodily responses and thus shapes the prisoners’ sense of self and experience of their indefinite incarceration in particular ways. At the same time, prisoners deal with it individually. Some completely avoid it, others use, appropriate and (re)arrange this place according to their needs and interests—for example, to create and experience personal and intimate space—and gain the feeling of freedom and of being less isolated from the outside world.

6.3 Connecting with People from the Outside World

Until the mid-twentieth century, prison regulations in Switzerland regarding direct contact with the outside world were highly restrictive. For instance, prisoners were allowed to send only one letter per week, strictly censored by the management. Phone calls were authorized only in exceptional circumstances and were monitored acoustically. Finally, only close relatives were allowed to visit prisoners, and only twice per month (Baechtold et al., 2016, p. 172). Beginning in the mid-twentieth century, initiated by critical prison governors, the jurisdiction of the Federal Supreme Court regarding prisoners’ basic rights (in particular regarding personal liberty and freedom of information), technical innovations (e.g. portable radios), and changes in the prison population (i.e. more and more foreign prisoners, which made the rigorous censorship of letters and acoustic monitoring of phone calls and visits impossible), the thorough isolation of prisoners from the outside world has been abolished (Baechtold et al., 2016, pp. 172–173). Thus, today’s ‘total institution’ is much more permeable than that outlined by Goffman (1961) some decades ago as prisoners today have ‘the right to receive visitors and to cultivate contacts with persons outside the institution’, and the prison is supposed to facilitate ‘contact with close relatives and friends’ (Art. 84 SCC).

These moments are also of particular importance for prisoners who suffer from a lack of physical contact. In prison, as I explored in Sect. 2.2.3, for security reasons prison staff and prisoners must maintain physical distance and not touch each other (which, of course, does not apply to emergency situations or body searches).

However, contact with the outside remains highly controlled by the prison system (including the enforcement authorities), for example regarding who and how many people a prisoner is allowed to receive as visitors as well as how many (and who) may visit at the same time. Moreover, the frequency, time, location and duration of visits are determined by the prison management, and they all have to be registered and approved in advance (JVA Lenzburg, 2011, pp. 55–57). Thus, prisoners cannot meet people from the outside world spontaneously. Moreover, as I show in this section, the permeability of the institution, in other words, the bridge that the prison builds between the inside and the outside world through direct contact (including letters and phone calls), is experienced by prisoners, and especially long-term prisoners, as something dynamic and highly fragile.

6.3.1 Receiving Visitors: When the Inside and the Outside Worlds Blur and Collide

In the literature, the visiting room is described as the location in prison where the ‘inside and the outside worlds blur and collide’ (Crewe et al., 2014, p. 60). It is the place where ‘visitors gain an experience of prison, of the inside, and where the detainees are closest to freedom, to the outside’ (Ricordeau, 2012, p. V).

Generally, in this place, it is all about emotions. This is not surprising, as the separation from their loved ones constitutes a major stressor for prisoners (Flanagan, 1980; Leigey & Ryder, 2015; Richards, 1978). In the visiting room, prisoners have the chance to meet them (again) for a limited amount of time. Toch has argued that whenever we are emotionally tied to someone, we strongly depend on his or her ‘emotional support’ and ‘emotional feedback’—in the shape of ‘positive affect or through recognition of, and response to, our feelings’—in order ‘[t]o live our emotional lives’ (1996 [1977], pp. 69–70). For those prisoners who are particularly concerned with emotional feedback, visits (as well as letters and phone calls) from their loved ones therefore constitute an important source for improving their mental well-being. Indeed, as described by Crewe et al. (2014), who explored these rooms from an emotional geography perspective, visiting rooms are one of the ‘emotional zones’ in prison, which they define as ‘marginal spaces or intermediate zones where many of the normal rules of the prisoner community were partially or temporarily suspended, permitting a broader emotional register than was possible in its main residential and most public areas’ (Crewe et al., 2014, p. 67). The authors observed that in the visiting room, prisoners showed ‘forms of warmth and tenderness that were taboo on the landings’; thus, for some prisoners, visits may be ‘the only opportunity to display authentic feelings and show warmth’ (Crewe et al., 2014, p. 67). This is in line with Ricordeau’s argument that for both prisoners and external visitors, ‘visits are generally retained among the most emotionally powerful moments of their affective and family relationships because of the meaning attached to the shared time’ (2012, p. XXII). However, with all its rules and regulations, the prison acts both as a mediator of and barrier to (emotional) feedback from the outside world.

In the following, I shed light on the prisoners’ experience of getting in touch with external visitors by looking more closely at the experience of their sense of self before, during and after the visit. I thereby also explore how they address temporariness, and the fact that these kinds of visits can never take place on a spontaneous basis, and present the multiple (and ambivalent) meanings visits have for those prisoners who do not know if they will ever be released. I further describe how the visiting room signifies not only the place that allows for the maintenance of contact, but that for some prisoners it is also the place where their bonds to the outside world get broken—perhaps forever. Finally, I also highlight the extent to which the particularities of the visiting spaces matter.

6.3.1.1 Expecting Visitors: ‘Highlights’ to Look Forward To

Of all the prisoners (32) with whom I spoke, eight did not receive any visitors (anymore) at the time of my fieldwork. The other 24 received visits mainly from family members or friends, but also from voluntary visitors.

Generally, prisoners described visits as ‘highlights’ (David, 2.5.2016) and as a break or ‘change’ from the daily prison routine (Clément, 24.3.2016). Visits thus have, first of all, a particular influence on prisoners’ experience of time. As ‘events’, they are often used as time markers (Calkins, 1970), which allows prisoners to challenge the prison’s (hyper-)ordinariness and create and experience some chronology. Visits are something prisoners look forward to, something they can target as realistic, in the sense of achievable ‘goals’, and something for which they can ‘plan’ and ‘prepare’ (see also Cunha, 1997):

I set for myself small goals, again and again, which I can work towards, for example visits that you receive, visits for which you know the date, when you know, then and then I’m visited, and using this as a small sub-goal. It’s important to not set goals that are too far away. (François, 23.11.2013)

I take every day as it comes, I set no further goals. I gave up hope [for release]. I take every day as it comes and make the best of it. I feel better that way. What I might plan ahead are perhaps the visits. Because I always paint little pictures [for the visitor], or send a card, and then I paint something, something new, for this card. […] But otherwise I don’t plan ahead. (Franz, 10.9.2013)

Furthermore, expecting visitors is usually connected to the experience of particular emotions. Some prisoners mentioned feeling ‘impatient’ (Michael, 6.5.2016), ‘nervous’ and ‘euphoric’ (Leo, 23.3.2016) before the visits. Others said that, over time, they ‘got used to it’ and visits became something ‘normal’ (Clément, 24.3.2016), so that they were ‘fully relaxed, not tense or nervous, nothing’ before the visits (Darko, 6.5.2016). However, maybe this explicit denial of the feeling of any emotions before the visit—to mention that one feels ‘nothing’—still references the fact that visits from the outside are something special in a prisoner’s life. While some prisoners said that knowing that one will have a visit and thus ‘two hours of a change in prospect’ makes ‘the week pass more quickly’ (Clément, 24.3.2016); for others, those who ‘can’t wait’ (Louis, 22.3.2016) for it, time does not pass quickly enough.

Almost all the prisoners expecting visitors mentioned paying attention to the impressions they create when interacting with their guests. Thus, they put a lot of effort into the construction and presentation of a particular self, in Goffman’s (1959) sense. However, as demonstrated by the same author, the opportunities in prison are greatly limited because prisoners are to a great extent stripped of their ‘identity kit’, which is necessary for the management of the ‘personal front’ and the exertion of control over the personal appearance one shows to others. As Goffman argued, ‘[c]lothing, combs, needle and thread, cosmetics, towels, soap, shaving sets, bathing facilities – all these may be taken away or denied him, although some may be kept in inaccessible storage, to be returned if and when he leaves’ (1961, p. 20). Moreover, the substitutes provided by the prison are generally of a ‘“coarse” variety, ill-suited, often old, and the same for large categories of inmates’ (Goffman, 1961, p. 20). Goffman concluded that by losing control over one’s identity kit, one suffers ‘personal defacement’ (Goffman, 1961, p. 21). Even though the mechanisms outlined by Goffman (many decades ago) are (still) also at work in the prisons where I did my research, the prisoners are clearly granted more opportunities to manage their ‘personal front’. For example, two of the three prisons allow prisoners to wear ‘private clothing’, namely shirts, jumpers, t-shirts and shoes. Moreover, in every prison, they have access to a (small) variety of shower gels and colognes, offered in the prison shop. Finally, they are free to choose their hairstyle and whether they want to have beards or not.²

The prisoners made clear in their interviews that in order to get ready for the visit, they pay particular attention to their ‘olfactory identity’, which is important ‘to avoid moral stigmatisation’, at least in our society, as Largey and Watson have noted (2006 [1972], p. 35). Washing, shaving, and using cologne were the most mentioned techniques in this regard. The prisoners also brought up other techniques. For instance, Louis, who is a smoker, mentioned that the day of visits, he abstains from smoking from the early morning on, especially when he will be meeting someone who is not a smoker. For Heinz, visits are moments for putting in his false teeth, something he finds unimportant during everyday prison life.³ Many prisoners also make sure that they wear ‘clean’ and ‘fresh’ clothes and, if it is allowed, their own sweaters or shirts, in order to appear ‘less-prison-like’ (Hugo, 23.3.2016). Even where prisoners must wear a uniform and do not possess any private clothing, they distinguish between nicer and less nice items of clothing. In the AGE, where prisoners have a choice between a blue T-shirt and a brown shirt, the latter is clearly considered the nicer option:

Yes, I always prepare myself [before a visit]. I always make myself a bit pretty. Upstairs in my room. Put on the nice shirt, the brown one, the pants, because with the training pants you are not allowed to go to the visiting room, put on some cologne, cologne that I otherwise don’t use, comb my hair, shave myself. (Michael, 6.5.2016)

In reference to Ricordeau, I understand these practices as a ‘process of purification’, with the aim of ‘getting rid, temporarily, of the identity of “detainee” in favour of that of “friend/family member”’ (2012, p. XIV). Indeed, ‘making oneself pretty’ is for many prisoners something that makes no sense during ordinary prison life—not only regarding false teeth, but also in terms of clothing. As Lars explained to me when I joined him at his workplace:

In the past, he used to put a lot of effort into his appearance, hygiene, and clothing. As he told me, he always wore black and silver, while today he wonders: ‘What for’? It doesn’t make any sense to him; there are no women around and anyway he is in prison now. ‘Why make oneself beautiful?’ he asked again. He also hardly wears private clothes. This is something that doesn’t matter to him anymore. According to him, those who still wear private clothing ‘can’t let go’. (Fieldnotes, 23.2.2016)

However, the process of purification before visits is for some prisoners also a way to prove that one is (still) able to behave according to common or ordinary social conventions. This was made clear by Marco, who described preparation for the visit as ‘self-evident’, as something that ‘any ordinary citizen outside’ would do as well in order ‘to present oneself in the best shape’ (Marco, 4.5.2016). In this sense, the ‘process of purification’ (Ricordeau, 2012, p. XIV) is also about feeling ‘normal’—and feeling excited about it. Yet, as Marco further explained, to appear ‘not like the last person on earth’ is for him also an obligation he has as a prisoner and a way to express respect and appreciation for a visit:

In here you have just like an extra obligation actually … because the person takes all the effort and time to come here and to visit you, so you have to, like give something back. […] Yes, just, at least appearing in a reasonable manner and being awake for example (laughs). Yes, I mean, I know people they just smoke grass before they go to the visit, (laughs) then they just sit there for an hour without moving and the visitor talks and talks and talks, no, no, it shouldn’t be like that (laughs). (Marco, 4.6.2016)

As this quote further highlights, the presentation of the self is also about gestures, body movements, facial expressions and so on (see also Goffman, 1959). Kurt also thinks that appreciation can best be expressed by the way one appears in front of one’s visitor. However, he points to the limits of the possibilities in prison, and he worries of being ‘always the same’:

I try to get something from these people. They bring us a bit, a bit of freedom. I notice that. And that’s enough for me. But for these people, we are always the same: same prison clothes, same look, sometimes we maybe have the hair a bit different (laughs), but still … (Kurt, 3.5.2016)

In sum, even though the possibilities are more or less restricted depending on the internal rules of the prison, for prisoners who will soon hit the road to the visiting room, it is most important to smell good and to look nice.

6.3.1.2 Entering the Visiting Room

In the Strafanstalt, the visits take place either in the cafeteria-style visiting room with tables and chairs and a snack machine (illustrated in Fig. 6.10), or, with permission, in the open-air visiting area. Prisoners in the 60plus unit are allowed to receive their visitors in the unit’s common room. In the AGE, the prisoners receive their visitors in a visiting room that is similar to the one in the Strafanstalt. JVA Pöschwies also offers so-called ‘family rooms’ that allow prisoners and their visitors to experience more privacy and intimacy over a longer period of time. However, the prison is very restrictive in providing permission. Among the prisoners to whom I spoke, no one benefited from this kind of visit.

