Games prisoners play : the tragicomic worlds of Polish prison / Marek M. Kaminski.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kaminski, Marek, 1962-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Prisons--Social aspects--Poland.

Prisons.

Prisoners--Poland--Social conditions.

Prisoners.

Imprisonment--Poland.

Imprisonment.

Social conditions.

Prisons--Social aspects.

Poland.

Physical Description:

xvi, 215 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, [2004]

Summary:

On March 11, 1985, a van was pulled over in Warsaw for a routine traffic check that turned out to be anything but routine. Inside was Marek Kaminski, a Warsaw University student who also ran an underground press for Solidarity. The police discovered illegal books in the vehicle, and in a matter of hours five secret police escorted Kaminski to jail. A sociology and mathematics major one day, Kaminski was the next a political prisoner trying to adjust to a bizarre and dangerous new world. This remarkable book represents his attempts to understand that world.

As a coping strategy until he won his freedom half a year later by faking serious illness, Kaminski took clandestine notes on prison subculture. Much later, he discovered the key to unlocking that culture -- game theory. Prison first appeared an irrational world of unpredictable violence and arbitrary codes of conduct. But as Kaminski shows in riveting detail, prisoners, to survive and prosper, have to master strategic decision-making. A clever move can shorten a sentence; a bad decision can lead to rape, beating, or social isolation. Much of the confusion in interpreting prison behavior, he argues, arises from a failure to understand that inmates are driven not by pathological emotion but by predictable and rational calculations.

Kaminski presents unsparing accounts of initiation rituals, secret codes, caste structures, prison sex, self-injuries, and the humor that makes this brutal world more bearable. This is a work of unusual power, originality, and eloquence, with implications for understanding human behavior far beyond the walls of one Polish prison.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Entry 16

Chapter 2 The Constraints of Prison Life: An Overview 21

Material Constraints 22

Administrative Constraints 29

Subcultural Constraints: A Glimpse at the World of Grypsmen 34

Note on Importation versus Deprivation 37

Chapter 3 Becoming a Grypsman 38

Initiation Tests 38

First Screening: Fag-Making and Baptism 41

Little Games 46

Hidden Tests 51

Prison University 54

Chapter 4 Prison Code of Behavior 56

The Semi-Secret Code 58

The Secret Code 65

Sanctions and Intercaste Mobility 76

Chapter 5 Argot 82

Argot Vocabulary 82

Argot Roles 85

Secret Argot Grammar 89

Language Games 95

Chapter 6 Everyday Life 101

Random Walk through the Cell Archipelago 101

Information and Trade Markets 104

Coalitional Structures and Resource-Sharing 111

Arenas of Art and Entertainment 116

Fights and Exploitation 124

Chapter 7 Sex, Flirtation, Love 130

Masturbation 131

Fags 134

Women 138

Chapter 8 Strategic Ailment 145

Goals of Strategic Ailment 147

Techniques of Strategic Ailment 149

Cases of Self-Injury 155

Cases of Faking 163

Chapter 9 Exit 169

Postscriptum: Variants and Evolution of Grypsmen Subculture 172

Local Variants and Modifications 172

The Evolution of Grypsmen Subculture 178

Appendix Prison Playground: Games and Decisions 183

Glossary: Essential Argot 191.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [205]-207) and index.

ISBN:

0691117217

OCLC:

54356439