Special Emergency Response Teams (SERTs) are commonplace. Less so perhaps are the “sports team” group shots seen here at the end of a good days work out.

Training Exercise, Team Portrait. Photo Credit: I.M.T.T. 2004
Personal politics dictates how one feels about these constructed scenarios. To me they just seem unfortunate sad – not because of what they are, but because of what they represent. However, we must accept that tactical training within prisons is conducted with the same professional intent as that of any police authority or force of shock and awe. With caution, I’d say these trainings are a reality of prison management, but insist that they should not be considered an inevitability.
Once you get past the unnerving brevity of the group portrait, it is the second unposed image (below) that arrests the attention. It differs from other official images from within prison walls because of its ambiguity. As an isolated image, it is not clear whether the confrontation shown is genuine or not. Without the referenced source, could this be read as an actual suppression of inmate violence? How many eyes would be keen or informed enough to tell if the prisoner and guard uniforms were those of controlled dress rehearsal?

Training Exercise. Photo Credit: I.M.T.T. 2004
From building arguments of fact concerning the Abu Ghraib photographs, Errol Morris talks about the inherent traps for viewers of images, “You look at a photograph and you think you know all you need to know. That here you have a veridical piece of reality to look at. And, you need look no further. It, of in itself, is enough. You look as these infamous photographs that came out of Abu Ghraib. You look at the photographs of Gilligan, the prisoner on the box with leads, and of Gus, the prisoner on the leash, and you think you know what these are images of. ‘This is despicable, blah, blah, blah’ … You need look no further … and I believe noone looked any further, [they] presumed to know what the images were about and wrote articles accordingly.”
Morris adds to his general point, “We try to figure out the world by looking at things, and nothing we ever create is complete but you try to figure out what our relationship is to reality – to the real world.”

Training Exercise. Photo Credit: I.M.T.T. 2004
In a world of visual bombardment where deliberate disturbances between reality and fantasy are now commonplace have we lost interest in the strength of imagery and its testimonies? Images are mistakenly and willfully misrepresented and misinterpreted. In many ways, this is a fine game – a novel game. But does the game keep people on their toes or does it lead to apathy and disinterest? As Morris asks “What is true and what is false?” Without the proud group portrait to provide context would viewers have cared to question the seeming brutality of the second photograph?
Or am I missing the mark here? Is a lack of visual curiosity and/or sophistication really the problem here? Or, is the real problem the viewers normalisation to images of violence? Do the two issues compound one another? I would argue that many folk are too familiar with images (often involving wire, concrete walls and the ephemera of incarceration) to presume that the attacks meted out are a) unjustified or b) outside of the legal allowances of a prison authority. The issue of ‘Reality’ almost becomes redundant.
Perhaps, even, this worrisome trend of anesthetised reaction to human suffering can even be stretched through the interwoven spectacle of modern society and placed at the door of second rate video games. Prison Tycoon 4: Supermax, as featured recently on BLDGBLOG challenges the gamer to draw the most profit from prison administration; “Grow your facility to SuperMax capabilities, housing the most dangerous and diabolical criminals on earth – all for the bottom line.”

Prison Tycoon 4: Supermax. Screenshot. Source: IGN.com
I have never liked role playing video games that incorporate violence. But I am not an opponent pointing to them as the cause of delinquency among societies youth. I just don’t like them. Prison Tycoon is less gratuitous than Grand Theft Auto and the like. But I don’t know if this is any comfort. To manipulate a virtual prison population with “friendly interaction and fighting between inmates dependent upon mood and gang affiliation” and to rely on “guards [who] will subdue aggressive prisoners, medical staff to treat injuries, chaplains administer to prisoner’s spiritual needs and therapists talk to prisoners to lift their spirits” seems a bit too sinister and calculated for an evening of gaming.
And the ability to use “96 detailed prisoner model variations created to allow for a wide and varied prison population” and use a “unique ‘builder within a builder’ system to open your buildings and place their interior content wherever you like” in addition to the “over 100 different rooms and objects to place within the prison buildings, each one allowing prisoners to interact with them on various levels and each one having different effects on the prisoner’s mood.” seems like a gamer’s invitation to unleash virtual gang violence akin to those most unfortunate of prisoner abuses in real life.