Fig. 6.10

(Source Photo by a prisoner)

Inside the prison visiting room

On our way to the visiting room, Clément explained to me that since he changed prisons, he receives visitors more frequently. He claimed that the reason for this lies in the particular way visitors are treated by prison staff when entering the prison (visitors have to show their ID cards and pass through security control, similar to the protocol at the airport). While in the prison where he was held previously, staff treated his family members ‘like dangerous criminals’ (see also Ricordeau, 2012, p. VI), in the prison where he is now, the staff is, according to him, ‘extremely friendly’ (Clément, 26.9.2017). He mentioned this during our first encounter, four years earlier:

I have visitors every week, I really have to say that I never had that much. But this is related to the fact that people like to come because they are treated decently when entering [the prison]. The visitors are treated normally by staff. […] This is something very important. […] The relatives, colleagues and friends who come, they very much appreciate how it is [organized] here. And that’s really why I receive visitors every week. And if this were not the case, I can’t imagine how it would be. (Clément, 25.6.2013)

However, it is not only the visitors who enter this place, but also the prisoners. As noted above, in the visiting room, while ‘visitors gain an experience of prison, of the inside’, prisoners ‘are closest to freedom, to the outside’ (Ricordeau, 2012, p. V). The prisoners I met described the visiting room as a rather loud place, especially when there are children playing and shouting. Also, they described the arrangement of the seating areas, the chairs and tables, as narrow. As we entered the visiting room together, Leo observed the smell of it, which, he said, he always notices immediately. He described it as ‘not so fresh, […] not so welcoming’. As he said, he ‘can smell’ that ‘there has been a lot going on in here, heated discussions, that the room has already experienced a lot, […] nothing good actually’ (Leo, 31.8.2017). Yet, despite the emotions that may remain in the room in the form of a (bad) smell, visitors provide prisoners with ‘fresh air’—fresh air ‘coming from the outside’—that brings the prisoners ‘a little piece of freedom’ (Kurt, 3.5.2016).

Once the prisoners and their visitors have installed themselves around a table, a moment is initiated for prisoners to get in touch with the outside world—intellectually, emotionally, as well as physically.

6.3.1.3 Managing Temporariness

For some prisoners, the visit is a moment in their everyday lives that allows them to (almost) forget for a while that they are in prison. This state is basically reached when the visit is experienced as something rewarding and enjoyable, but also through a strong and careful concentration on the visitor(s) and their conversation:

When my wife is with me, during these two hours, I enjoy this moment, this moment when I can be with my wife, this moment when you can just a little, not to forget, but it’s a moment when it’s just about me and my wife. We try to stay a little bit among ourselves and to enjoy the moment. And the other thing is … in a bigger radius, the walls are a little further away, but of course you still know that you are in prison. (Louis, 22.3.2016)

As the following quote suggests, this particular state, in which one almost or partially forgets that one is in prison, is also strongly linked to bodily contact, which is something prisoners rarely experience in their daily lives:

During the visit, while embracing each other, or when you are engaging in an intense conversation, it happened, like in the outside, that I forgot [where I was], I was shocked (laughs) [to notice] that I’m in there and now it’s over, and now we have to [say good-bye] again. (Leo, 23.3.2016)

In order to forget about time and space, and to let oneself be absorbed by the pleasant moment, we may assume that these prisoners do not pay attention to the passage of (clock) time. However, some of the same prisoners who said that they let themselves be absorbed also mentioned that, at the same time, they still closely monitor and manage (clock) time, so that they can make full use of every minute they spend with their loved ones, and to ensure they have enough time to bring up all the issues they intend to. It is for this reason that some prisoners bring a list into the visiting room, with all the topics they want to discuss. Louis makes a phone call before the visit, so that he can exchange some information with his wife in advance, which provides them with ‘more time’ during the visit, where time always passes too quickly:

On Tuesday and Friday, I always make a phone call. […] Although we see each other on Saturday or Sunday … but there may also be things to discuss, so we will have more time [during the visit], and don’t need to discuss it during the visit. (Louis, 22.3.2016)

However, although rarely mentioned by prisoners, time can also be experienced as passing slowly in the visiting room as visits are not always entirely pleasing. Sometimes one has nothing to say to each other (anymore), or it leads to a dispute.

As carceral time–space constellations, visits in prison are artificial moments in the sense that they cannot take place spontaneously: the location and duration of the meeting are fixed, and its basic content is face-to-face conversation as there is no possibility (with exception of the ‘prisoners’ oasis’, see below) for prisoners and their guests to engage in other activities, such as going for a walk, cooking and eating together, or experiencing intimacy, as is possible in other prisons (see, for example, Comfort (2002) on so-called family or conjugal visits). During the exact two hours, the prisoners and their visitors, sitting at a table (usually) face-to-face, are supposed to talk. As I uncovered in my conversation with Leo, the pre-programmed nature of this encounter and its clear restrictions regarding time and space can evoke ambivalent feelings and differing ways of coping among prisoners and their guests. Together with different expectations, this can lead to a disturbance or disruption to the flow of the visit as the different rhythms followed by prisoners and their visitors may create what Lefebvre (2014) calls ‘arrhythmia’. Such situations are often experienced as stressful, as the following explanation by Leo suggests:

Sometimes, I’m very euphoric before the visit, feel great and can’t wait, and when it’s time and I sit at the table, then sometimes I feel like I just want to sit there and just enjoy the moment. Sometimes I don’t feel like talking. They [the visitors] don’t understand it at all. Because they, the people from outside, they are under time pressure: so, come on, talk now, tell us something! […] [They are] completely under time pressure. And then, yes, this is then like dampening the mood a little bit. Me, I always think like: Yes, don’t give a shit! Let’s enjoy the moment for a few minutes. Then we can talk again. Sometimes this ruins their moods. So, this kind of stress: come talk now, I notice that. Me, I’m like the opposite. I’m more relaxed and take it slowly … yes. And then, the visit goes, depending on how the pressure is from them. (Leo, 23.3.2016)

6.3.1.4 Performing and Experiencing the (Non-)Prisoner Self

The prisoners I met received visits from family members, friends and voluntary visitors. Moreover, in the visiting room they can potentially meet new people. It thus constitutes a space where (existing) social relations are maintained and maybe even (new ones) established. Furthermore, as I show below, it is also a space where relations can end. As referred to earlier, for the prisoners, visits are time–spaces where they can access the outside world. This provides them with distinctive physical and emotional experiences.

First of all, in Goffman’s (1959) sense, the visiting room can be considered a ‘stage’ where the self can be experienced and performed in very particular ways by adopting different roles. Broadly speaking, during visits, prisoners can experience themselves as something else than a prisoner: a parent, a child, a sibling, a friend or a lover.⁴ Visits allow them to feel connected to the outside world, to maintain bonds with their friends and family members and to continue to stay informed about their lives and the events of the outside world in general. Also, as mentioned, visits constitute for many prisoners situations where they obtain ‘emotional feedback’ (Toch 1996 [1977]), emotional support and motivation to keep going, including hope for a better future. Moreover, visiting rooms are particularly ‘emotional zones’ (Crewe et al., 2014) where prisoners can not only show, but also experience emotions that are taboo and unavailable elsewhere in prison, especially familiarity and intimacy. Furthermore, in the visiting room prisoners can also see and observe other people. Two prisoners mentioned that they could even make new contacts:

It was at my birthday, I turned 51, and we were standing at the coffee machine, and I said to him [his visitor]: I’m 51 now, from now on, it will go downhill. She [a visitor of a fellow prisoner] stood next to us and when she heard that she said to me: No, no that’s not true, it’s only now that life really begins. Then we started a conversation and [she is] really just, a really relaxed, nice woman, really open-minded and so on. And then, after the visit, I told my fellow prisoner: I’ve just met a really nice woman, really funny and so on, and he wanted to know what she looks like, then I briefly described her to him, and he said: Yes, this is [name of the woman], she is a friend of mine who comes to visit me. Then I told him that I [would like her to be my visitor too] and he said that he wouldn’t mind and that he would talk to her. She agreed and then I went to my social assistant and from her side it was ok too, but then she had to make a phone call to Zürich [the prison authority], and there they first were against it, saying that this was not a request programme, but the social worker stood up for me and so they finally made an exception. That’s how it took place. (Hugo, 25.6.2013)

Today at his workplace, Leo told me about a recent encounter he had in the visiting room. A fellow prisoner introduced Leo to his visitor; they ‘matched right away’. She [the fellow prisoner’s visitor] also expressed an interest in establishing contact with Leo. Now, they write each other letters. (Fieldnotes, 5.2.2016)

Based on these two examples, I argue that meeting new people (especially women) provides prisoners with the additional opportunity to rediscover or perform certain roles that are maybe not available during their encounters with family members or people they have known for a long time.

Moreover, visits allow prisoners to gain distinct sensual experiences. In her paper on sexuality and intimacy in a French prison, Ricordeau (2012) demonstrated that although it is prohibited, by identifying and using the places in the visiting room that are less monitored, it is not unusual that prisoners and their visitors engage in sexual activity during visiting hours. While hugging, cuddling and kissing are accepted in all the three prisons where I conducted fieldwork, sexual activity is not allowed. While JVA Pöschwies is one of the few prisons in Switzerland that is equipped with a so-called ‘family room’, prisoners in the Strafanstalt at JVA Lenzburg are—although informally—granted the option to engage in sexual activity once they are allowed to receive their visitors in the open-air visiting area, the so-called ‘prisoners’ oasis’ (Clément, 26.9.2017), which is discussed below in greater detail.

However, receiving visitors is also experienced as challenging and stressful, which is directly linked to the prison context and the prisoners’ status as prisoners, which, nevertheless, cannot entirely be pushed to the background by playing other roles. For instance, some prisoners mentioned the need to perform like a host as stressful, others the feeling of being in charge of creating a positive experience, so that the visitors ‘don’t feel obligated to come to see us’ (François, 23.11.2013). It is particularly striking that many prisoners mentioned the challenging feeling of emptiness that may arise during visits. They feel that—compared to the people who live in the outside world—they do not have much to contribute, in terms of appearance (‘always the same’ (Kurt, 3.5.2016), see above), objects they can offer (all they can offer their guests are items from the snack machine), and the experiences they can share. As pointed out by Heinz (3.5.2016): ‘in order to talk about something, you must have experienced something’:

There is not much to talk about, every day is the same. And I cannot tell [my mother] what prison means. And I don’t experience anything else, I don’t go skiing or to the Schilthorn [in the Bernese Alpes] on a Sunday, yes, you really have little to talk about. (Heinz, 3.5.2016)

Jonathan expressed similar feelings:

Those from outside are full of topics and me I’m empty, I have nothing to say, what can I say, I saw the foreman, that I ate a sausage? That’s not of interest to those outside. I notice that when I have contact with my family, they are full of stories, they can talk for hours, and me, I cannot think of anything, I’m somehow limited with experiences. And there’s nothing new on my side, what shall I say, that I’ve read something new in the newspaper, should I quote from a book, newspaper, or television? […] I’m somehow empty. (Jonathan, 24.9.2013)

6.3.1.5 The ‘Prisoners’ Oasis’

As highlighted by Moran (2013b), it is important to consider the particular nature of the visiting rooms when researching the experience within them. As already mentioned, in the Strafanstalt at JVA Lenzburg, prisoners have access to a particular visiting room, which is actually not a room but more like a small ‘park’ (Markus, 28.9.2017) (see Figs. 6.11, 6.12 and 6.13). During the walking interviews, this was one of the places shown to me by all the participating prisoners. It was represented as ‘my most beautiful place in prison’ (Leo, 31.8.2017), as a place where ‘the atmosphere is different’ and one ‘feels freer’ (Hugo, 7.9.2017). Markus (28.9.2017) described this open-air visiting area as ‘our place’; for Clément (26.9.2017) it is ‘the prisoners’ oasis’. The prisoners pointed out several features that are relevant to the experienced particularity of this open-air visiting area. First, in terms of its spatial arrangement: it is bigger than the normal courtyards, there are grass and trees—interestingly, all the prisoners who led me to this place mentioned the small wall under the tree in the middle (see Fig. 6.12) as their favourite place to sit down with their visitors—a well, benches and tables, a playground for children and a table tennis game. Second, it is a place where prisoners come across other people from the outside, often parents with their children.

Fig. 6.11

(Source Google Maps)

The open-air visiting space in the Strafanstalt at JVA Lenzburg

Fig. 6.12

(Source Photo by a prisoner)

The open-air visiting area: a ‘less standardized’ place

Fig. 6.13

(Source Photo by a prisoner)

The open-air visiting area: ‘the most beautiful place in prison’

Third, compared to the visiting room inside, where they have to sit at a table, prisoners can move around more freely in this area. During the visit, they can decide to walk a few steps, sit on a bench or on one of the walls, walk again, play a round of table tennis, let their children (or grandchildren) use the ‘Gigampfi’,⁵ and so on. In sum, a visit in the outside area is, according to Leo, experienced as less ‘standardized’:

I think … those from the outside, they always think that it doesn’t matter whether you can go outside or not. But me, I think it makes a difference whether you are sitting [inside] there at the table for two hours or whether you are doing a few laps out here. And also to feel that you can be outside with a person you love. Inside [in the visiting room] it’s so static, so standardized. Inside there are these partitions, so you are really in this box knowing that now I will be sitting here for two hours. Sure, it’s good to meet someone there as well. (Leo, 31.8.2017)

Indeed, the atmosphere is different in this open-air place, even for someone like me with no emotional relationship to it. If one strictly ignores the bars in front of the windows, the fences, and the wall, one really has the sense of being in a public park.

