Chapter 5 in Democracy in Captivity: Prisoners, Patients, and the Limits of Self-Government (University of California Press, 2023)

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Chapter overview

This chapter reconstructs the 1973 prison officer strike at Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Walpole and the two-month experiment in prisoner self-government that followed. When guards walked out and handed over the keys, the Walpole chapter of the National Prisoner Reform Association (NPRA) assumed responsibility for daily governance—managing security, running committees, convening assemblies, and negotiating with administrators. Contrary to predictions of chaos, violence sharply declined, and prisoners developed a structured regime of elected representatives, racial power-sharing, and committee-based administration.

The chapter argues that Walpole generated two competing narratives of prison reform. The divided narrative interpreted self-rule as disorder or managerial failure, insisting that prisoners fall outside the democratic reference public. The united narrative, by contrast, cast the episode as participatory democracy in action—a form of civic education and collective self-determination. By placing these narratives in dialogue with theorists such as John DiIulio and Carole Pateman, the chapter shows how both rely on simplified assumptions about exclusion, inclusion, and political capacity. Walpole reveals that democratic participation under custody is neither simple mob rule nor pure egalitarian breakthrough, but a fragile, site-specific accomplishment shaped by institutional design, racial politics, labor conditions, and shifting political economy.

Core contributions

  • Provides the first archival reconstruction of the 1973 Walpole self-governance experiment, drawing on civilian observer files and prisoner accounts.
  • Distinguishes two enduring reform logics—the “divided” (managerial/exclusionary) and “united” (participatory/egalitarian) narratives of prison democracy.
  • Demonstrates how order emerged without traditional custody, complicating assumptions that hierarchical control is the only path to prison safety.
  • Interrogates democratic theory under confinement, engaging debates about exclusion, capacity, and the boundary of the demos.
  • Connects 1970s prison unionization to contemporary organizing, including prison labor strikes and abolitionist movements.
  • Reframes participation as a site-specific accomplishment rather than a natural attribute or automatic remedy.

Where this chapter fits

The chapter intervenes in scholarship on prison governance, participatory democracy, and mass incarceration. It speaks directly to John DiIulio’s account of “governing prisons,” to participatory democratic theory (Carole Pateman), and to contemporary debates about neoliberal penality and abolition. Substantively, it bridges intellectual history and socio-legal analysis, situating Walpole within broader transformations in prison labor, racial politics, and democratic imagination during the 1970s.

Keywords

Walpole prison; NPRA; prison officer strike; prisoner union; prison governance; democratic exclusion; participatory democracy; Carole Pateman; John DiIulio; prison labor; mass incarceration; abolition; civic education; community control; institutional legitimacy

How to cite

Chicago (author-date)

Berk, Christopher D. 2023. “On Prison Democracy.” In Democracy in Captivity: Prisoners, Patients, and the Limits of Self-Government. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.