Prison Industrial Complex

My research examines the legal history of the 13th Amendment. The 13th Amendment - the emancipation amendment -  ended legal slavery in the United States. The second portion of the Amendment has the controversial verbiage “Except As Punishment For A Crime." Thus, the amendment abolishes slavery but states that anyone convicted of a crime can be held in servitude. One core question this research considers is to what degree is this clause legally binding today. The synthesis of the 13th Amendment is important because of the growing minority prison population.  My methodology consist of examining 13th Amendment Supreme Court Cases and other case law pertaining to the Amendment. This work contextualize the histories of carceral systems like the Black Codes, the Convict Lease System, the War on Drugs and the emergence and expansion of the Prison Industrial Complex.  As a result, this research considers drug disparities and perceptions of powder versus crack cocaine. In addition, this work analyzes the social ramifications of being a felon. My findings suggest there are important economic outcomes associated with controlling and restricting African Americans that have been in place since slavery and continue today.

Space, Race, Bodies II: Sovereignty and Migration in a Carceral Age is an academic and activist conference featuring workshops that address the intersections of criminal justice movements around the incarceration of migrants and communities of colour and Indigenous sovereign movements. SRB II builds on the momentum and opportunities enabled by the first Space, Race, Bodies conference in publicising and disseminating scholarship and activism on the intersections between geography, racism and racialisation.



Criminal justice movements organised around challenging the dentention of asylum seekers and migrants and Indigenous sovereign protests constitute radical interventions into the operation of state power. Such movements demonstrate how racisms and racial discrimination fundamentally sustain state power and spatial practices of detention and exclusion of minority communities from public and civil life. Race is typically separated from the law and formal criminal procedures because the abolition of explicitly racist policies prohibit discrimination on the basis of race. Critical scholarship on the prison industrial complex, settler colonialism and criminal justice advocates have all argued for the necessity of viewing race and racisms as a central component of state power and its spatial regulation of minority communities (see Wilson Gilmore, 2007; Davis, 2003; Nash, 2011).
A significant, but small, body of scholarship exists on the historical continuities between the use of prisons and punishment on Indigenous peoples in the early phases of settler colonialism, expressed “in the form of political, social and economic neglect” (Wadiwel, 2007, p. 166), and contemporary practices of detainment with respect to peoples of colour, migrants and asylum seekers. Other activist and scholarly work has pointed to the over-representation of First Nations peoples and communities of colour in prison systems as tied to the maintenance of white and racialised systems of privilege alongside the sustenance of privatised security and surveillance economies (see Sudbury, 2002; Golash-Boza, 2009; Behrendt, Cunneen & Libesman, 2009). Sovereign Indigenous movements and activism reveal important insights into dominant forms of geo-political state power and capitalism alongside the revelation of alternative community and political arrangements of welcome and social wellbeing for citizens and non-citizens. By bringing questions of Indigenous sovereignty to bear on critiques and activism around the prison industrial complex, the conference and workshops, aim to contribute Indigenous and decolonising approaches to anti-racist understandings and contestations of state power as manifested through carceral practices of spatial management and exclusion of minority communities and peoples of colour.

This paper serves as a pre-assessment of the Jonesboro, Georgia Prisoner Reentry community. There are many and diverse organizations offering support and services but no central coordinating structure. There are pockets of community advocates, grassroots advocates, professionals, and Faith-based “volunteers” that all seem to work independently. There is a reason for this disunity. This paper is broken down into four areas of concentration.
• A community services overview or description
• Key contacts within the service providers community
• Skills needed to communicate with contacts and why these particular skills  are needed
• Barriers to Prisoner Reentry
• A New Role for Anthropology
This paper will highlight some barriers to completing a community assessment within a community that lacks a central coordinating structure. Part of the problem of communication between stakeholders and officials stem from the constant changing demographics which has supported the labeling of Jonesboro as a “transition community”.  Transition communities don’t attract investors, jobs or services.
Keywords: pre-assessments, assessments, transition communities, reentry, recidivism