However, the ‘prisoners’ oasis’ is visually obstructed by the grey high-security unit made of concrete nearby, where prisoners are locked up 23 hours a day without any access to the facilities of the main prison (see Fig. 6.14). It is a prison within the prison. Interestingly, this massive building was only spontaneously mentioned once, by Leo. As his statement suggests, it is mainly something that is noticed by external visitors (including me). It seems that the prisoners (perhaps intentionally) ‘filter’ (Kusenbach, 2003) it out.

Fig. 6.14

(Source Photo by a prisoner)

The high-security unit next to the open-air visiting area

This is the SITRAK [high-security unit], you see, [the building] is clearly separated from the other, it even has another, it’s even drearier, it’s not even painted. That there is no place for these people with us … I’m kind of sorry about that. […] It’s open at the top, but everything is barred. I saw it on TV, how it looks. You don’t hear anything from these people, you never see these people, you don’t know how many are in there. And every visitor asks: What is this? Somehow, that’s just noticeable, I realized. People coming for the first time, they want to know what it is. (Leo, 31.8.2016)

Also, in contrast to the courtyard, in the ‘oasis’ the prisoners did not mention the wall and the fences, or that the general (physical) closeness to the outside world might be an issue for them. When I asked Hugo for the reasons, he told me that in this place, one is ‘entirely concentrated on the visitor’ (Hugo, 7.9.2017). A similar statement was shared by Markus, who talked about the visits by his girlfriend, although it also reveals that a little effort has to be made in order to forget about being in prison:

[When] we [he and his girlfriend] come outside, we don’t really see the bars, we don’t see them, we walk our rounds, we go to the toilet, come out again, go to the table, eat something … you try to be carefree for a while. (Markus, 28.9.2017)

Finally, the open-air visiting area is also a place where the prison system is less present: prisoners feel and actually are less supervised by staff. Furthermore, the place is to a great extent maintained by the prisoners themselves:

Here, one is somehow on their own, and it works, it really is like that. There are always two prisoners who take care of this place and really care for it, that’s something I find very nice. Me, for example, I am responsible for putting away the Spielrössli⁶ and the Gigampfi in the winter, that everything is removed and so on. We care for it, because that’s like our place, our space. And none of the employees have anything to do with it, that’s for us. And even the guards who have to control the yards, they also have to walk through here, they usually don’t do that, but walk along behind it when they see that there are visitors. (Markus, 28.9.2017)

Precisely because this open-air visiting area is less monitored compared to the common visiting room, not every prisoner has permission to go there, at least not with every visitor. For instance, as I was told by prison staff, a prisoner who is sentenced for a sex offence and who has additionally been diagnosed with a particular personality disorder, may not be allowed to go out there with female visitors (with the possible exception of their mother) (Fieldnotes, 22.2.2016). One reason for this is the unsupervised toilet that is located in this area. As mentioned, there is no official place—unlike other prisons, where there sometimes exist so-called ‘family rooms’—that allows prisoners to spend intimate time with their spouse or girlfriend. In the ‘prisoners’ oasis’, prisoners and their visitors use this toilet for sexual activity. Although the prison officially provides no so-called conjugal or ‘contact room’ (Bundesamt für Justiz BJ, 2011, p. 7), this practice is implicitly tolerated by the management. These intimate moments, however, have to be negotiated among prisoners. Usually, there are several couples who want to benefit from this opportunity, and time is limited:

Of course, those who also have a free visit [a visit in the open-air area] and have a girlfriend always also want to go to the toilet … But one takes care, so maybe half an hour, and if there are maybe more people in the yard, you have to be aware, if you go out you can see how many people there are, how many couples, in some cases you know it’s just the mother or something like that. Then you know that you can certainly take more time [in the toilet]. But if you are in the toilet and you know that there are more people, or more couples, unfortunately this doesn’t work in any case, but that you maybe show consideration for them, saying: Hey, we are not the only ones here. And then maybe take a bit less time. It’s not pleasant to have sex on a toilet with the wife or partner. But that’s the way things are. […] And otherwise, there are some who sometimes forget about time, and then you go, let’s say after 20, 30 minutes, depending on how many people there are, you go knocking and then the one inside actually knows. And usually it works quite well and within the next five minutes, they really come out. (Louis, 22.3.2016)

Although I met only two prisoners who regularly have (or used to have) sex in the toilet, the prisoners have clear opinions about having sex in a toilet (see also Sect. 4.4.5). They generally describe it as ‘unworthy’—both of themselves and of their partners (see also Ricordeau, 2012, p. XII, on having sex in the visiting room of the prison)—however, it is the only option they have. The fact that this toilet is there and that only a limited number of prisoners can use it to have sexual intercourse can also provoke frustration by those who have access to it but have no one with whom to engage in sexual activity. The toilet can thus be a constant reminder of the absence of (hetero)sexual intercourse in their lives.

6.3.1.6 Leaving the Visiting Room

The experience of the approaching and actual end of the visits vary widely among the prisoners. Of those who are aware that the end is near, some feel that time is speeding up during the last minutes, which causes a lot of stress:

Towards the end, regularly, I almost break out in panic. Have I forgotten anything important, which I still wanted to, topics or questions that I absolutely wanted to ask? It’s almost always like this towards the end (laughs), a lot of stress. And then it rings [the official reminder that time is over]: No, alas, now it’s over! (Rolf, 6.5.2016)

Others try to be prepared, to anticipate the end by carefully watching the passage of time in order to have enough time to say good-bye calmly. Again others are caught by surprise and experience the ringing of the bell as an interruption in the middle of a conversation.

In any case, the moment of the good-bye is a transition where the two worlds (the inside and the outside), which have blurred and collided during the visit, are again separated from each other. Louis described the good-bye as the moment ‘in which you will be caught by the prison life again and it becomes [again] more present where you are, […] my wife is going in this direction, me I have to go in that direction’ (Louis, 22.3.2016). Generally, it is a moment ‘that hurts’, because it is a ‘good moment that ends’ (Louis, 22.3.2016) and because ‘one would like to go with them’ (Michael, 6.5.2016).

Leaving the visitor’s room means going back to the ‘ordinary’ (Kurt, 3.5.2016), with all its laws and rules, or back to ‘reality’ (Rolf, 6.5.2016). Prisoners mentioned that after a visit, they often feel exhausted and sad, but also restless, feeling the need to speak to and see those who have just left again immediately. As emphasized by Ricordeau, ‘[t]he “postvisit” period is, in fact, often a “still-visiting” period, a private time, where, on the outside, as on the inside, those involved try to nurture and prolong the feeling of the presence of the other’ (2012, p. XV). Indeed, several prisoners told me that after the visit they walk back ‘particularly slowly’ (Michael, 6.5.2016) in order to continue to dwell in the feelings they have had during the visit. They carry back the memories of the two hours they spent in the visiting room like little treasures; once they are back in their cells, they ‘keep on thinking about these two hours’ (Leo, 31.8.2016), ‘reflect’ on the issues they spoke about (Rolf, 6.5.2016) and ‘try to keep on enjoying this moment’ (Louis, 22.3.2016). The memories are a source of energy, giving them motivation, and helping them to keep going. But then, slowly, the prison reality becomes recognizable again:

And then, when you’re in the cell again, you’re still in this thing, but I’m trying, or we’re actually trying to enjoy that moment a little bit longer. So, the memories, what we experienced //to remain a little bit in the feeling?// exactly, it’s still fresh … and then at some point you realize, well, now you’re really back in the cell. And then, of course, the positive thing is just that you can talk with people or fellow prisoners, or participate in a leisure time activity or whatever, where you can distract yourself a little bit. (Louis, 22.3.2016)

Prisoners try to maintain the bridge they built to the outside world through their visitors as long as possible, either through reflection or activities, such as making phone calls (only in cases where spontaneous phone calls with relatives are possible) or writing letters right after the visit. Louis, quoted above, emphasized this by using the word ‘we’ when talking about the post-visit phase and the (emotional) extension of the visit experience after the good-bye. The bridge to the outside world is also maintained by looking forward to the next visit: ‘When I’m back, I’m always sad. I don’t cry, I do not cry, but I’m just sad. But then I prepare myself already for the next visit’ (Michael, 6.5.2016). However, there will not always be a ‘next time’, as I show below.

Moran (2013a, 2013b) examines the effect of prison visits on prisoners by conceiving of the prison visiting room as a ‘liminal carceral space’, where the immediate reality of incarceration is temporarily suspended. However, as she addresses, in its original conceptualization liminality is not just about betweenness, but also about transformation (Turner, 1969; van Gennep, 1960). As summarized by Moran, ‘[i]n the post-liminal, individuals reintegrate into their “new” life, adopting a new social status and re-entering society in accordance with this new status’ (2013b, p. 183). Although the visiting room of the prison can clearly be identified as ‘a liminal space in the sense of betweenness and indistinctiveness, its transformative role is less clear’ (Moran, 2013a, p. 347). It is a space that can be repeatedly entered and left, and after the visits, prisoners always return to the daily routine of prison life and ‘have to let them [the visitors] go again and again’ (Markus, 28.9.2017). There is thus no immediate progression to another status. Yet, Moran (2013a, 2013b) identified a cumulative effect in the sense that through visits, prisoners are reminded of the outside world and are thus motivated to complete their sentence successfully in order to be able to return to it as soon as possible. From this perspective, visiting spaces are of a transformative nature.

In the case of prisoners serving very long sentences, in particular when they are held in indefinite incarceration without any date of release, the transformative nature of the visiting space is rather a potential; however, it is very fragile. Although, as seen above, visitors generally help these prisoners to stay motivated and not lose hope, as emphasized by Cohen and Tylor (1972, pp. 72–75), the maintenance of relations to the outside world is difficult and can cause great frustration in the longer term. According to the authors, the reason lies, in part, in the visiting regime of the prison, which imposes lots of restrictions. Additionally, maintaining contact to the outside world can also be very demanding emotionally, as prisoners who keep in touch with their relatives and friends live in a separate world, always worrying that the relationship may break down during this very long physical separation (see also O’Donnell, 2014, p. 223). Many long-term prisoners thus decide to cut off contact in order to reduce suffering and to concentrate on the here and now. These issues were also mentioned by the prisoners to whom I spoke. But in addition to the emotional stress caused by the connection to the outside world, I observed that through visits, prisoners serving indefinite sentences are also constantly reminded of what they are missing: a life of freedom, having family and being physically present with them, living a (unrestricted) partnership, having a love life and all the other experiences they have lost and will probably never have (again). This can also hinder them, as well as their loved ones, from going on with their lives:

I said [to her]: I don’t want to talk to you in five years, saying: we tried, but unfortunately it didn’t work out. After ten years I would have to say: The girl has lost ten years with me. […] She was [at that time] the secretary of a colleague. And that’s why I told him: You have to make sure she moves on. But me, I don’t want that. I don’t want that because I have zero perspective and no idea where I am going. (Juris, 22.3.2016)

Although the visiting room is also a place where relations end, I argue that it may still (or maybe precisely because of this) be regarded as a transformative space, as outlined by Moran (2013a, 2013b). In the experiences of some prisoners presented above, however, being confronted and reminded of the outside world constitutes for them less a motivation to keep hoping, as argued by Moran, than a reason to let go of their pre-prison identities and accept that life is now the existence that takes place in prison and, as a consequence, to cut their bonds with the outside world. This also becomes clear in the following statements:

While we were working together at his workplace today, Lars told me that his [prisoner] friend had voluntarily broken his last contact to the outside. If he stays here forever, Lars told me, he sooner or later would do the same, before they [his family members] die or pre-empt him, which, according to him, would make the loss even worse. (Fieldnotes, 17.2.2016)

I notice that the more I let go and just accept that I won’t get out, I then find it actually easier to feel comfortable [compared to] when I am constantly worrying if I will ever get out, if there may still be possibilities, [and] put pressure on myself. […] But this also means that I would need to give myself up. I just talked to someone, just yesterday, who is in exactly the same situation as I am. He has now resigned, has given up. He denies everything, therapy and all that, and yes, he said he felt extremely comfortable. (Leo, 23.3.2016)

However, in many cases the relationship is ended by those in the outside world. Friends, in particular, are gradually lost over time (see also Cohen & Taylor, 1972, p. 67), but so are family members and lovers. Many prisoners mentioned that relatives and friends have abandoned them, some immediately after the arrest, others over the course of time. The explanations the prisoners shared range from the emotional burden of coming to prison and not knowing how long the situation will last, to the prisoners’ criminal history, as well as a lack of time, living too far away, or having become too old or sick (and thus not mobile enough) to visit them in prison:

I haven’t had any contact with [my brother] for years. […] I understand him; I understand that he’s mad at me. But he came to visit me once, in 2005, saying: Michael, I forgive you. I was so happy and satisfied. And then I asked him: Will you come back again? But he never did. He never came. Believe me, I wrote him eight, nine, about ten times. He never even replied. Before, he used to answer. And of course, I had his phone number, but I was afraid to talk to him. That he might hang up or something. […] Yes, I have disappointed him, I have disappointed everyone, not only him, but [my brother] is just one who takes everything very literally. That’s a bit the problem with him. But he is … we used to do lots of things together when we were young. (Michael, 6.5.2016)

