Written on the walls: Inmate Graffiti within places of confinement

Places of confinement are scattered with the testimonies of their reluctant inhabitants. Painstakingly scribbled, inlaid, painted, carved, scratched, and pecked into the basic architectural fabric of the institution, graffiti offers a hint at the traumas of everyday life "inside," as distilled through the "anonymity of a murmur" (Foucault 1984:119). While traditional studies of graffiti have tended to emphasize its links to crime and illegality (Kelling and Coles 1996; Phillips 1999; Skogan 1990), more sociological methods have approached these inscriptions as a mirror or autobiography of the social self (Abel and Buckley 1977; Best 2003; Hebdige 1979; Ong 1990); a repository for a local community's shared memories and history (Plesch 2002); a testimony to economically obsolete skilled crafts (Harrison 2004); and even as a remapping of public and institutional spaces by racially or economically disadvantaged groups (Austin 2001; Ferrell 2001; Schaefer 2004; Strange and Loo 2001). This analysis integrates elements of such socially informed approaches to illuminate the broader meanings of institutional graffiti. © 2009 by University of Alabama Press. All rights reserved.