More Mind Games: How ‘The Action’ and ‘The Odds’ have Changed in Prison

Surviving prison has always involved ‘action’ and game playing. Higher stakes—‘life-trashing sentences’, the fear and risk of radicalization, increased incidences of homicide and labyrinth routes out—have compounded the experience of struggle: to be heard, for dignity, against exposure to violent injustice, and for release; the wrestling of ‘the self’ against a bleak and unyielding bureaucracy. In this article, we revisit McDermott and King’s Mind Games: Where the Action is in Prison showing how long-term prisoners are exposed to unregulated, unfathomable forms of power and action, and how long-term imprisonment feels increasingly like being ‘abandoned by humanity.’