In the following extract from a letter that I received, a prisoner describes an additional element: the feeling from someone in the outside world that the behaviour of the one inside has changed. This observation makes this prisoner feel like he is not only stuck in prison, but also in his ‘own body’, which has changed its expressions without him noticing:

It just became too much for her [after all these years]. She felt this depressing mood every time she came to visit me. It was a huge burden for her to come to the prison. We had known each other a long time before [incarceration], and she was the woman I wanted to spend my life with, but she told me a few times that I had changed, not even negatively, but that my behaviour was very limited, absent and alien to her. Then I realized that being imprisoned can be painful. It is not the fact of being incarcerated that frightens me, but the fact that you are caught in your own body. Now we have gone our own separate ways. (Letter from a prisoner, 21.11.2016)

Based on the recognition that the relationship ‘will lead nowhere’, as it is difficult to share a life and imagine a common future when one of the two partners is held in prison (for an undetermined but certainly long duration), some also decided together to break off contact:

So, actually, we broke up about a year ago, she came to visit me for a few more months, for about half a year, and then we said we slowly let it come to an end, and it’s ok like this. And I think it wouldn’t be right, if [she would continue to visit me] … I would feel guilty about it. Why should she be visiting me in prison for the rest of my life, feeling sad and depressed every time she comes here? And for me, indefinite incarceration is really nothing else than a very inhumanly sustained death sentence, nothing else. And she doesn’t have to watch me dying in here. I think to truly love a person means to love someone more than yourself. And then you have to be able to say: no, that will lead nowhere. We had very, very emotional, very deep conversations and it was very difficult for both of us, but I think it’s better this way. And I would be happy if she would find happiness and peace in her life, because, as bad as I was, she has always been so good and she deserves nothing better than what she really is herself, a really good person. I know that there are also people who are disappointed and sad when their partner leaves them or doesn’t visit them or the family members who don’t maintain contact. But I just think that the reason why I’m here is my fault and that’s part of my punishment. So I see this as part of my sentence. It’s not nice, it’s not easy, but over time it just becomes part of it. (Markus, 29.3.2016)

As shown in this section, the visits in prison are emotionally charged moments that have an impact beyond the actual event. As time markers, prisoners can look forward to a visit for a long time beforehand and draw from it for some time afterwards. During the visits, by getting in touch with the outside world, in the visiting room, prisoners can experience and perform a different self, although the prison context and their status as prisoners can never fully be masked. Moreover, these moments provide them both with motivation and frustration, as those from the outside help them to forget temporarily about their situation and to maintain their motivation, but also to be reminded of their confinement. To maintain contact beyond the prison walls within the frame of formally established carceral spaces is highly challenging, and, as I have illustrated, many relations will be broken over time. It is, however, also possible, although it seems to be rather exceptional, to establish new ones.

6.3.2 Letters and Phone Calls

According to Art. 84 para. 1 of the SCC, prisoners have the right to cultivate contact with people in the outside world, not only through visits but also through letters and phone calls (Baechtold et al., 2016, p. 188). Prisoners can send and receive as many letters as they wish; however—with the exception of correspondence with legal actors (e.g. lawyers, supervisory authorities)—incoming as well as outgoing letters and parcels (which are restricted in number and content) are controlled by the prison (JVA Lenzburg, 2011, pp. 52–54; JVA Pöschwies, 2017, p. 19).

As pointed out by Toch (1996 [1977], p. 70), for those prisoners who are particularly ‘feedback-oriented’, exchanging letters with the outside world is ‘not only […] the most significant feature of their routine, but becomes the weather vane to their mood, disposition, or ability to cope’. Indeed, I came across quite a few prisoners who used to exchange letters with the outside world, especially with family members, in large part also with former fellow prisoners who had been transferred to another prison, and, finally, with the prison authorities.

Corresponding with the outside world is also an important means of dealing with time. For instance, sending a letter is usually connected to the expectation of receiving a reply. Writing letters thus allows prisoners to wait for something. For example, throughout the time I have known him, Clément has been intensively engaged in writing complaints and arguing with lawyers and authorities. Along with his intention to improve his situation and achieve his release, my impression was that he also understands complaining as a (playful and almost ritualized) battle as he often anticipates the response; therefore, I argue that it is also a way to ‘kill time’ (see Sect. 4.5.1). As he told me, the usual negative responses constantly provide him with ‘material to fight back’ (Clément, 26.9.2017), again and again. The following extract illustrates his knowledge of the procedure:

I can prove that all my therapy reports are alright, since 1995. […] But then there comes a reviewer, and then everything goes again down the stream […]. And I even got a written notification. I’m doing therapy although I’m held in indefinite incarceration … [but] nothing is accepted. […] Now, [my lawyer] makes a complaint. And it will probably be rejected again, then [he will] lodge an appeal, and then he would go to the administrative court, and depending on how it will be decided we will go to the Federal Supreme Court. It may take a long time. (Clément, 24.3.2016)

As discussed in Sect. 4.5.2, some prisoners also document their correspondence (e.g. listing all the outgoing and incoming letters, dates and names) and thus transform letters (the writing and the receiving of them) into ‘events’, which allows them to ‘mark time’ and create chronology.

Furthermore, by writing letters, especially to their loved ones, they also construct spaces for living out emotions and fantasies, developing wishes and hopes. For instance, Louis, who got married when he was already in prison, uses every opportunity to communicate with his wife. Sometimes, they write each other ‘intimate’ or ‘special’ letters:

Every week, we have the opportunity to see each other, we hear each other twice a week and we exchange letters, sometimes you might even come up with something special, an intimate letter or a special one, I always call it a special letter. (Louis, 22.3.2016)

By exchanging letters with his penfriend (or ‘contact’, as he specified), whom he met by chance in the prison’s visiting room, Leo rediscovered the experience of getting to know a woman. As he said, he did ‘not remember exactly how this is done’ and was trying to be very cautious to ‘not rush anything’ (Fieldnotes, 5.2.2016). However, some weeks later, he told me that he was already thinking about breaking off contact, because of an imbalance that had developed, or, in Cohen and Taylor’s words, a growing ‘sense of the unilateralism of the relationship’ (Cohen & Taylor, 1972, p. 67), as his penfriend asked a lot of questions, especially regarding the offence that put him in prison, without revealing much of herself. Another reason for his intention to end it was linked to the fantasies and wishes that these letters stimulated, but which cannot be fulfilled as long as he is in prison:

Of course, one has desires and dreams and fantasies, especially in here. And I also have a bit a problem with that […]. I then imagine things, or wish for something, which then doesn’t happen, will not come true, and me, I absolutely want it to happen […] and then this creates again disappointments. (Leo, 23.3.2016)

The prisoners’ correspondence with the outside world is of course strongly influenced by the prison management’s right to monitor the exchange of letters. To know that the prison can read what they have written hinders some prisoners from freely expressing their feelings and writing about their experiences in prison. They fear that what they write may not be tolerated, that it may have negative consequences for the prisoners, and that letters (outgoing as well as incoming) may be withheld by the management. Some prisoners indeed told me about serious consequences they experienced after the prison inspected letters they wrote to their relatives. In one case, the prisoner described his feelings of hopelessness, which the prison interpreted as a sign of suicidal behaviour. He told me that he was immediately transferred to a psychiatric clinic where they bound him to the bed and sedated him with drugs. As he told me during an informal conversation at his workplace, he ‘never want[s] to experience this again. [He] will never write such letters again’ (Fieldnotes, 5.2.2016). Another prisoner found out that in creating an assessment of his case, the competent authority, without his knowledge, included a letter he had sent to his family. He said that since then he had never written any letters at all. I also came across other ways of dealing with these controls. Jürg said that after he had discovered that ‘everything is read’, he decided to nevertheless continue writing letters to his son, but to reduce the content to a minimum—‘just to ask from time to time whether everything is OK’. In addition, he communicates by sending him money on a regular basis. Once, the boy wrote to him that he had spent it on a new iPhone (Fieldnotes, 22.4.2016).

Communication with the outside world is not only restricted by the fact that letters are read and maybe also withheld, but, according to Rolf, also because prisoners have no access to online and social media, which makes them feel left behind, or artificially held in the past, and thus reinforces the experience of social isolation (see also Jewkes & Reisdorf, 2016):

I don’t want to imagine a future [in here], as it is now, without any change, without more freedom, especially freedom to communicate. Because you can now find everything on the Internet, you can only watch half of the news on TV because it’s always mentioned: You’ll find more information on www […] It’s getting worse and worse, phone numbers, you no longer find them out if you don’t have access to the Internet, it’s the same with postal addresses. And if you still write letters, you don’t get a reply, because people want to write emails, to text, or how is it called (laughs). […] That can’t be. (Rolf, 11.9.2013)

In addition to correspondence, prisoners are allowed to cultivate contact with people outside the institution through phone calls:

Jonathan::

I have a very big family. […] On Sundays at three o’clock I always call them, ten minutes before three I call them, because at three they start to eat. And often they come together at the weekend at someone’s home, sit together and then they talk and so on. And then I call them.

Irene::

Every week?

J::

Every week. Four times a month my family, and a few times my friends whom I met here or know from outside. So usually I make calls between 70 and 80 minutes.

I::

Per month?

J::

Per month, yes. 120 are allowed. (Jonathan, 2.5.2016)

As this extract from the interview I conducted with Jonathan reveals, interacting with the outside world by means of the telephone is, like any other means of communication, restricted by the prison. While the duration of discussions with legal representatives, such as lawyers, is unlimited, the time allowed to speak to friends and family members is restricted both in terms of each single call (between 10 and 20 minutes) and the total duration of all the phone calls per month—120 minutes per month at JVA Pöschwies (JVA Pöschwies, 2016a, p. 9) and 180 minutes per month at JVA Lenzburg (JVA Lenzburg, 2011, p. 55). Moreover, with exception of the AGE, where prisoners possess a telephone card and have more options to make calls during the period when the cells are unlocked, phone calls generally have to be registered and approved in advance. The possession of mobile phones is strictly forbidden (JVA Lenzburg, 2011, p. 55). Prisoners cannot receive incoming calls and, finally, although not systematically monitored, phone calls may be recorded (Baechtold et al., 2016, pp. 188–189).

The prisoners’ experiences of the restrictions concerning phone calls are diverse. They not only mentioned the limited duration of the call time, but also the impossibility of calling someone spontaneously, for instance in the case of an acute crisis. The limited duration, however, is not a problem for everyone. This, as illustrated in the following extract from my fieldnotes, is directly linked to the uneventful prison context:

Today at Leo’s workplace, we were talking about his contact with the outside world. He said that it bothers him that one always has to fix the phone calls in advance. Spontaneously, when things go bad, he cannot talk on the phone. […] Another prisoner joined in our conversation and said that 20 minutes a week were enough, because ‘you don’t experience much in prison anyway, so you don’t have anything to talk about’. (Fieldnotes, 5.2.2016)

However, Darko felt that with the limited duration of ten minutes per call, it is impossible to really maintain contact with the outside world:

What bothers me is the ten minutes per phone here [in this prison]. I don’t like that. If you want to maintain your contacts then ten minutes is too little. And then, after these ten minutes, you can only call again after one hour. […] Before that, I had more phone [time], could talk for up to half an hour, or up to one hour or so. (Darko, 24.9.2013)

Rolf, too, wishes to have more call time. He has a big social network in the outside world, and not being able to contact his friends and family members whenever and for how long he wishes makes him feel (corporally) even more isolated from them. As he said, this was the reason why he once illicitly gained access to the Internet:

Irene::

And how about outside contacts, is it easy to maintain them?

Rolf::

I have a lot of contacts, but I don’t have enough telephone minutes […] that was the reason why I [gained] Internet access … when I had the opportunity, because I couldn’t stand it anymore, I just suffered so much from claustrophobia. (Rolf, 11.9.2013)

As this example suggests, prisoners also find (more or less legal) techniques to evade the restrictions regarding phone calls. It is an open secret that mobile phones or USB sticks allowing Internet access circulate in the prison every now and then (e.g. 55 items were detected in 2015, 40 in 2016, as officially reported by JVA Pöschwies) (JVA Pöschwies, 2016b, p. 53). During an informal conversation that I had with another prisoner at his workplace, he provided me additional insight into such illicit activities:

I joined [a prisoner] who was felting ladybugs. He immediately started chatting, told me about prison life. […] For example, that every now and then there is a mobile phone in the house, which is used by the prisoners and their fellow prisoners. Especially when the staff meets on Wednesday. The prisoners would then queue up in front of the cell of the inmate who has a mobile phone. They use it to make phone calls and go on Facebook. As he told me, the phone must be well hidden and covered with paper so that it doesn’t show up on the detector that the staff would use to search for it. But usually, sooner or later, the prisoner gets caught, he laughed. As he said, mobile phones can be bought from other inmates for 1,000 Swiss francs. He suspects that it is also the sellers who squeal on the buyers, so that they always find buyers. As he further told me, they also manage to get Internet access [from their computers] from time to time. He proudly mentioned that he had seen the new James Bond movie even before it was released in Swiss cinemas. He laughed. Staff think they have everything under control, he said, but they don’t: ‘One always finds a way’. (Fieldnotes, 14.4.2016)

I came across another, more legal technique of dealing with the restrictions regarding phone calls. I was once sitting in a social assistant’s office when one of the prisoners came in and asked the social assistant whether he may use the phone (the social assistant had an additional phone in his office). He explained that his girlfriend had been crying on the phone the day before and as the call got interrupted they could not continue to talk and now he had no idea how she was doing. He got permission. After he left the office, I asked the social assistant about the function of this second phone. He explained to me that it was ‘actually an emergency phone’ allowing prisoners to ‘finish an important conversation’. However, as he continued to explain, many prisoners also come to use it to order something or to clarify something that only takes a few minutes and for which they do not want to sacrifice the ten minutes of calling time they have available per week—a practice that he tolerates in most cases (Fieldnotes, 22.2.2016).