In this paper, I interrogate Christian interpretations of punishment through atonement theories from the early church in the West and turn to the Eastern concept of theosis as a possible correction to retributive punitive philosophies. This larger discussion frames a narrower conversation on the continuities and discontinuities of systems of sacrifice from slavery to our modern prison industrial complex. More trenchantly, I examine the relationship between the cross and carcerality through Jesus' proximity to criminality. I argue that by entering into history through a criminalized body, Jesus' life, ministry and death demonstrates his proximity to and solidarity with those who are criminalized - including the first Christian community who had a 'criminal element,' Jesus' ministerial purpose to "set the captives free," his instructions for discipleship to visit the 'least of these' who are imprisoned, to extending reconciliation to a 'penitent thief' and being surveilled and persecuted by a State sanctioned execution. In the end, by tracing a kind of christological three-day event of criminality, I argue that Jesus died a criminal but did not wake up one. On the cross Jesus transcends criminality through the resurrection, which gives hope for liberation over and against carceral systems of sacrifice.

The incarcerated in America are an estimated 2.4 million people at any moment in “1,719 state prisons, 102 federal prisons, 2,259 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,283 local jails, and 79 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, and prisons in the U.S. territories.”    More than 60% of these are people of color.  Add in another almost five million on probation or in some way under the supervision of the criminal justice system and you've reached about seven million, the equivalent of the population of Serbia or Paraguay.  In other words, a reasonably sized nation of prisoners.

This is also the largest prison population on Earth.  No other country comes close. On any given day, the United States, with 5% of the world’s population, has close to 25% of the people imprisoned on the planet.  That population, by the way, has risen by 700% since 1970, a tidal movement for incarceration that only in recent years has shown small signs of finally ebbing. In short, state by state or as a country, the U.S. leaves the rest of the world in the dust.

An ethnographic work about high-security prisons told in vignettes.  The 30-page paper is based on the author's participant observation as a correctional officer and case worker in the Nevada Department of Corrections from 2004 to 2007.  Using thousands of notes, the document details a US total institution from a perspective rarely chronicled.  This collection includes stories about prison work, prison gangs, mental health, sex offenders, prison administration, the criminal (in)justice system, and the business of corrections.

On February 8, 1971, Michel Foucault announced the formation of Le Groupe d’information sur les prisons (the Prisons Information Group [GIP]), a group of activist intellectuals who worked to amplify the voices of those with firsthand knowledge of the prison—reflected in their motto, “Speech to the detainees!” In highlighting and circulating subjugated knowledges from within prisons, the GIP not only pursued political and material interventions, but also called for epistemological and methodological shift within intellectual labor about prisons. This essay turns to the work of the GIP, and philosophical reflection on that work, as a resource for contemporary theological methodology. Counter to the optimistic and positive trend in theological turn to practices, this essay draws on Foucault’s work with and reflection on the GIP to argue for a negative theology of practice, which centers on practice (those concrete narratives found in any lived theological context) while, at the same ti...

To speak the ‘language of state violence’ is for penal abolitionists to insist that irrespective of the conditions, architecture, or general resources available, the prison will always be a place that systematically generates suffering, harm and death.  Understanding prisons as a modus operandi of state violence may help abolitionists gain political momentum, for it leads to focus on both ‘institutional’ and ‘structural’ violence.  Ultimately Speaking the language of state violence provides a name for penal abolitionists to mobilise around and makes connections between the prison and social inequities.

Reprinted as: Cheliotis, L. K. and A. Liebling (2014, forthcoming) 'Race Matters in British Prisons: Towards a Research Agenda', in C. Phillips (ed.) Race and Crime, Volume III. London: Routledge.

