Marti, Irene. (2023) Doing indefinite time: An ethnography of long-term imprisonment in Switzerland. Springer.
Reviewed by Jason Danely, Oxford Brookes University
Prisons have long been the site and stake of ethical and political debates around human depravity and dignity, punishment and care, protection and persecution. These debates are far from being settled—in part because, despite the seeming architectural and ideological uniformity of the prison across national and cultural contexts, the social, legal, and historical conditions of each case still make prisons difficult to compare and evaluate. In addition, the prison and its carceral logics are so firmly lodged within our everyday relationships to the state that it is difficult to imagine alternatives to take their place. How can we remain critical, then, without over-essentializing the complex dynamics of prisons and imprisonment in its particular contexts?
One of the strongest responses to this question has come from prison ethnography, both as a methodological tool for understanding individuals’ lived experience (including both prison staff and incarcerated individuals) through long-term engagement and immersion in prison environments, as well as a style of writing that starts with rich accounts of the intimate micro-practices of everyday life before situating them within a wider social and cultural context. Irene Marti’s Doing Indefinite Time is an exemplary work of prison ethnography that demonstrates the power of grounding critical theories of penal institutions in the experiences of those most impacted by them. With precision and sensitivity, Marti allows the stories of people serving indefinite sentences in two Swiss correctional facilities to emerge from the voices of ‘absolute others’ (5), excluded from society. Her fieldwork, completed over 155 visits (from 2013 to 2017), focuses on the everyday organization of space and time within the prison (the regime) as well as the ways prisoners themselves shaped their own versions of the ‘ordinary’ by manipulating their spatial and temporal orientations. This focus on the spaces and times of the everyday and the ordinary is particularly poignant, Marti argues, for this under-researched yet growing group of individuals subject to indefinite incarceration: those who are held in prison beyond their custodial sentence because they are deemed to be at high risk of reoffending if released. In contrast to other forms of long-term imprisonment, such as ‘life sentences’, indefinite incarceration in Switzerland is ordered as a preventative measure, and, at least in theory, release is possible and officially considered on a periodic basis. Yet, as Marti shows, indefinite incarceration often does become permanent, with many of those living under these measures growing old and dying in confinement. Marti provides detailed explanation of the legal and penal policies used to determine the application of indefinite incarceration, focusing on Articles 64 and 59 of the Swiss Criminal Code. Article 64 pertains to individuals convicted of very serious offences who are also deemed to be at high risk of offending because of personal circumstances or because they are living with a mental disorder that played a part in the offence and are considered ‘untreatable’ (48). Indefinite incarceration under Article 59 refers to situations where an offender living with a mental disorder is ordered to treatment in a secure institution until it is determined that they can live a life outside without the risk of reoffending. Yet because of the serious nature of the original offenses, the extreme caution that reviewing bodies exercise regarding prisoners with long histories of mental disorder, and the limited ability of individuals in confinement to build a strong case for release, few individuals are ever released. Most of the men Marti spoke with became resigned to spending the rest of their lives in prison, but the ‘mental torture’ (5) of how to live with that fact and with the uncertainty about the future affected each person in different ways.
After laying out the setting and reflecting on questions of access, ethics, and positionality during her fieldwork, Marti describes her methodological approach as utilising sensory and multimodal anthropology (e.g. incorporating objects, walking interviews, photographs, etc.), together with reflexivity and attention to emotions (both her own and those of her interlocutors). She then takes a step back to describe how changes in Swiss law and its application have led to a quadrupling of indefinite sentences handed down since the turn of the century, despite serious concerns about human rights. Although individuals on indefinite sentences tend to be the least problematic from an institutional perspective, causing fewer incidents and generally preferring quieter living conditions that make their long-term confinement more liveable (66), it is also clear that they suffer from a deep existential dilemma that is just as troubling: do they keep hope alive despite living in uncertainty, or give up hope and try to build a life in prison? (85). This dilemma is explored in the subsequent chapters on the prison cell, work time, and leisure time, each of which provides a detailed account of the ways individuals do their indefinite time. As individuals move between these sites throughout their day, they are not only passively embodying the process of subjectification under the prison regime, but also exercising agency and creativity (where they can), inhabiting different modes of being with time (85). For some, this means personalising their cells, inviting visitors to spend time together, or choosing to be alone. In the working hours, it might mean taking jobs that allow them access to spaces other prisoners are not allowed to enter, interacting with staff, utilising talents, or learning skills. In all these instances, of course, there are limitations and interruptions—cell searches that undermine their sense of autonomy and privacy, the lack of meaningful compensation for work that denies their sense of dignity, or the sense that any enjoyment of time spent outside or with visitors is punctured by the painful reminder of confinement without end.
The strength of Doing Indefinite Time lies in the voices and stories of the individuals detained as they find ways to craft liveable lives beyond hope in a place of oppressive sameness. While those who are more familiar with highly restrictive or inhumane conditions of prisons elsewhere in the world may find the freedoms and safety enjoyed by the Swiss prisoners in Marti’s ethnography worthy of praise, Marti’s focus on individuals with indefinite sentences makes it clear that the mental and emotional pains of confinement are still intense. One of Marti’s final conclusions is therefore that individuals with indefinite sentences would be better suited to another environment, separate from prisoners on custodial sentences, which might allow them greater scope to build and inhabit the world (344). In separate publications, she has elaborated on this point, describing aspects of prison architecture and design that inhibit or enable incarcerated peoples’ wellbeing (Marti 2025). For those who find the current use of indefinite sentences and the procedures like psychiatric assessments that reinforce such sentences to be extremely problematic and excessive, this conclusion might feel too limited. Although labelled as ‘dangerous’ and ‘untreatable’ by the state, Marti’s account of her interlocutors does not seem to affirm their sentences as just or warranted in most cases: there are no descriptions, for example, of first-hand observations of symptoms, violent or otherwise, or of mental illness or other indications that give the impression that they would struggle to return to the community with support and treatment. Similarly, Marti notes the growing number of older, frail, disabled, and dying prisoners doing indefinite time and the limitations of the prison to provide adequate and humane care. Here again, I wonder if the particular types of spatial and sensory interventions and adjustments to prison design that Marti suggests would be enough, or whether, as others have argued in the case of disability more broadly (Ben-Moshe, Chapman & Carey 2014; Ben-Moshe 2020), there are more fundamental questions about justice that are put aside when we focus too tightly on improving design. Although Marti does raise questions about human rights and the application of indefinite incarceration (questions echoed by prisoners, staff, and human rights bodies), the book leaves these questions open.
As the prison is likely to be with us for a long time, however, Marti’s ethnography presents an important advance in our understanding of incarcerated individuals and their ‘doing and being with, time’. Its profound and moving account of their struggles for some semblance of an ordinary life within the prison illuminates the value of her methodological and theoretical approach, and will hopefully inspire similar research in other contexts.
References
Ben-Moshe, L., Chapman, C. & Carey, A. (Eds.). (2014). Disability incarcerated: Imprisonment and disability in the United States and Canada. Springer.
Ben-Moshe, L. (2020). Decarcerating disability: Deinstitutionalization and prison abolition. University of Minnesota Press.
Marti, I. (2025). Architecture, atmospheres, and the pains of unattainable affordances: Tracing prisoners’ lived experience in a ‘new-generation’ prison in Switzerland. Punishment & Society, April 30 (online), https://doi.org/10.1177/14624745251336391.