6.4 Blurring Physical and Social Boundaries During Sports

During leisure time, prisoners also have the opportunity to take part in sports. In the prison literature, as summarized by Norman (2017), sport is examined from two perspectives. On the one hand, it is considered to have positive effects, for example on prisoners’ mental health and their ability to cope with incarceration (Gallant et al., 2015; Martos-García et al., 2009; Meek, 2014; Norman, 2015; Sabo, 2001), or on their rehabilitation, due to the acquisition of ‘post-release skills’ (Gallant et al., 2015; Meek, 2014). On the other hand, it has also been claimed that sport, especially weightlifting and competitive sports, can contribute to the development of a hierarchical and violent ‘inmate culture’ (Abrams et al., 2008; Ricciardelli, 2014; Sabo, 2001). Norman argues that sport can further be used by the management ‘to control both the prisoners’ behaviour and to impose a particular moral or ideological order upon prisoners’ (2017, p. 600). The social values that are supposed to be transmitted through sport are, according to Norman, hard work, discipline and respect for authority. Sport is also seen as a tool that supposedly contributes to the overall safety of the prison environment by reducing tension among prisoners. At the same time, however, as again demonstrated by Norman (2017), for the prisoners, sport can constitute a vehicle for resistance and subversion and thus facilitate the development of ‘secondary adjustment’ that contributes to a prison’s ‘underlife’ (Goffman, 1961). Based on a study conducted in Canada, Norman (2017) demonstrates how prisoners ‘refashion sport activities, materials, and spaces to their own purpose – and, in doing so, […] they resist, in a limited fashion, the prison’s social control aims’ (Norman, 2017, p. 598) and establish ‘a sense of identity within the institution’ (Norman, 2017, p. 609).

Against this theoretical background, I propose to put aside the analytical framework of power and resistance and instead to approach sports in prison by looking more closely at the prisoners’ lived experience of their moving and interacting bodies during sports lessons, and how this shapes the experience of their sense of self and (indefinite) incarceration in general.

6.4.1 Feeling and Using One’s Body

In all three of the prisons where I conducted my research, prisoners have access at least once a week to sports courses and the possibility to pursue physical activities in the courtyard (e.g. jogging, doing exercises) on a daily basis. Despite these opportunities for movement, the prison environment and its particular spatio-temporal regime have significant effects on prisoners’ bodies—on their general health, physical fitness and agility.

Prisoners spend much of their time sitting (at their workplace, which they reach in a few steps, as well as in their cell) or lying down (on the bed in their cell). As a consequence, as observed by one of the gym teachers as well as staff members who used to escort prisoners on temporary prison leaves, generally prisoners ‘gradually lose their balance and body tension’ (Fieldnotes, 25.2.2016). According to the gym teacher, this is also due to the fact that ‘the entire ground in prison is flat’ (Fieldnotes, 25.2.2016). In addition, from the gym teacher’s point of view, the limited access to daylight in prison, the food prisoners eat (not only the usually very nourishing prison food, but also the generally unhealthy food they buy at the prison shop) and the fact that they generally have no or only very limited access to a wide view all affect the prisoners’ health. Moreover, according to one of the prison doctors, due to the fact that in prison ‘every thought, every idea, every wish is regulated’, the prisoners face few mental and physical challenges, which causes them to ‘become dull’ over time:

All the challenges, both physically and mentally, that everyday life brings with it, that you have to go shopping, to pay, that you give a one-hundred franc bill and then you calculate, how much will I get back now? To get out in the cold air, to put on a jacket, the need to be careful when it is icy. To take stairs when going to the mall, searching for something, thinking, looking with your eyes, in here [in prison], there is no need for all that. […] Or things that keep the whole story alive, keep it alive, changes … It’s just really very dull in here. And of course, people become dull much faster in here. Everyday life is very monotonous, everything is regulated. Every thought, every idea, every wish is regulated in here. The prisoner does not have to ensure that the rent is paid by the end of the month […]. You just have to sit at the table and the food is ready […] you sit at the table and then you go back to the cell, then you are locked up again, or you sit at the workplace and then you just have to pack hundreds of things somewhere in an envelope. Then go back to the cell again, then there is dinner time, the prisoner must sit again at the table, you don’t need to think ‘what do I want to cook today? What is seasonal now? What would I like to eat?’ You simply get what is there. And then back up to the cell again, and in there again, yes, what am I doing today? Maybe I take a book, I read a book or … most of them just lie down and switch on the TV and then they stare into the TV until they fall asleep, and then it is morning again. So it’s just that the everyday challenges that we have, that are also good for us, physically as well as mentally, they just fall apart in here, to a large extent. (Medical staff member E., 4.2.2014)

Certain prisoners indeed mentioned that they had experienced bodily changes since their arrival in prison, mainly weight increases, but also an unbalanced digestion. Weight increase was clearly something I could observe over time: prisoners’ bellies were getting bigger and bigger. Moreover, as two of my research sites were located in the units for elderly and ill prisoners, I came across many prisoners with health issues, which was recognizable to me especially through their limited mobility and agility. Some prisoners are also well aware of the effects that monotonous prison life may have on their mental health. Based on their observations of their fellow prisoners’ behaviours, some reported not only a loss of spontaneity, but also a ‘loss of interest in other people and emotions’ (Letter from a prisoner, 27.9.2016) and becoming ‘dulled’ over time (Theo, 3.5.2016).⁷ In addition to this, there is the lack of any concrete perspective, which makes many prisoners become depressed, angry, or sad (see Sect. 2.3.1).

Prisoners who were at the time of my fieldwork physically capable and willing to participate in the prison’s sports programme generally described sports, similarly to people in the outside world, as activities that help them to increase their physical and emotional well-being. Moreover, in the sporting context of the prison, prisoners also use their bodies as instruments of action to influence the experience of imprisonment, by re-appropriating and regaining control over their bodies (see also Milhaud 2009). Sport is often used as an ‘outlet’ ‘to let off steam’, which helps them to ‘just forget the whole thing for two hours’ (Leo, 23.3.206). It is also used as a means to reach ‘physical tiredness’, which further leads to ‘mental relief’ (Serge, 25.9.2013), ‘calmness’ (Anton, 24.3.2016) and reaching the stage of being ‘free of stress and negative thoughts’ (Jonathan, 2.5.2016). For certain prisoners, sport is also a means to exercise some control over time, in particular the process of ageing, and thus to prepare their bodies for the future: by doing sports, prisoners try ‘to stay fit and healthy as long as possible’ (Serge, 25.9.2013).

In contrast, some prisoners say that they see no reason they should care for their health. For instance, Thomas refused to follow the doctor’s advice to lose weight through physical movement and a more balanced diet, mainly because, according to him, he does ‘not have any future’ (Thomas, 11.6.2013) (which for him is outside) and therefore does not see any meaning in remaining fit:

As I am now [in terms of weight], I haven’t been like this before imprisonment. I used to go walking with my dog every day, for several hours […] By doing this you automatically don’t get fat. And where I lived, there you had to go up the street, I lived quite high up, and mostly I went home by foot, like this you have your personal fitness, but if you cannot do this … The medical service said I was too heavy, I replied: Listen, give me a dog, I take it for a walk every day, for two, three hours, then I will immediately lose weight […] I don’t want to go into this room and go cycling and running on the treadmill, I haven’t done this on the outside and I certainly won’t do that in here. […] When the doctor comes and says: You should no longer do this and that, then I reply: Do you know what, what should I then still live for? In the beginning, he wanted me to lose at least 20 kilos, and I said: Then please explain to me why I should still live, and [he answered]: But you too have a future, I said: Yes, I would be pleased to change [places with you]. […] I don’t chasten myself in here, what for, whether I die in five years or in eight months, this is a detail. But I will most probably die in here. Maybe I still live for 20 years, who knows, but I’m not unnecessarily hoping for a vague future out there, because for me, as you’ve rightly said, the future is outside and not in here. (Thomas, 11.6.2013)

Moreover, some prisoners participate in sport, above all, to ‘kill time’, and, when it takes place during work hours, to reduce the hours they have to be at their workplace.

The sporting context in prison is also a social space, which enables interactions that are not common in other contexts. As explained by Leo, while engaging in physical activities, and especially when playing team games, ‘one behaves differently’ and is ‘more easy-going’ (Leo, 23.3.2016). This is something I realized myself, particularly when I joined the prisoners playing badminton or table tennis—games that allow great physical activity and maybe foster an ambition to win the match. This is also connected to the experience (and maybe expression) of emotions, in a way that is probably not possible in other carceral spaces (see also Crewe, 2014). As I further explore in the following, the fact that one ‘behaves differently’ during sports lessons also influences interpersonal interactions in a way that may complicate the institutionally established boundary between staff and prisoners and affect the relations among prisoners.

6.4.2 Experiencing Encounters Between ‘Human Beings’

Sporting contexts in prison are social spaces where prisoners interact with both fellow prisoners and sports teachers, who are either from the outside or part of the regular prison staff, such as prison officers or foremen. As I show in the following, when they actively participate in sports (and not just supervise the lesson), institutionally ascribed (opposed) roles and individual status can fade into the background as prisoners and staff face each other in the roles of equal partners or opponents—or maybe apprentices and trainer. Collective sports activities thus also challenge the important but fragile relationship of both closeness and distance between staff and prisoners and may even blur the institutionally established boundary or ‘basic split’ (Goffman, 1961, p. 7) between them.

Some members of the prison staff who also gave sports lessons explicitly mentioned that they frame these as situations that should differ from the everyday (working) routine. One of the foremen who teaches sport once a week told me that he ‘clearly deal[s] differently’ with prisoners during sports lessons, during which he wants to be ‘not their boss, but their opponent’ (Foreman A., 27.6.2016). He makes this clear by wearing sportswear and actively participating himself, and also by shaking the prisoners’ hands before and after sport—‘like in the outside world’—to indicate that he ‘respects’ them as equal opponents (Foreman A., 27.6.2016). With this practice, which is very uncommon in prison, he also (physically) makes the beginning and the end of this particular activity tangible for the prisoners. Moreover, he wants the sports lesson to be an occasion during which prisoners are ‘allowed to express emotions’, for instance ‘to get upset’ and ‘to swear’—things he would not accept in the workplace in his role as foreman (Foreman A., 27.6.2016). From his point of view, he thereby releases prisoners from playing the role of the prisoner and lets them slip into the role of the athlete, or simply of an emotional human being:

Foreman A.::

And you realize that they behave completely differently, it makes them feel more relaxed. Yes, because they don’t have to play a role, they are allowed to swear a bit, yes, to show emotions. Which I think is important, especially in sports you should be able to show emotions and even let off some steam.

Irene::

So you actually provide them with some free space, right?

FA::

Yes, I think so, it’s a free space. Especially for them to sometimes break out of the whole, out of all the rules, out of the whole, which is so strictly ordered, to break out a bit, even if it’s just a little bit. But for once to simply be the athlete, and not the prisoner, a human being, you know, the athlete, not the prisoner. (Foreman A., 27.6.2016)

The extract above also clearly indicates that for this foreman, sport is not only a perfect framework but also a legitimate one for the expression of emotions, as something that is commonly associated with athletes. Moreover, according to him, allowing prisoners to spend some time out of the prison routine gives them pleasure and satisfaction, which, in the end, also contributes ‘to a better atmosphere’ in prison as a whole, and ‘makes it easier for [the foreman] to work [with them]’ (Foreman A., 27.6.2016). This echoes Norman’s (2017) argument that sport in prison is also used to exercise social control over prisoners. In this sense, to let prisoners simply be human beings during sports can also be interpreted as a strategic decision.

