ABSTRACT

All incoming US federal prisoners are meant to participate in an Admission and Orientation (A&O) program. As part of the arrivals' process incoming prisoners should attend presentations, be taken on a tour of their prison and receive written material outlining three interconnected areas: rights and responsibilities, institutional opportunities and their facility's disciplinary system. Behavior once thought to reflect socio-economic factors and opportunities is, in other words, presented in the federal handbooks as a simple matter of choice. In the American case, the handbooks follow closely the logic of neo-liberalism, holding prisoners, like homo economicus to be rational and responsible for their choices. Induction and information handbooks are designed to inform prisoners about their rights and responsibilities, as well as about the individual culture and expectations of particular institutions. Though both prison systems seek to govern inmates with as little conflict and difficulty as possible, they clearly have quite distinct expectations of their confined population.