The Phenomenon of Informal Prison Hierarchies and the Simulacrum of Prison Subculture in Contemporary Power Relations

prison history.In this sense, the state de facto reinforces this simulacrum with every step it takes, where the object is prison culture or its manifestations, taken out of the broader social and political context.This is done by state institutions in Russia, most likely for the reasons of continuing to build the prison state and, at the same time to support the realization of imperial ambitions.Nevertheless, Ukrainian public institutions treat prison culture out of context similarly.It seems necessary to radically change the attitude towards this simulacrum -to define it as an element of, on the one hand, imperial "soft power" (albeit in a peculiar social environment) and, on the other hand, as an element of "state capture" by the criminalized part of society in the sense that prison hierarchies claim to implement certain functions inherent only to the state.From this point of view, the mere recognition of the prison subculture as a separate phenomenon, without fixing its claims to socio-cultural power and denying such claims, objectively strengthens this simulacrum and, at the same time, weakens state power.Every state faces this danger, but obviously, the weaker the state due to various circumstances, the greater the danger posed by prison culture.In this light, Ukraine, weakened by the military confrontation with Russia, is highly vulnerable to this simulacrum.