However, facing each other as ‘human beings’ during sports lessons is particularly challenging as it brings staff ‘again a step closer’ (Foreman B., 27.6.2016) to the prisoners—and vice versa. Facing each other not only in the role of prisoner and foreman but also as game partners ‘sharing the same hobby’ creates an ‘additional connection’ between prisoners and the teaching staff member (Foreman A., 27.6.2016). This is not without problems, as staff and prisoners are supposed to keep a ‘social distance’ (see also Goffman, 1961, p. 7). From the institution’s perspective, close relations between staff and prisoners automatically increase the potential for inappropriate and illegal practices—such as doing a favour for the prisoner, for instance by smuggling something in for him—which ‘could put the prison’s security in danger’ (Foreman A., 27.6.2016). For this reason, from the staff members’ perspective, in the end, the prisoner has to remain a prisoner: ‘You must always keep in mind that he is a prisoner’ (Foreman A., 27.6.2016). The social boundary between staff and prisoners is thus not static but constantly redrawn and re-negotiated, by both staff and prisoners. This dynamic also becomes apparent in the following extract from my fieldnotes:

During table tennis, I became involved in a discussion between a prisoner and a foreman who had just played a match together. [The prisoner] mentioned several times that this prison was the best because of the staff: playing table tennis together and ‘to talk personally’ with staff, this is unique, he told me. [The foreman] intervened by saying: ‘but we [prison staff] still don’t tell private things’. I joined in the conversation and wanted to know from [the foreman] whether the interactions are nevertheless a bit more collegial, as they take place in the frame of leisure time. He then agreed, saying: ‘Yes, you [as staff member] certainly have to distinguish between work and leisure’. (Fieldnotes, 3.2.2016)

As this extract further clarifies, while some prisoners, such as the one quoted above, welcome the blurring of the boundary between themselves and prison staff during sports lessons, this is something which makes staff feel uncomfortable—maybe not so much while practising it, but certainly while reflecting upon it. Through discursive practices, the staff foreman quoted in the extract above tried, to some extent, to re-establish the social boundary between himself and the prisoner after they had faced each other as (equal) game partners while playing table tennis together. He nevertheless agreed that this boundary did not need to be as distinct as in the work context.

In addition to the discursive and behavioural strategies illustrated above, staff members may also create distance between themselves and prisoners through hidden and symbolic practices without the prisoners’ knowledge. The following example, however, should probably also be interpreted as a performance of the foreman’s positioning vis-à-vis me:

Together with [a foreman] I went to the gym, and we set up the ping-pong tables. We expected ten prisoners. […] He got the rackets and asked me if I brought my own (which I didn’t) and if not I would just have to wash my hands afterwards. I said that I don’t mind at all to use the same rackets as the prisoners. But he insisted on giving me a new one, saying that ‘the inmates don’t need to know that you got a new one’. ‘It’s always good to keep a certain distance’, he added, and smiled. The prisoners arrived […]. (Fieldnotes, 3.2.2016)

In this situation, the foreman emphasized and maintained the boundary between ‘us’ (the prison staff and me) and ‘them’ (the prisoners) by making sure that I did not get in touch with prisoners by using one of the rackets they usually use. In case I did, he recommended that I wash my hands afterwards. This conversation would certainly not have taken place if I had been a guest in a sports club in the outside world.

During sports lessons, prisoners also interact among themselves, which again entails redrawing and re-negotiating social boundaries. While the literature points out that sports provide prisoners with resources to perform masculinity and create a hierarchical and violent inmate culture (see, e.g. Abrams et al., 2008; Ricciardelli, 2014; Sabo, 2001; Sabo et al., 2001), these elements did not emerge during my fieldwork. I assume that this is in part because such dynamics are more common among younger prisoners. The majority of the prisoners I spoke to are part of the elderly prison population, and indeed weightlifting and bodybuilding, which are in particular considered to contribute to the issues mentioned above, were not among their preferred activities. Those who nevertheless used to go to the gym (illustrated in Fig. 6.15) typically indicated health issues like back pain as their main reason for going. Some of the prisoners who used to stay in one of the special units also participated in the gymnastics lessons for elderly people. The younger ones preferred activities such as football, badminton, table tennis or yoga.

Fig. 6.15

(Source Photo by a prisoner)

The prison gym

However, certain prisoners mentioned that during sport, one is ‘more easy-going, out of the daily routine’ (Leo, 23.30.2016). Sport may thus also offer positive opportunities for prisoners ‘to know each other better’ (Leo, 23.30.2016). On the other hand, however, as explained by another prisoner, it is important ‘to not express too many emotions’, because otherwise ‘one becomes vulnerable’. This prisoner told me that he worried that he had been ‘too cheerful’ during his last sport lesson, that he had ‘forgotten for a moment where [he] was’, which is not good, according to him (Fieldnotes, 11.2.2016). This echoes Crewe et al. (2014, p. 57), who point out that the prison environment is often described as ‘low in trust’, a place where prisoners feel the need to ‘mask’ their emotional expressions and put on ‘fronts’ of courage and aggression (see also Sect. 4.4). Hence, regarding relations between prisoners during sports, where one tends to forget where one is, it is nevertheless important for prisoners to maintain a certain distance—maybe not a social distance, but an emotional one. Like prison staff, prisoners feel the need to keep in mind that the opponent, in the end, is a prisoner. Interestingly, being (too) cheerful and joking with prisoners was also designated as a danger by some of the staff members. As explained by one of the foremen, joking with prisoners is not a problem in itself, but it creates a mood that can lead the prison staff to ‘suddenly […] tell them [the prisoners] too much. Suddenly, you talk about your holidays’ (Foreman C., 7.7.2016). Such behaviour again carries the danger of blurring the institutionally established social distance between staff and prisoners.

As I show in the following, blurring boundaries is also an issue during education and training.

6.5 Escaping Spatio-Temporal Stasis Through Education and Training

As mentioned in the introductory section, the prisoners’ right to access education and training is stipulated in Art. 82 of the SCC. As showed by Richter et al. (2011), the status of education within the Swiss penal system has been improved through the reform of the Criminal Code in 2007 and the equating of education with work. This newly stipulated equivalence of work and education corresponds to a worldwide tendency to pay more attention to education, which is considered an important tool in the prisoners’ rehabilitation process. Moreover, in 2007, Switzerland launched a nationwide programme that provides basic education for prisoners called ‘BiSt’ (Bildung im Strafvollzug). According to its website, the aim of the basic education programme is (1) to improve the prisoners’ capacity for coping with daily life in prison and (2) to increase their chances of reintegrating into society and the world of work (BiST Fachstelle Bildung im Strafvollzug, 2019). Basic education primarily promotes skills in mathematics, reading and writing, but it also focuses on social behaviour and basic computer skills. Lessons take place once a week for half a day, during the prisoners’ work hours. The duration of the prisoners’ participation is undetermined.

Richter et al. (2011) employ the metaphor of an ‘island’ to describe the meaning of this particular education programme, because it basically allows prisoners to retreat from the monotonous prison routine. Moreover, in the classroom, they feel like individuals, and they have the opportunity to get in touch with the outside world and to engage in something they consider meaningful. The authors also describe school lessons as ‘safe spaces’ (‘geschützte Räume’) characterized by relations of trust and openness both among prisoners and between prisoners and teachers. These elements clearly also emerged in the interviews I conducted with prisoners. For instance, education as a change in the monotonous prison routine was put forward by the majority of the prisoners with whom I talked:

Very little happens in here. I’m glad when I’m in school, then I hear something new from the teacher, he always brings news, has experienced this and that, he experiences in a week as much as I experience in a year. It’s normal, so much happens outside, whether you like it or not, it just happens. And there you always hear something new, have fun, work on some topics and … otherwise, nothing happens, what should I tell you? (Jonathan, 2.5.2016)

Yet, as the basic education programme is oriented towards prisoners who have to be rehabilitated, the curriculum is based on repetition. Additionally, none of the courses are designed for long-term prisoners, such as courses that build upon one another—not least because these prisoners are clearly outnumbered in prison. Participation in education as well as other training courses is therefore (as with prison life in general) characterized by the experience of repetition and routine. At the time I met Jonathan, he was participating in the BiSt programme for the second time: ‘The teacher asked me if I didn’t mind going through the same topics again. It doesn’t bother me’ (Jonathan, 24.9.2013). While the lack of any advanced training did not seem to bother Jonathan, Clément clearly complained about it:

The computer course offered in here, I also participated once, but then I quit after the third time, that was the lowest drawer. It was supposed to be an advanced computer course, but I just had to laugh. But of course, in here, there are just so many different people, and for some it might have been a good thing. (Clément, 25.6.2013)

As I show in the following, despite the limitations, school lessons nevertheless provide prisoners held in indefinite incarceration with particular opportunities regarding the experience of time and their sense of self.

6.5.1 Tracing the Rhythms of the Outside World—And Finding One’s Own

I met prisoners who participated in school lessons not only to achieve some distraction from the prison routine, but also to exercise control over the passage of time—by tracing the rhythms of the outside world and therefore remaining (to some degree) up to date. This, of course, also strongly depends on the teacher and his or her personal way of shaping the lessons:

For example, when we talk about a topic, I understand it this way, others understand it maybe the other way round, and then we discuss that, and you get a correct answer. […] I also learned how to use the computer. I understood many topics better. For example, at school we discussed news that we saw on TV. And so I got a much better understanding than just from the TV. (Jonathan, 24.9.2013)

I argue that by staying informed, prisoners synchronize their lives with the lives of people from the outside world from whom they are not only spatially but temporally segregated: the rapid progress—especially technological progress—that takes place in the outside world does not to a great extent find its way inside the prison. For instance, although prisoners do have computers, they do not have access to the Internet, nor are they allowed to use mobile phones. The prisoners’ lives are therefore in some ways acted out in a past era.

Moreover, despite the limited education offered, some prisoners engage in mental work within the frame of school lessons with the aim of escaping the feeling of temporal stasis that they experience in prison and, connected to this, the fear of mental deterioration. In learning something new, and especially pursuing personal projects (e.g. writing a cookbook, developing a computer programme, preparing and giving a school lesson), they ‘use time’ constructively, which enables them to maintain their sense of self and to develop further as human beings—according to their own individual rhythm.

Hence, although prisoners sentenced to indefinite incarceration are, from an institutional perspective, not supposed to be concretely prepared for a future in society, and despite the limited education programme, certain prisoners nevertheless use the available education and training offer to create for themselves a liveable present and future—inside prison.

I asked Lars if he also had contact with the prisoners kept in indefinite incarceration. He said no, because most of them have completely ‘resigned’; were like ‘backward’, because of the long detention. To see this scares him. He tries to keep ‘mentally fit’; he goes to school and takes a course in programming. That’s important to him. (Fieldnotes, 9.2.2016)

In sum, education and training programmes indeed constitute ‘islands’ and ‘safe spaces’ for prisoners, as argued by Richter et al. (2011). However, as I have shown in this section, prisoners serving indefinite incarceration also use these occasions to deal with temporality (to trace the rhythms of the outside world and use time constructively), which allows them to experience themselves both as part of society as a whole and as an individual and thus to build a bridge to ‘the mainland’.

6.5.2 ‘Playing Through Certain Emotional States’

During my stay in the units for the ill and elderly, the number of prisoners taking part in the organized leisure activities that I presented in the previous section was very small. This is due in part to the fact that the prisoners in the AGE were excluded from the prison’s general evening leisure programme, as mentioned above. According to staff, in the 60plus, although the prison offered different activities, the interest on the part of the prisoners was, with the exception of the cooking class, very low. Only towards the very end of my fieldwork was there one prison officer who managed to establish two afternoon programmes per week, one for prisoners interested in engaging in handicrafts and another one offering more movement-oriented activities. During my fieldwork in the AGE, in addition to gymnastics lessons for the elderly, for a short period of time one of the foremen offered music lessons once a week over the lunch break. Whenever possible, I participated too:

Together with a group of three to four prisoners, we met in one of the workrooms. We sat in a circle and the foreman encouraged us, one after the other, to create a rhythm by playing one of the available rhythm instruments. Then the rest of the group joined in, picking up the proposed rhythm. While playing music together, everyone was focused on the sound we were producing. Roles, statuses, and even the context became irrelevant. One prisoner once said (clearly delighted) that playing music let him ‘completely forget’ that he was in prison. (Fieldnotes, 18.8.2013)

That playing music allows for moments when the prison becomes irrelevant was also described by Leo and Markus. For Leo, it is a way to ‘immerse’ himself in his own world. As he told me, by playing the guitar, he sometimes achieves a state similar to the one he reached when using drugs (Fieldnotes, 24.2.2016). But, as Markus explained to me, music in prison can signify much more than gaining the feeling of being free. During our walking interview, he showed me the room where a band workshop took place once a week (illustrated in Fig. 6.16). As he revealed during our conversation, playing music in prison is for him also about living through, or, as he nicely put it, ‘playing through’, certain ‘emotional states’:

This here, it’s also a bit of freedom, it’s about switching off. As you play the guitar yourself, when you make music yourself, then you know that then you really have such moments like that, or when you play certain songs, that you just feel free, or even sentimental, melancholic, […] that you can play through certain emotional states, by playing certain songs or some kind of music. (Markus, 28.9.2017)

Fig. 6.16

(Source Photo by a prisoner)

The prison music room

When entering the room with me, he both verbally and non-verbally expressed the importance this place had for him:

Irene::

Oh, it’s already open! (We are entering the room that was not locked as expected).

Markus::

It’s open; the cleaning cart is standing outside. But this is a place … nobody else is allowed to go in, nobody else uses it, there’s no other group or anything [than those participating in the band workshop]. And also … oh I quickly have to air the room a little bit (he opens a window). Eh! Strange, why has my chair gone //(laughs)//. So, this is the band room. Here we make music. Everything has to be in order (he rearranges a chair).

I::

So this is your place (pointing to the chair)?

M::

That’s my place, yes (laughs). We come here on Friday evening, to make some sounds. I’ve been playing the guitar for over ten years now. (Markus, 28.9.2017)

As this extract illustrates, through narrative (by pointing out his privileged access to this room, where he has a personal place, objectified in a particular chair), and by using particular gestures and action patterns when presenting it to me (airing the room, rearranging it in the ‘right’ order), Markus ascribed new meanings and values to this place. More concretely, following Tuan (2001 [1977]), he transformed it into a familiar and intimate (personal) place. This is also strongly related to the (functional) significance of this place, used by Markus to live through his emotions.