Drawing on surveys of 4,860 prisoners’ perceptions of the quality of prison life in 49 establishments in England and Wales, this paper examines the extent to which prisoners viewed race relations in prison as problematic. Emphasis was placed upon how aspects of race relations were rated by different ethnic groups, and in individual prisons. Significant differences were found between prisons of the same security category. The findings support those of previous studies in that they raise concerns about the treatment of ethnic minority prisoners, particularly in some prisons. Attention was also paid to the role of gender, age and the security category of the prison. Ethnic minority prisoners tended to rate the quality of race relations in prison more poorly than their White counterparts. Large proportions amongst all ethnic minority groups felt that they were subject to unfair treatment compared to the White majority. On the whole, female prisoners were more likely than males to rate the quality of race relations more favourably, as were adult prisoners in comparison to their young counterparts. Gender and age had a considerable impact on the views of ethnic minority prisoners on the quality of race relations in the establishment. Perceived quality of race relations was significantly associated with prisoners’ views on more general aspects of their treatment in prison, such as respect, humanity, fairness, relationships with staff and safety. Neither the ethnic composition of each prison’s population nor the respective ratio of White to ethnic minority staff had a significant impact on how prisoners viewed the quality of race relations. These results suggest, amongst other things, that perceptions of the legitimacy of penal practices differ significantly between age and ethnic groups, and that attempts to reduce discrimination work more effectively in relation to distributive practices than in relation to attitudes and general treatment.

Private prisons are here to stay irrespective of empirical findings for or against their existence in the corrections industry. It is necessary, therefore, to step back and consider them on a broader level to assess how they can benefit current penological practice. It will be argued that prison privatization creates an opportunity to reassess the dominant correctional philosophy in America. In particular, the contractual structure of private prisons allows for “what works” in corrections to be built into performance evaluations. The implications of this assertion for private prisons as well as the current status of the rehabilitative ideal will be discussed.

Solitary confinement is the practice of socially and physically isolating a person in conditions of confinement for 22-24 hours per day. Although there is no official punishment or unit called ‘solitary confinement’ in New Zealand prisons, its use is widespread in the practices of isolation, segregation and separation. This report interrogates what is a commonplace practice in the prison system. It examines the conditions of solitary confinement in New Zealand prisons, as well as the number of people exposed to it. It then outlines the numerous and severe harms caused by solitary confinement, as well as the failure of the use of such practices to achieve the intended purposes of prison order, prisoner safety and suicide prevention. Recognising the effects of solitary on those who most experience it, it is argued that, according to international human rights standards, solitary confinement is inherently dehumanising and sometimes amounts to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, as well as torture. From these findings, the report recommends the abolition of solitary confinement in New Zealand prisons.

The argument can be made that identity is one of the most important concepts for human beings. If a people live without being conscious of their identity, they will live not knowing who they really are; they will question their beliefs and values because of this uncertainty. Unfortunately, many persons are uncertain of their identities, and instead accept those that their pressed upon them by the dominant sectors of society around them; this is particularly true for blacks in America, and around the world. On March 16th, 2015, Kendrick Lamar released his critically acclaimed third studio album To Pimp a Butterfly; a social commentary on politics, the Hip-Hop industry, and most importantly, black identity in the twenty-first century. Lamar uses his album to satirize various African-American ideologies while criticizing the continued marginalization of blacks by the government via the American socioeconomic system.

Published as an editorial, this document captures Beto Gutierrez's, a social studies teacher, experience navigating the tensions between rehabilitation and the traditional punitive practices at California State youth prison. The teacher documents the tension between traditional punitive practices and a more humanistic and rehabilitative.

The building of a new ‘super prison’ in Wrexham, North Wales has begun amidst a wider expansion of the penal industrial complex. Campaigns are mobilising nationally and locally against the project. This article examines the concerns surrounding what will become the United Kingdom’s largest prison and argues that its construction is a symptom of a wider ideological attack on marginalised groups while also examining the case against prison expansion.

