Penitentiaries and Plasticity

One year, whilst in the seminary, I was assigned to a maximum-security prison for my pastoral field education under the supervision of a superb laywoman who now serves in a senior post in my diocese.  It was there that I gained considerable--albeit limited--insight to prison culture and human nature.

It was something of an open secret that prison life amounted to little more than a back-and-forth power play between the inmates and the guards; in fact, it was difficult to see where "reform" played a role in the prison system, apart from 'extracurricular activities' such as chapel service, education, and group therapy.  Bishop Gary Gordon, during his time as Ordinary of Whitehorse, was the Canadian episcopal conference's voice on behalf of prisoners during Harper's tenure, and often spoke out about the effects of prison life in perpetuating criminal behaviour.  As such, the purpose of imprisonment could sometimes self-defeating.

'Sequestering' violent criminals, as well as 'reforming' them, seems to be the major purpose of imprisonment.  At the same time, prison life is made up of a bulk of rules; breaking them is met with further discipline and following them is occasionally met with a small reward.  The very existence of rules and expectations raises the possibility of "reform"--however small--and, to my mind, raises yet another possibility:  The role of 'formation in virtue' in prison life.

Here I mean only the cardinal virtues.  Given the universality of the cardinal virtues (founded, as they are, on natural law), it seems to me that the application of Aquinas' moral theory might have a special application in prison life beyond the mere following of rules for authority's and reward's sake.  If the hope is that, somehow, inmates improve their character,   In Aquinas' treatise on the habits (S.th., 2a 2ae, qq. 49-54), much discussion is given over to the 'malleability' of human character--or, as Maxime Allard OP calls it, 'plasticity.'  The very premise of prison rules is founded on the plasticity of human character; why not push the expectation further by providing a more authentic formation in character by applying Aquinas' virtue-ethic to the 'curriculum' of prison life?

Though 'secularism' is philosophically untenable, it still makes for a workable partnership with the Church given the natural law.  (Yes, there are secularists aplenty who reject the natural law theory, until someone inflicts misfortune upon them that is, nonetheless, not illegal.)  It seems to me that prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude are 'common denominator' sufficiently low enough to be admitted in a government space such as prisons.

More to the point, for all the talk of how a given inmate may have had an unfortunate set of circumstances which, in turn, gave rise to criminal behaviour, what is to say that a given inmate does not have a sufficient 'plasticity' to better himself by forming newer and better habits?  Again, if inmates are expected to follow rules, then at least they can also be encouraged to put an effort in growth in virtue.  In fact, to reduce inmates' personal reform to merely following prison rules serves less to reform inmates and more to play the Girardian cycle of mimetic violence.

Given Canadian secularism's aggressive pursuit of the 'lowest common denominator,' it is unlikely that we will see 'formation in virtue' part of the official programme of incarceration.  The Church however, in addition to the chapel services she holds in prisons, could offer yet another 'extracurricular' activity in applied virtue ethics following Aquinas' theory.  This, I think, might be a decisive contribution to the Church's engagement with secularity without compromising her essential commitment to the Gospel.