6.6 Events Out of the Ordinary

Encountering the outside world also takes place in the frame of special and extraordinary events, for instance where prisoners meet external guests (Baechtold et al., 2016, p. 182). During my fieldwork, I witnessed several such events, including a theatre production, a film workshop and a football match with an external team. I also attended several Christmas parties where external guests, such as musicians, were invited.

During my walking interview with Leo, at some point he guided me to the building where some of these events usually take place, of which he took a ‘special’ picture (see Fig. 6.17):

Fig. 6.17

(Source Photo by a prisoner)

A ‘special picture’ of a ‘special place’

Leo::

I think this is just a nice room, that’s why I have chosen it [for the walking interview]. […]

Irene::

Yes, it’s really nice indeed.

L::

And also in terms of what we’ve already done in here. Concerts, or church visits, which were very interesting, very impressive, the Christmas party took place here too (laughs), [together] with representatives of the governing council. Yes and there is the organ. […] And of course [here] you have a projector, it’s a pretty modern one. Of course music is also cool in here […] we had already a lot, the acoustics are ideal.

I::

So then this is a place that brings back nice memories?

L::

Yes, there is always something going on in here […] I associate this place with joy, also with awareness, for example during a worship service or lectures, also for reflection. Also with fun and letting off steam when there’s a concert. Recently, an artist came here, who painted with sand and projected this onto the canvas. She worked with light, and the shadow alone looked really cool, and in the background her husband told a story and she painted accordingly. (Leo, 31.8.2017)

As his description reveals, such special events constitute time–space constellations outside of the ordinary prison routine, and they allow prisoners to gain new impressions and experiences. They can also be considered particular ‘emotional zones’ (Crewe et al., 2014) as they enable forms of emotional experience and expression—for example ‘to let off steam’—in a way that is probably not possible elsewhere. Moreover, Leo’s statement suggests that this room, which is designated for special events, is not simply a place where entertainment is consumed, but where prisoners are involved as individuals. It is thus a place where they ‘do’ things, where they experience not only joy but moments of awareness and reflection.

In addition to these organized events, special or extraordinary events may also be experienced on an individual level, which is often related to the prisoners’ awareness and attitude. They usually happen by surprise, such as seeing (not only hearing) a flock of sheep:

We [workers in the prison’s construction service] had to build scaffolding, then we took a break, me, I was up there [on the roof], preparing things, masking tape, I thought, I would rather continue than take a break, told this to my boss, and then I sat up there on the gable and smoked a cigarette and then I looked out. You can hear the sheep from time to time, and as I sat there on the gable, I suddenly saw the flock of sheep. This doesn’t sound special, but if you imagine, I haven’t seen a sheep in seven years, it’s weird, and I just sat up there, just enjoying watching these sheep. That was something … You can see a dog [in prison] from time to time, you hear it barking now and then, but a sheep! I’ve never been interested in sheep, and also now I don’t really care about them, but I saw animals again. I saw animals again. And I saw and heard them, I saw them out in the fields, and I saw the shepherd, or whoever that was, the owner. I sat up there for half an hour, smoking a cigarette one after the other, watching these sheep. Totally stupid! […] But for me it was, it was special, something different. And such moments, special, beautiful, funny, cool moments are what one is looking for in here as much as outside. Because what else is life than the search for such moments. And you have this experience very rarely in here. But when you have that, it’s really cool. (Markus, 28.9.2017)

Another special event prisoners mentioned was a barbecue that may be authorized once or twice a year. In addition, having access to some ‘nice food’—preferably (certain) meats they are allowed to order from the outside world—and eating it during a social gathering among prisoners was mentioned by many prisoners as a highlight, because the prison food is generally rather unpopular:

When you sit together in a little round, of course, one does not forget that one is in prison, but that one could once again play a trick on the prison, for example when sitting in front of a good piece of meat and then maybe forget it for a moment. […] Many things can be acquired legally, we buy it. Have you heard of the possibility to order fresh meat? //yes// We just buy 500 gram filet steaks per head. (Juris, 22.3.2016)

From time to time, they let me receive cigars, through the husband of my friend, then I smoke a fine cigar from time to time, or […] something good from outside, something you don’t get in here, some special meat, and then from time to time during a cell visit, I make a nice meat platter, with Bündnerfleisch [air dried meat], ham, and so on, doing something good for yourself once again. (Hugo, 23.3.2016)

As these examples suggest, the experience of extraordinary moments—no matter whether they are formally organized for the whole community, planned informally among prisoners, or appear in the shape of a surprise for an individual prisoner—nourishes and intensifies a prisoner’s life and leaves ‘traces’ on the individual.

From time to time, the prisoners also come across external visiting groups. However, many of the prisoners mentioned that whenever the prison management informs them about a visiting group, they try to avoid them. They feel like these visitors often behave as if they were walking around in a ‘zoo’ (Theo, 3.5.2016), or speak to prisoners in a way that makes them feel ‘treated like a little dog’ (Fieldnotes, 9.2.2016). Of course, there are also researchers who visit the prison from time to time. On one of the first days of my fieldwork (and hence when I was still unknown to the prisoners), I had the chance to join such a group, consisting of people who were newly employed by the cantonal prison authority. As the following extract from my fieldnotes illustrates, I developed mixed feelings during this tour:

Guided tour through the house: We gathered early in the morning [in the middle of the prison]. Our tour guide arrived, and after a short welcome we went on our way. There were still prisoners around [waiting to go to their workplaces], and I felt uncomfortable that they could see me in this role, like a tourist. I hoped they noticed that I was the only one in the group carrying a bunch of keys [like officers] and thus not really belonging to this group. At first, I tried to (physically) distance myself a little from the group, but then I gave up. Our guide led us through the entire building. As we passed through workshops, where there were also some prisoners held in indefinite incarceration at work, he usually said: ‘Now you will see some famous prisoners’, and after we left the place he asked: ‘Did you recognize them?’. Without naming them, he helped us with hints; sometimes he also mentioned (in detail) their offenses. There was no interaction between prisoners and the visitors. It felt like being in a zoo. (Fieldnotes, 3.2.2016)

While the visits in the visiting room generally involve encounters between friends or relatives, prisoners experience encounters with visitor groups more as a reinforcement of the social distance between the citizens of the free world and the criminals inside the prison.

As explored in detail in Sect. 4.5, the prisoners can also connect with the outside world through media, such as radio, television or newspapers, which, as I discussed, fulfils several functions while prisoners spend time in their cells (a means to ‘kill time’ or ‘transcend’ the prison context). Of course, journalists are also interested in the prisoners’ stories—especially these prisoners, as they generally committed serious violent or sex offences—not as much after they have been sent to prison, but certainly while they are still outside, after they committed an offence, and during the time they stand trial. Thus, it may happen that prisoners who, among themselves, generally do not talk that openly about their crimes learn from the newspaper about their fellow prisoners’ crimes. This can have negative consequences for themselves as well as for the relations between them:

Provocations, brawls, death threats, mobbing, all that. Yes, but I was aware that this would come. I knew that I wouldn’t be welcomed with open arms [by fellow prisoners]. And that I certainly would have to subordinate myself, due to the crime I committed. So, I behaved accordingly, very adapted, which I still am actually, and also very reserved, very decent, very careful. And I had to earn respect, and also fight for it. And that was actually really an issue during the first two years. And that’s what I was talking about everywhere. Because I didn’t feel well mentally, and also because of what I did, had feelings of guilt […] [Today], it is no longer the crime, but more the human being [that fellow prisoners see], those I have known for some time now. Sure, the new ones they know about me from the media, or just know the case. […] For me, this has become a normal thing that certain people simply, yes … detest [what I did]. Which is right, in a way. (Leo, 23.3.2016)

In the workshop: Again, Lars started to talk about the topic of social contacts, mentioned how difficult it is, because people you start to like always leave one day. That’s why he tries not to get involved too much. But he has a friend […]. When they met, his friend didn’t talk about the actual crime he committed, said he was in [prison] because of robbery. When Lars learned about his offense through the newspaper, he broke off the contact for several months. But then he realized that they really get on well together, so they decided ‘to leave the past behind’. (Fieldnotes, 23.2.2016)

In some cases, especially if the prisoner is staying in one of the units for ill and elderly prisoners (units that come into public focus now and again), it occasionally happens that newspapers, or more precisely particular journalists, develop an interest in the daily lives of these prisoners, or rather the lives of prisoners living in this particular unit. During the time of my fieldwork, there was a lot of media coverage of the two units for elderly and ill prisoners, including interviews with one or two prisoners carefully selected by the prison management. As I witnessed, those who have to speak for the whole prison community may afterwards be blamed by their fellow prisoners, for example for ‘whitewashing the reality’ in prison.

Prisoners who told me about their personal encounters with journalists who afterwards wrote about them generally expressed disappointment and frustration with the way they (or the story they told) were represented. While dissatisfaction may arise from the fact that their statements were not reproduced ‘correctly’, some prisoners also experience more serious consequences. One prisoner mentioned that the newspaper published his full name and former address without his knowledge. As a consequence, one of his relatives broke off contact with him, saying that she was concerned about her own reputation. Another prisoner, who has communicated a lot with the outside world, especially in his attempts to exhaust all legal means and make his situation public, felt that the way his case was (and from time to time still is) represented by one particular Swiss newspaper also negatively affects the way prison officers interact with him. According to him, they are influenced by the ‘negative’ and ‘wrong’ stories that have been written about him.

6.7 Going on Release on Temporary License

A break from the prison routine par excellence is release on temporary license. According to Art. 84 para. 6 SCC, ‘[t]he prison inmate shall be granted release on temporary licence to an appropriate extent in order to cultivate relations with the outside world, prepare for his release or where there are special circumstances’. However, temporary absences or furloughs are only provided when the prisoner’s ‘conduct in custody does not preclude this and there is no risk that he will abscond or commit further offences’ (Art. 84 para. 6 SCC). Temporary absences are regulated by the cantonal enforcement authorities and can be shortened, cancelled or provided with additional conditions at any time. One reason they are granted is to maintain social relationships (Beziehungsurlaub). This kind of temporary absence is limited to 36 to a maximum of 56 hours, including an overnight stay. Temporary absences are also sometimes granted to take place during the day for a maximum of 16 hours, which allow prisoners to deal with urgent and non-delegable important matters of a personal, legal or existential nature (Sachurlaub) (Schweizerisches Kompetenzzentrum für den Justizvollzug). These rights also apply to prisoners held in indefinite incarceration, but not to those serving lifelong incarceration (Art. 84 para. 6^bis SCC).

As mentioned, the cantonal decisions regarding permission for absences or furloughs are embedded in a wider socio-political context, currently characterized by increased public demands for security and a general attitude of ‘zero-tolerance’, especially towards prisoners sentenced to indefinite incarceration. Hence, any request for temporary prison leave by a so-called high-risk offender today has to be reviewed by an expert committee (Art. 62d para. 2 SCC), consisting of—at a minimum—representatives of the prosecution services, the enforcement authorities and psychiatrists. Moreover, any incident—such as escapes by prisoners on prison leave, even though both the prison leaves and the escapes are relatively rare and generally without serious consequences⁸—increases the pressure on political actors and authorities, and generally results in more restrictions for this particular prison population as a whole (see also Sect. 2.2.1).

For example, as the Tagesanzeiger reported in July 2011: ‘The canton of Bern wants to learn the lessons of the four-day escape of a detained criminal. For the time being, it has cancelled all accompanied exits and vacations for the 19 prisoners held in indefinite incarceration and the other 130 prisoners, who are considered to be a public danger’ (Spirig, 2011, my translation). After this incident, the right-wing party SVP introduced a motion (without success, however) that aimed to ‘instruct the Federal Council to submit to the parliament an amendment to Art. 64 SCC to the effect that prison leaves and vacations for prisoners sentenced to indefinite incarceration are excluded’ (Die Bundesversammlung – Das Schweizer Parlament, 2011, my translation).

In addition, certain informal practices are also influenced by the political context, one of which became public in 2015. According to several newspapers, since 2013, the penal system in the Canton of Berne had been keeping a so-called ‘watch list’ of all prisoners who made headlines in the media due to the crime they committed (usually crimes for which prisoners were sentenced according to Art. 64 SCC). At the instruction of the management of the Office of Corrections, any planned measures aiming to loosen the regime of detention (such as temporary prison leaves) had to be submitted to the management whenever the prisoner concerned appeared on the ‘watch list’ (Mühlemann, 2015). Protests from prisoners who were not being heard by the penal enforcement authority ended in a further and successful appeal at the cantonal High Court of Appeal: the list was declared illegal in 2017 (Müller, 2017).

While several cantons used to apply the so-called ‘prison leaves for humanitarian reasons’ (my translation) for prisoners held in indefinite incarceration, since 2013, the Federal Supreme Court stated that according to the SCC, there can be no temporary prison absence for purely humanitarian reasons (Künzli et al., 2016, p. 50). Prison leaves and furloughs thus constitute temporary authorized absences from the correctional facility, which are part of the individual enforcement plan and play an important role within the rehabilitative process of the offender. In particular, they should serve to maintain or cultivate social relationships with people outside the prison, to deal with urgent personal, existential and legal matters, to maintain a connection to the outside world and to structure a long sentence, for therapeutic purposes or preparation for release, without impairing the safety of the public (Künzli et al., 2016, p. 50).

