So you and your crack team of convicts have
come up with the most brilliant escape plan ever. You’ve spent weeks making a tunnel with
nothing but spoons you've had smuggled into the prison, and you’ve got dummies that
look just like you which you’ll put on your bed while you’re busy crawling through your
escape tunnel. Yep, you’ve heard that story before because
it’s actually been done. The problem with escaping from prison is getting
out is just the beginning, staying out is actually the hard part. It’s not exactly easy to leave a prison
and then just mingle with the local population, and the reason for that of course is you might
not have any civilian clothes. We are going to focus on the USA today because
that’s where the black and white stripes were first worn. In fact, if you look at many prisons around
the world today, the inmates can wear what you might call normal clothing, often a t-shirt
and jogging pants, or something similar. The rigid rules about what men have to wear
in American prisons is actually quite unique. You might wonder why the USA is special in
this regard, and the topic is actually quite controversial. We’ll get to that controversy later and
first give you a short history lesson. So, the black and white stripes came into
being during something called the “Auburn system.” This system was developed in the 1820s in
New York state and it was supposed to be an improvement on other prison systems. What it basically meant was that prisoners
were no longer confined to their cells all the time and they were told they had to work
throughout the day. During the night they had to stay in their
cells, but the catch was they had to remain silent. The guards were very strict about this, and
it drove some prisoners half crazy. This system was supposed to rehabilitate people
rather than just let them rot. The rules were incredibly strict and that
was supposed to make the men more disciplined, something that might change their unruly behavior. Not only did they have to remain silent at
night, but when they walked in the day they marched in single file, locked to the prisoner
in front of them. When they marched in the daytime they were
neither allowed to look at the guards or even at other prisoners. If that sounds dehumanizing, that’s exactly
what it was supposed to be. This system was all about making the men conform
to rules, and so another thing they had to conform to was wearing the correct uniform. That uniform was the famous black and white
stripes. The governor of Auburn prison at the time
said he wanted to take away the men's “sense of self”. He wanted them to become more like robots,
men who did exactly what they were told. He wanted to take their identity away from
them and reeducate them. This is why they all had to look the same. So, while the uniform was supposed to make
the men stand out if they should escape, it was also about trying to rid them of their
character – a character that was seen as criminal. We should also point out that this was around
the time that whipping or flogging a prisoner was seen as inhumane, so the system wanted
to beat the men psychologically. In the 20th century attitudes started to change
and the dehumanization of prisoners was viewed by some more progressive people as not the
best way to treat a prisoner. They saw those stripes as humiliating, something
you might call a “badge of shame”. Those progressives said the uniforms only
served to make the men feel like convicts and that was hardly in line with rehabilitation. That’s why a lot of prisons then changed
and had prisoners wear things such as blue jeans and a white t-shirt, or maybe khaki
pants and a denim work shirt. It all depended on where a person was imprisoned. Ok, so why did the orange jumpsuit take over
many U.S. prisons? That’s a good question. Thanks for asking. It’s a complicated answer, because some
prisons don’t make men wear orange and others do. In some facilities the prisoners will only
don those orange suits when they are out in public or being moved around. The reason of course is so they stand out. Some prisons might make men and women wear
pink shirts and yellow-and-white striped pants, and again, the reason is so they stand out. Sheriff Joseph Arpaio of Maricopa County,
Arizona, who’s detested by some progressives and loved by hardliners, has made men wear
pink underwear to humiliate them and he’s also had men wear black and white stripes. That sheriff adheres to that old concept that
men should be dehumanized. He also went a step further, as he usually
does, and got inmates to write “Escapee” on the inside of their black and white striped
uniforms, so if they escaped they couldn’t turn the uniforms inside out. In the American system you’ve also got color
codes which designate what kind of prisoner is locked up. In some prisons if a person wears dark red
he is designated as the “worst of the worst”, a violent individual who should be feared. You might have red as a designation of just
high risk, and you might have yellow as a designation of low risk. So, the black and white stripes went out and
the orange came in, along with all kinds of other colors. But then something strange happened in the
early 2000s, and that was prisons all over the U.S. started bringing back the black and
white stripes. What was the reason for that? The problem according to some authorities
was that if prisoners in jumpsuits escaped they might blend in on the outside with workmen,
or highway workers, or any other law-abiding citizen that wears a jumpsuit to work. The zebra look made a comeback, even though
many years earlier that look was said to be too dehumanizing. Does this mean the system is in a state of
regression and actually becoming more inhumane? That’s an ongoing argument. One sheriff interviewed by the New York Times
said it was not about humiliating prisoners with a badge of shame but just about preventing
them from successfully escaping. He said this, “The likelihood of recovering
someone in stripes is 100 percent better than if they're not. It turns the public into one heck of an eye
for us.” Actually, prison escapes in the USA are very
rare. If you look at the statistics they are a bit
misleading, because they include prisoners who are allowed outside during the day and
then have to check back in at night. Some of those guys fail to check back in. This is more like going AWOL. Maximum security breakouts are so rare these
days that one researcher said it was hard to research them. Out of the 2.3 million or so incarcerated
people in the USA very few of them escape... and we mean hardly any at all. Even if men do escape, they usually have some
help on the outside and can quickly take off that uniform and change into civilian clothes. So, with that in mind, you could say the uniform
is related to that badge of shame as well as being an escape deterrent. Some might say the uniformity of prison dress
makes the prisoner more manageable, and he should be stripped of his dignity. Others would counter, saying the badge of
disgrace is not effective in terms of rehabilitating someone. Soldiers or some school kids might wear a
uniform but this is supposed to bring the people together, it’s for the purpose of
a common cause and to foster cohesion... working for the same team, but the question is, does
prison uniform create a kind of criminal cohesion. Is that really necessary, or even negative? In 1955 the United Nations came out with the
“Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners” and that was later revised
as the “Mandela Rules” in 2015. This is one part of those rules:
“Every prisoner who is not allowed to wear his or her own clothing shall be provided
with an outfit of clothing suitable for the climate and adequate to keep him or her good
health. Such clothing shall in no manner be degrading
or humiliating.” This is another part:
“In exceptional circumstances, whenever a prisoner is removed outside the prison for
an authorized purpose, he or she shall be allowed to wear his or her own clothing or
other inconspicuous clothing.” It seems in the U.S., some states are more
concerned with following these rules than others, and maybe it’s a matter of opinion
if pink underwear or black and white stripes are degrading or humiliating. Maybe you believe an orange jumpsuit doesn’t
have to be worn when a prisoner is being transported, or maybe you think that’s necessary. In some countries, prisoners are still shackled
when they have a court date or are moved, so don’t think every nation follows these
Mandela Rules. Like we said at the start, it’s a controversial
hot potato of a topic and it’s not easy to come to a conclusion as to what is right
or wrong. That’s why we’d love to know what you
think about prison uniforms. Should prisoners be able to wear casual dress
like in most countries, or should they wear the stripes or the orange jumpsuits? Since we’ve talked today about culture and
how things are different in various countries, we’ll stick with the topic of culture and
give you two fascinating videos to watch. Have a look at one of these, “Taboos Around
the World” and “Embarrassing Tourist Mistakes You Make In Different Countries.”
