Examining Social Representations of Prisons: Experiences, Space, and Daily Productions

Abstract

Prisons are spaces in which confinement is implemented as a method of punishment. They are typically surrounded by high walls, iron bars, and wire fences and organized into a ward and cell system. Scholarly attention on and studies that address the social-psychological and spatial aspects of human-prison relationships are scant in the Turkish literature. Thus, the current study aims to reveal the prison representations of the three groups: those (i) with prison experience, (ii) without prison experience but are relatives of prisoners, and (iii) without prison experience and prisoner relatives. The study also aims to examine how prison representations are shared or differentiated among these groups. It conducted a field study using the cognitive mapping method and semistructured interviews with 50 participants (18 women, 32 men) from various cities in Turkey selected via the purposeful, snowball, and convenience sampling techniques. In the semistructured interviews, open-ended questions were formulated to elucidate the perceptions, evaluations, and experiences of the participants toward prisons. Using the cognitive mapping technique, the participants draw mental images of prisons on a blank paper. Data were analyzed by content analysis. The results demonstrated various commonalities, such as the experience of isolation and the spatial characteristics of prisons in the sociospatial representations of the three groups of participants. However, the findings indicate that the participants exhibit diverse social realities constructed and maintained through their representations of prisons. The primary experiences of, the spatial characteristics of prisons and the production in daily communication channels are important factors in the emergence of these social realities.. Furthermore, the results highlighted the explicit role of the social representation of prisons in forming and perpetuating various social realities within a system that sustains power relation and social inequality. Moreover, the findings illustrated that the cognitive maps reveal the spatial elements of prisons, the contingencies of prisoners, and the social conditions of prisons more clearly than did semistructured interviews.