Of all the prisoners I interviewed, four had access at that time to temporary prison absences. Three were at that time sentenced according to Art. 64 SCC, one according to Art. 59 SCC. These prison leaves took place between two and four times a year, for four to eight hours each, and the inmate was escorted by at least two staff members. According to Moran and Keinänen (2012), due to the escorted nature of prison leaves, they can be considered as a ‘heterotopic, quasi-carceral space outside of the prison’ (Moran & Keinänen, 2012, p. 72), and the prison guards who escort prisoners embody the disciplinary regime of the prison beyond the prison walls. Thus, ‘access to the “outside” is not only strictly controlled by the enforcement authorities’ selection procedures, but the “outside” is actively surveilled and prisoners on furlough are constantly reminded of their incarcerated status’ (Moran & Keinänen, 2012, p. 72). I talked to two staff members who used to escort prisoners to the outside. However, they both described these situations less by referring to their task to survey and control the prisoner, but to the degree of closeness to the prisoners that may emerge during these situations, and the (potential) related role conflict:

You’re not in here [in prison] anymore, behind the walls, but you’re really out there, it’s also about security, they could jump out of the car anytime. And then maybe you meet his family, you are actually a stranger, but for the prisoner or the client, you are almost more a reference person than his family, which he sees much less. And yes, during the first time with the family you are reserved, the second time you know the people a bit, know the constellations, at some point you feel almost like part of it (laughs) […] and by then they’re also treating you like this. They don’t say: now the troublemaker comes again, but: yes, come in, sit down, here is something to eat. So this is another level. With these people [the prisoners] it’s probably important that when they’re back in here [in prison] and then back at this table, that you switch to the other level, to the business level. It should also be fair to the others who are not granted any prison leave. (Social assistant B., 27.6.2016)

This is quite difficult sometimes, I accompanied [a prisoner] during a prison leave, five hours, and all in all it really went well, and three days later, I have to control his cell and tell him: this and that is not good. (Prison officer B., 8.10.2013)

How do prisoners deal with prison leave, considered here as quasi-carceral time–spaces? They all emphasized the fact that they always complied with the prison’s requirements: ‘Everything always went perfectly; I came back on time, followed the rules’ (Louis, 22.3.2016):

I’ve always proven myself again and again [during the prison leaves]. I was accompanied by [two prison officers] and I walked maybe 500 meters in front of them, along the Bahnhofstrasse, while they were behind me, I only had eye contact and I also went to the toilet by myself. I could have run away any time. But I’m not interested. (Patrick, 3.5.2016)

I once even came back by myself. It was stupid, I wanted to see the airfield again, and because I’m not so familiar with the trains, I grew up in a village, and then the prison officer was next to me and got on the train and at that moment the door was closing, that sliding door, and I was standing outside with four blacks, and I don’t speak English […] [But] then I thought, I do what I’ve learned. Then I went to the main station, back to Zurich, by train. You know, Zurich is still written in big letters. And I thought once I’m in Zurich, I know to which track I need to go. And indeed, I found the right platform […] and came back [to the prison]. (Theo, 3.5.2016)

As these statements suggest, while prison staff refers to the more relaxed atmosphere that may develop during prison leaves and the fact that one is ‘really out there’, prisoners are highly aware that they are (still) under surveillance, and in this sense, that prison leaves indeed constitute (quasi-)carceral time–spaces. They are, to some degree, ‘still in there’. Technically, these spaces simultaneously provide them with the opportunity to prove their reliability and trustworthiness, as there are always moments where they could have ‘run away’. From their point of view, however, this fact is rarely acknowledged by the competent authority.

Despite their rule-following behaviour, I met five prisoners who experienced having their permission to go on prison leave suddenly restricted or even cancelled completely. The reasons they put forward were generally collective punishment by the competent authority due to an incident caused by another prisoner on prison leave (see also Sect. 2.3.1):

For ten years I was granted unaccompanied prison leave, I worked outside the wall for two years, and today I’m even worse off than when I came to prison for the first time. And only because somebody else messed things up. (Clément, 25.6.2013)

Other reasons mentioned were changing interpretations of the prisoner’s behaviour by the forensic psychiatrist in the frame of a risk assessment, which is decisive for the enforcement authority’s decisions regarding, for instance, the possibility of converting Art. 64 SCC into Art. 59 SCC or granting conditional release. One example comes from Louis:

From 2006 to 2013, I had temporary prison leaves, twice a year, which I enjoyed with my family, my wife. Then they were suddenly cancelled, even though I haven’t done anything, on the contrary, everything went always perfect: I came back on time, followed the rules … I just enjoyed being outside the walls, with the family, with my wife, and that was suddenly, yes … stopped by the authority, because somehow, for whatever reason, it was suddenly assumed that there is a risk of absconding, but I’ve never been on the run, there was no sign, it was never a plan […]. And then I started to defend myself, by legal means, and I was classified as rebellious and they transferred me to [another prison, and again another prison] […]. (Louis, 22.3.2016)

A similar experience was faced by Theo. He was also engaged in therapy and went on several successful prison leaves, until they were suddenly cancelled:

I was allowed to go on prison leaves between 2008 and 2012. […] One and a half years ago, an assessment of my case had to be made and we wanted to achieve the conversion of Art. 64 SCC into Art. 59 SCC, [so] that I get one step closer to the outside. Because all the prison leaves went well, I had therapy, so nothing should have been standing in the way. But, and now that’s what scared me, and also a lot of the employees too, I had to take an assessment and this expert put everything I’ve had done in here, prison leaves, therapies, everything in a negative light. He said I was even more dangerous, that I was even more dangerous than when I came in. After 20 years of therapy and prison leaves and so on. (Theo, 3.5.2016)

As mentioned several times, prison leaves, among other elements, increase the possibility that prisoners’ will ever have a future outside as it provides them with the opportunity to prove themselves. However, as the quotes by Louis and Theo illustrate, the actions required of them in order to progress within the system are often perceived as unclear or unattainable and the authorities’ decisions as arbitrary and confusing. As I explored in detail in Sect. 2.3.1, this reinforces uncertainty and may have a significant impact on the prisoners’ sense of self. Of course, there are also prisoners who refuse to enrol themselves in therapy (even when they have the opportunity) or do not want to work with the available psychiatrist. In these cases, the prisoners generally have no chance at all to achieve change. Finally, however, there was one prisoner who mentioned that he himself ‘messed it up’ during a prison leave (without going into detail), and that this was the main reason that the authority cancelled permission for further prison leaves.

Despite their (quasi-)carceral characteristics and importance for the prisoners’ potential progression within the penal system, prison leaves are of course experienced in different ways by the prisoners. Louis and Theo mentioned that they always ‘enjoyed’ and ‘appreciated’ these moments, and that they visited their family members and places that have high emotional value for them: ‘I visited my family, I went there with the pastor, the one we have in the house [in prison], and I visited my favourite chapel where I met my girlfriend’ (Theo, 3.5.2016). For Erwin, prison leaves are moments during which he can ‘go to where [he] want[s] to’, a change from the ever-same environment, and a possibility ‘to enjoy a nice meal’ (Erwin, 18.10.2017).

Prison leaves are also moments that confront prisoners with various (changing) conditions and rhythms of the outside world that are in stark contrast to everyday prison life. This is a stressful experience for Patrick. He said that whenever he left the prison he was especially ‘scared of all the cars’. However, he ‘adores’ observing people and standing in the middle of the main station, which he described as a ‘pure adrenaline rush’ (Fieldnotes, 3.5.2016). For Clément, being outside from time to time allows him to keep up to date with the larger changes that occur over time:

I get along quite well [with the changes], except for the damn Internet and the mobile phone. So if I want something, then I have to ask my son or brother. Me I don’t get it. [But] as I’ve been going out regularly since 1998, one gets used to it. You see the changes, for example, at home, yes, the cottage on the lake, you used to see the lake from it, today you can’t see anything. Previously, we had a little cabin with a small boat, together with my brother, everything has gone, and that’s all built over. The infrastructure is totally different than when we were there. And of course, if you pass certain things, you know … it really changed. And then, when you come out after let’s say 20 years, for the first time, me I wouldn’t get along with it. (Clément, 26.9.2017)

Clément’s statement was confirmed by a prisoner who, by contrast, never had any access to prison leave. He realized that in prison, he is missing out particularly on changes in technology, such as the invention of the iPhone:

I mean, stuff like … iPhone, or things like that. I know such things only by hearsay. And then, depending on how they [fellow prisoners] describe it to me (laughs), how that functions. But as I said, that is a detail now. Other things like buying a ticket at the ticket machine outside, for the train … this information I get from my mother, when she has difficulties with it herself (laughs). Also employees who have known me since the beginning, they sometimes also say there and there, a lot has changed, it’s clear that you wouldn’t recognize it again. I have a big deficit in here. If I would come out, I wouldn’t have a clue. I would first of all keep away from everything. (Anton, 24.3.2016)

How does it feel to go back to prison after one has spent several hours in the ‘free world’? As I was told by Clément, it was ‘extremely difficult in the beginning’, but in the meantime, he ‘got used to it’ (Clément, 26.9.2017).

Prison leaves also provide prisoners with ‘highlights’ to look forward to and memories to live on for some time, allowing them to stay connected to the outside world. In the 60plus unit, there were two prisoners who always told me (weeks) before and (weeks) after they had been on a prison leave. During my fieldwork, there was one prison officer who usually took pictures when he escorted someone on prison leave and later gave them to the prisoners, who kept them as souvenirs. As Erwin explained: ‘If somebody sends me a postcard, I pin it here [on the pinboard], or if I had been outside and eaten somewhere for example, I’ll pin that [e.g. a brochure of the restaurant] here too’ (Erwin, 18.10.2017) (see Fig. 6.18). Usually, the prisoners reported to me in detail where they had been, what they had been doing, and precisely what food they had eaten.

Fig. 6.18

(Source Photo by a prisoner)

A prisoner’s personal pinboard: keeping memories alive

That prisoners may get used to returning to prison after spending some time in the ‘free world’ is something one of the social assistants who has been escorting one particular prisoner for a while now finds difficult to understand:

The return is usually not … I don’t have the feeling that [for him] it is harder than driving off in the morning. [The prisoner shows] the same emotional state. Me I have more trouble with it, each time I’m thinking: Now he has to go back, in there, at least for the next four months, until the next vacation. And me, I can go back [out] afterwards. So, sometimes I have more trouble imagining how it must be for him now […] Sometimes […] when we’re back [in front of the prison] a little bit earlier, then [the prisoner] says: Yes, let’s smoke a cigarette, then we can go in – ten minutes or 15 minutes earlier. And I think: Would I do that? Would I give a single minute of mine, of that little freedom, would I give it away? (Social assistant B., 27.6.2016)

As I have mentioned, there are currently few prisoners sentenced to indefinite confinement who are allowed to spend some hours outside the prison walls. Those who are authorized to temporarily leave the prison must be aware that it can be cancelled at any moment, for any reason. Moreover, in the case of this prison population today, even when successfully accomplished, temporary prison leaves are not guaranteed to contribute positively to their progression within the system. I assume that these layers of uncertainty also influence the meaning prison leaves hold for prisoners and their emotional and personal engagement, although I have no information concerning this matter. Generally, prisoners held in indefinite incarceration have to prepare themselves for a future inside prison—until the end of their lives.

6.8 Conclusion

Leisure time in prison is usually explored in direct comparison with the outside world, often linked to the question of whether leisure or ‘free’ time can even exist in prison (see e.g. Matthews, 2009). What I have explored in this chapter basically corresponds to what Clemmer (1958 [1940]) designated as ‘regulated leisure time’. This means that I approached leisure time first from the angle of the prison system. I also included additional time–spaces that provide prisoners in one way or another with a break from the prison (working) routine, such as the daily walk in the courtyard, encountering people from the outside world or going on temporary prison leave. I looked at the concept of leisure less in direct comparison with the outside world and did not primarily focus on its concrete function from the perspective of the prison or the prisoners. Instead, I explored in this chapter the prisoners’ spatial, temporal and embodied experiences of and during this particular everyday period that is labelled and organized by the prison as ‘leisure time’, taking place in a wide range of contexts.

Generally, during leisure time, the prisoners are—in various ways and to different degrees—confronted with the outside world. Therefore, their lived experiences often oscillate between a sense of confinement and a sense of freedom. In other words, it is during the confrontation with ‘freedom’ that they often become most aware of their confinement. The prisoners’ subjective and embodied experience of the outside world is intertwined with their particular (legal) status as well as their individual experience of time. Their diverse ways of making use of these time–spaces thus also reveal their individual ways of dealing with the indefinite nature of their incarceration. Some of these prisoners (still) need to feel connected to the outside world and its rhythms as it provides them with hope and a sense of the future; for others, however, it is particularly challenging to be reminded of the outside world and to realize that ‘normal’ life goes on. These prisoners generally try to concentrate on the present and the (prison) inside, and they usually cut off their bonds to the outside world as it is emotionally too demanding and too painful to live in two worlds at the same time.