LAN Party. Source: http://www.davesdaily.com/pictures/391-lanparty.htm
Really, why does this game exist? I suppose it is just completing the loop – the gamer, as a God of Pixels, can create criminals in his other games and then manipulate them in this one.
For more information about High Risk Prisoner Transportation, Corrections Crisis Response, Cell Extraction, Escape Apprehension Training, Suicide Bomber Mitigation Tactics, Tactical Weapon and Explosive Training, Athermal Weapon Sight Usage and Finnish Sniper Training please visit the International Mobile Training Team Website. If all that seems like too much reading then just go to the IMTT promotional video and watch grown men in costume run around with guns to a butt-rock soundtrack.
6 comments
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January 21, 2009 at 8:52 pm
blaark
The perception of reality is a never ending debate, and I like the jump you make here from contextualized visions of violence to the artificial realities of exploitation in the video game… I have watched people be unnecessarily cruel to their video game denizens, deriving pleasure from their suffering or even from gaming the game, and have always been a little confused about the behavior… However, I am not quick to condemn anyone as being a sociopath due to this behavior alone as it comes uncomfortably close to campaigns launched by the PMRC, the MPIA and countless community groups desperate for a connection between what the evils of entertainment hold for their children…
However I agree with Morris’ assertion that people take one image, or the images provided to them, and decide that it is unadulterated reality they are being shown… Half of this I blame on the blind trust in decaying journalistic/news institutions and government; half I blame on the inherent laziness of people and their propensity to react… Maybe the ultimate power is being able to dictate other people’s perception of reality, or maybe everyone should think about Tron every time they’re loading up their computer game prisoner with murderers and rapists to capitalize on a riot…
January 21, 2009 at 11:04 pm
petebrook
I didn’t really want to suggest that it people’s laziness that makes them look at photography uncritically. Such an accusation would not sit right with me – too reductive. I’d like to suggest that the short attention most people give to an image is more like a collective malady that has set itself over contemporary society. The fall-out from this is that most images are given the short shrift by most people and so the crucial images that deserve closer consideration are lost in the visual fog of life.
This is a different issue to the motivations for gamers playing life-simulation games, where people spend a lot of time with an image and imagery. It could be argued that in these cases, despite the time spent, the gamer is equally uncritical and certainly neutral towards the ‘real’ world.
Ultimately, I am conflicted about his because, I’d like to see people get off their computers and onto the streets. And, I’d support many of their gaming activities if transferred to general life. For example, I would support them building community in their neighbourhoods as they do on Sims, but obviously I wouldn’t want to see anyone unleash the violent acts they play out on the X-Box in our towns and cities.
Your contention that ‘ultimate power is being able to dictate other people’s perception of reality’ is a truism and it has been the general philosophy that has shaped much of the best film and literature of the 20th and 21st century. I suppose now we should ask, Is there anything that controls our own personal perception of reality that we are unaware of?
January 22, 2009 at 1:18 pm
beemoh
>Really, why does this game exist?
To highlight the state the prison service is in today? That, in American society at least, the primary objective of the penal system is no longer rehabilitation into society to benefit the majority, but profit for the minority who run these big privately-owned prisons, and demonstrate the effects of such?
Just because it’s a game doesn’t mean it’s incapable of touching on real-world issues the way we see in literature and film.
January 22, 2009 at 1:54 pm
petebrook
Beemoh. Thanks for your comment. Maybe I am thinking too complexly and maybe I am not giving games and gamers enough credit. It is great that you recognise the function of prisons today as primarily warehousing and profiteering – we all can see that rehabilitation is impossible in the majority of US correctional institutions. From reviews of Prison Tycoon, it seems the game isn’t very popular nor gripping (although, noticable improvements arrived in “SuperMax”, the fourth installment). This is a relief to me as it would seem a bit perverse to make money from the sale of a game that replicates the making of money in prisons. I wonder what profits Virtual Playground and ValuSoft have drawn from developing and publishing the game?
Without knowing the demographic that plays this game nor the awareness of gamers of America’s prison industrial complex, I can not state how well this game “highlights the state of the prison service today” nor how well it “demonstrates the effects of such [profiteering]”. It would be good to know to what extent gamers connect their virtual warden management style to the real world issues.
My high regard for films such as Scanner Darkly, The Matrix, Tron, Jacob’s Ladder & eXistenZ and books such as 1984 are because of their inescapable psychological power – their paranoid and doubt inducing force. I have not experienced games akin to those powers, but that could easily be my own exposure and preference. I would continue to make an argument that gaming is a different kind of interaction with real world issues. But who is to say who would be first – of the film-viewer, reader or gamer – to take direct action in the world after they have consumed their medium of choice?
April 16, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Monte
Humm, rehabilitation? OK, I think you are completely out of touch with reality at this point. Human suffering, are you refering to the children that are raped and murdered by the parasites or the broken lives floating in the wake of the passing of these verman. Tolerant, treatment, assistance programs, education, nice words but of little to no use in prisons filled with violent predators. Keep dreaming kidees, you know nothing, will never know nothing and you continue to seek the answer you already possess…. Sheep, nothing but misguided sheep, sleep now sweet prince while rough men do what you don’t have the heart to do.
April 17, 2009 at 12:11 am
petebrook
Monte, I am very glad you picked up on my general support for rehabilitation within prisons which runs throughout this blog; I feel strongly about it.
This article to which you replied is a discussion about the ambiguity of images. If it was a strong criticism of anything it was of video games that simulate prison administration. I stated in the first paragraph I was saddened by the presence of SERT teams, but recognised them as an inevitability in some institutions. I admit, it may seem as if I condescended your courses as “grown men running around in costume with guns to a butt-rock soundtrack” but I only described what I saw in IMTT’s promotional youtube video.
What is really interesting here, is that I, an unaffiliated individual, has expressed a personal opinion, whereas you Director of Training at IMTT – and as such a representative of the company – have chosen to throw out juvenile slurs in response to your own misunderstanding. Not every one of the 2.3 million prisoners in America is a violent predator or “vermin/parasite” as you choose to term them.
Next time I am in Southern California we should go out for a beer and find our common ground. I think we got off on the wrong foot…