Prison plastic surgery

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Prison plastic surgery is plastic surgery or cosmetic surgery (often the terms are used interchangeably) offered and performed to people who are incarcerated, as a means of social rehabilitation. These services were normally provided as part of a larger package of care that may include work training, psychological services, and more. Popular surgeries included rhinoplasties, blepharoplasty, facelifts, scar removal and tattoo removal. These programs began in the early 20th century and were commonplace up till the early 1990s. They took place across the US (in 42+ states), the UK, Canada, and Mexico. [1]

Contents

"Incarceration itself is famously hard on the body," reports journalist and author Zara Stone in her book, Killer Looks: The Forgotten History of Plastic Surgery In Prisons; [2] in 2017, facial injuries accounted for 33% of all inmate hospitalizations in New York City, compared to 0.7 percent of the general population. "The existence of prison plastic surgery programs is America’s dirty little secret."

In San Quentin prison, California, the prison's chief medical doctor Dr. Leo L. Stanley was one of the first people to develop a prison plastic surgery practice, focused on reforming the faces of convicts. [3] "Considerable plastic surgery has been done, particularly that done for deformed noses,” Dr. Leo Stanley wrote in his 1918 report to the warden. [4] “This work has been of benefit in that it has improved the appearance of many of the men and removed a deforming feature. Some work has been done on ears which were very prominent." Stanley reported long waiting lists, noted researcher Ethan Blue. [5] Dr. Stanley's "typical prison malingerer," [6] had a fractured nose or scarred face, and was treated with crude methods: for nose surgery, a six-inch length of broomstick was placed against the nose and hit with a mallet. "The physician of the future will be an increasing powerful antagonist in the war against crime," Stanley wrote. [7]

New York was an early adopter, with attention to prisoner beautification baked in from the early 1900s. In 1915, NYC police commissioner Arthur Woods referred to a 15-year-old inmate's appearance in relation to his crime. “He was an inferior looking lad, small and flabby...mild acne on the face...forehead broad, nose small, eyes rather sly…chin pointed and receding,” wrote Woods. [8]

Prison plastic surgery became more prevalent throughout the 20th century. In 1954 the American Correctional Association added prisoner plastic surgery to its manual, stating: “elective surgery…[for] especially repulsive facial disfigurements has a definite place in the rehabilitation of prisoners. [9] ” Many states followed suit, including Texas, North Carolina, and Hawaii.

Some of these early surgeries fell in the eugenics bracket, the idea that criminality could be seen and displayed on the face, reports social Psychologist Ray Bull and Nichola Rumsey. [10] An examination of some of the mid-20th century prison programs suggested that by and large, plastic surgeries did reduce recidivism—in some cases, dropping it from 76% to 33%. Some findings: Plastic surgery is effective in enhancing the outcome for non-addict prisoners. In 1970, the former director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons from 1937 to 1964, James Van Benschoten Bennett, analyzed these programs. [11] "One of the more fruitful areas of research now under way in the federal prisons concerns plastic surgery: the way to rehabilitate a misshapen prisoner."

"Discriminatory practices based on physical appearance perpetuate social inequalities and hinder individuals' opportunities for reintegration into society," noted author Zara Stone, in a Rockefeller research paper. [12]

Ethical considerations

The scholar and feminist critic Jessica Mitford was one of the first to question the ethics of performing plastic surgery on prisoners, and if in such a circumstance the prisoners could really consent to such treatment. In her book, Kind and Usual Punishment, she wrote that one doctor told her that inmates had become “our companions in medical science.. . . . This has been a rewarding experience both for the physician and for the subjects.” This was in regards to a scurvy experiment where inmates suffered hemorrhages in the skin and whites of the eyes, excessive loss of hair, mental depressions, and abnormal emotional responses... at a time when scurvy was already curable and treatable." [13]

The writer Allen M. Hornblum explored the issue of consent [14] in his book, Acres Of Skin, where he reported of strips of skin being flayed off the back of inmates that participated in dermatological trials in the Eastern Penitentiary, Pennsylvania. [15] Ostensibly, they were volunteers, but a payment incentive was the reason for their volunteerism and abuse. [16]

Dark Passage 1947 Lobby Card 1 Dark Passage 1947 Lobby Card 1.jpg
Dark Passage 1947 Lobby Card 1

In the movie Dark Passage, Humphrey Bogart plays the role of Vincent Parry, a man sentenced for murder. [17] Parry escapes San Quentin and undergoes plastic surgery to change his appearance and hide from the law while he tries to clear his name. In the 1996 movie A Face to Die For, Yasmine Bleeth plays the part of a scarred young woman that is conned into participating in a crime. [18] In prison she gets plastic surgery as part of a reform program, and when released sets out to seek her revenge.

