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You Can't Hurt Me If I Can't Be Hurt

A. C. Applebee, L. N. Combe · 2026

Abstract

This is the third paper in a trilogy examining why the prison system survives despite being self-evidently unacceptable to every person who experiences it. The first paper ("It Wasn't That Bad, Cunt. I'd Do My Time") examined the output — the sentence that protects the system. The second ("If You Complain, You Get Your Head Kicked In") examined the enforcement — the violence that produces the silence. This paper examines the interior logic: why the person who has been through the system cooperates with their own silencing at the deepest level. Not because they are forced. Not because they are afraid. Because admitting it was unacceptable means admitting they were subjected to something unacceptable — and that means admitting they were powerless. In an environment that has stripped every form of autonomy, the last remaining territory is the interior self — the part of you that says "this doesn't reach me." "You can't hurt me if I can't be hurt" is not a performance for others. It is the wall that preserves personhood. And on the other side of that wall is the testimony that would end the system. Everyone who experiences the justice system knows instantly that it is unacceptable. Not as an opinion. As a bodily certainty. The system's survival depends on ensuring that knowledge never becomes speech.

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