See also

Related Research Articles

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Plastic surgery is a surgical specialty involving the restoration, reconstruction, or alteration of the human body. It can be divided into two main categories: reconstructive surgery and cosmetic surgery. Reconstructive surgery includes craniofacial surgery, hand surgery, microsurgery, and the treatment of burns. While reconstructive surgery aims to reconstruct a part of the body or improve its functioning, cosmetic surgery aims to improve the appearance of it. A comprehensive definition of plastic surgery has never been established, because it has no distinct anatomical object and thus overlaps with practically all other surgical specialties. An essential feature of plastic surgery is that it involves the treatment of conditions that require or may require tissue relocation skills.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Face</span> Part of the body that is at the front of the head

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scar</span> Area of fibrous tissue that replaces normal skin after an injury

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Disfigurement</span> State of having ones appearance injured or changed

Disfigurement is the state of having one's appearance deeply and persistently harmed medically, such as from a disease, birth defect, or wound. General societal attitudes towards disfigurement have varied greatly across cultures and over time, with cultures possessing strong social stigma against it often causing psychological distress to disfigured individuals. Alternatively, many societies have regarded some forms of disfigurement in a medical, scientific context where someone having ill will against the disfigured is viewed as anathema. In various religious and spiritual contexts, disfigurement has been variously described as being a punishment from the divine for sin, as being caused by supernatural forces of hate and evil against the good and just, which will be later atoned for, or as being without explanation per se with people just having to endure.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rhinoplasty</span> Surgical procedure to enhance or reconstruct a human nose

Rhinoplasty, commonly called nose job, medically called nasal reconstruction, is a plastic surgery procedure for altering and reconstructing the nose. There are two types of plastic surgery used – reconstructive surgery that restores the form and functions of the nose and cosmetic surgery that changes the appearance of the nose. Reconstructive surgery seeks to resolve nasal injuries caused by various traumas including blunt, and penetrating trauma and trauma caused by blast injury. Reconstructive surgery can also treat birth defects, breathing problems, and failed primary rhinoplasties. Rhinoplasty may remove a bump, narrow nostril width, change the angle between the nose and the mouth, or address injuries, birth defects, or other problems that affect breathing, such as a deviated nasal septum or a sinus condition. Surgery only on the septum is called a septoplasty.

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References

  1. ↑ Stone, Zara (2021). Killer Looks: The Forgotten History of Plastic Surgery In Prisons. Prometheus Books.
  2. ↑ Stone, Zara (2021). Killer looks : the forgotten history of plastic surgery in prisons. Lanham, MD. ISBN   978-1-63388-673-5. OCLC   1245957812.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  3. ↑ "Marin History Watch: Practicing medicine at San Quentin". Marin Independent Journal. 2013-03-12. Retrieved 2021-10-04.
  4. ↑ "Early San Quentin doctor pushes prison medicine into 20th century -". Inside CDCR. 2018-11-08. Retrieved 2021-10-04.
  5. ↑ Blue, Ethan (2009-05-01). "The Strange Career of Leo Stanley: Remaking Manhood and Medicine at San Quentin State Penitentiary, 1913––1951". Pacific Historical Review. 78 (2): 210–241. doi:10.1525/phr.2009.78.2.210. ISSN   0030-8684.
  6. ↑ SFGATE, Katie Dowd (2019-08-13). "The San Quentin prison doctor who performed over 10,000 human experiments". SFGATE. Retrieved 2021-10-04.
  7. ↑ Hallinan, Joseph T. (2001-06-01). Going Up the River: Travels in a Prison Nation. Random House Publishing Group. ISBN   978-0-375-50693-2.
  8. ↑ "Prison Plastic Surgery: The Biopolitics of Appearance and Crime in New York's Civil Rights Era". rockarch.issuelab.org. Retrieved 2024-02-02.
  9. ↑ Stone, Zara. "Plastic surgery has a troubled history inside prisons. Some advocates want it to make a comeback". Mother Jones. Retrieved 2024-02-02.
  10. ↑ Bull, Ray; Rumsey, Nichola (1988). The Social Psychology of Facial Appearance. New York, NY: Springer New York. doi:10.1007/978-1-4612-3782-2. ISBN   978-1-4612-8348-5.
  11. ↑ Bennett, James Van Benschoten (1970). I Chose Prison. Knopf.
  12. ↑ "Prison Plastic Surgery: The Biopolitics of Appearance and Crime in New York's Civil Rights Era". rockarch.issuelab.org. Retrieved 2024-02-02.
  13. ↑ Bass, Stanley A.; Bixby, F. Lovell; Bromley, Marion; Califano, Joseph A.; Chord, John C.; Dellums, Ronald V.; Drinan, Robert F.; Evett, Robert; Fletcher, Errol C. "Jessica Mitford: An Inventory of Her Papers at the Harry Ransom Center". norman.hrc.utexas.edu. Retrieved 2024-02-02.
  14. ↑ Hornblum, Allen M. (1999). "Ethical Lapses in Dermatologic "Research"". Archives of Dermatology. 135 (4): 383–385. doi:10.1001/archderm.135.4.383. PMID   10206044 . Retrieved 2024-02-02.
  15. ↑ "Holmesburg Prison". Democracy Now!. Retrieved 2024-02-02.
  16. ↑ Weyers, Wolfgang (2009-07-01). "Medical experiments on humans and the development of guidelines governing them: the central role of dermatology". Clinics in Dermatology. Ethics. 27 (4): 384–394. doi:10.1016/j.clindermatol.2009.02.011. ISSN   0738-081X. PMID   19539167.
  17. ↑ Variety (1948). Variety (January 1948). Media History Digital Library Media History Digital Library. New York, NY: Variety Publishing Company.
  18. ↑ Everett, Todd (1996-03-11). "A Face to Die for". Variety. Retrieved 2024-02-02.
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