Reformation and Rehabilitation of inmates is a major activity pursued by governments to make inmates value contributing citizens of the society. Rehabilitation programs come in many hues. Some jails pursue skill development or entrepreneurial training, while others resort to production of appropriate products and services. Our analysis of rehabilitation projects pursued across several jails in India indicate these are limited in scope and mostly non scalable.  We propose a state level Jail industry Board to manage and grow sustainable rehabilitation intervention program. We also present the legal and administrative options that may be pursued for creating the same

This essay introduces a special issue of ACME focused on the "carceral-police continuum." We use this phrase to highlight three important concepts in policing and carceral geographies scholarship. The first is the imminence of coercive state power, and its uneven distribution. The second is the tangled and expansive web of relationships through which carceral logics and practices operate. The third are the ways attention to these conditions can contribute a conceptual framework to abolitionist praxis. After first offering some additional commentary on each of the problem areas identified above, we then describe how each of the papers collected here advances our understanding of these issues. We conclude by identifying several directions for continuing development, including a need for ongoing conceptual and methodological innovation that supports efforts toward collective forms of organizing, mitigation and redress directed at various forms of state violence, carceral power and their repercussions.

In recent decades, the criminalization of immigration and the use of private prisons have increased in popularity. The criminalization of immigration and the privatization of prisons work hand in hand in shaping the American criminal justice response to immigration. Privatization creates a powerful opportunity for the social construction of the undocumented immigrant into a powerful potential source of revenue for for-profit corporations. Private prison corporations, such as Corrections Corporation of American and The GEO Group, stand to profit significantly from the private immigration detention center. Several investigative reports have focused on how these companies stand to profit, but little attention has been given to the psychosocial consequences that impact immigrant detainees and their families.

The prison is a repressive apparatus that underpins settler-colonial capitalism in Aotearoa, a site for the collection and containment of bodies abjected from the social formation. When a person dies in prison, their death can expose some of the worst excesses of the current mode of production and immiseration. This thesis grapples with what it means to grieve the death of the prisoner. Interrogating 108 coroners’ findings into deaths in New Zealand prisons, it outlines the material conditions of confinement leading to people’s deaths, as well as the state’s attempt to come to terms with these deaths. Framed within the work of Judith Butler, the Department of Corrections enacts routine practices upon the bodies of the deceased that constitute dehumanising norms. Alongside the vilification and abjection of the prisoner, these norms establish that the prisoner is not recognisable as fully human. As a result of a security context that exacerbates the vulnerability of prisoners for the benefit of those worthy of protection, prisoners are placed in positions of extreme precarity. The material practices that reinforce the inhumanity of prisoners and increase their level of precarity establish, before the prisoner’s death, that the prisoner’s life is not a life worthy of living. Grieving the death of the prisoner requires the recognition of prisoners as fully human, which is not possible within a normative context that necessitates their dehumanisation. Thus, to grieve the death of the prisoner, there must be a material transformation of these dehumanising practices, and the normative social conditions in which they are necessitated. As those normative practices, and the prison itself, are so entrenched in settler-colonial capitalism, mourning the death of the prisoner requires much more than the coroners can conceive.

In the United States, immigration is generally seen as a law and order issue. Amidst increasing anti-immigrant sentiment, unauthorized migrants have been cast as lawbreakers. Governing Immigration Through Crime offers a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the use of crime and punishment to manage undocumented immigrants.

Presenting key readings and cutting-edge scholarship, this volume examines a range of contemporary criminalizing practices: restrictive immigration laws, enhanced border policing, workplace audits, detention and deportation, and increased policing of immigration at the state and local level. Of equal importance, the readings highlight how migrants have managed to actively resist these punitive practices. In bringing together critical theorists of immigration to understand how the current political landscape propagates the view of the "illegal alien" as a threat to social order, this text encourages students and general readers alike to think seriously about the place of undocumented immigrants in American society.

In this article we explore the intersections between white liberal feminisms and the carceral state, particularly within nonprofit agencies. We find a strong collusion between ‘dominating feminisms’ and the carceral state, through funding structures and the belief that the legal system can provide protection to victimized women. We use
evidence from our own research on rape crisis centers and gender-responsive programming for criminalized women, respectively, to investigate how some nonprofit agencies further threaten the safety, stability, and self-determination of women of color, queer women, transgender clients, economically disadvantaged women, and disabled women. As a result, when white liberal feminists seek to intervene in the criminal legal system, we often see reform efforts that directly strengthen institutions that perpetuate economic exploitation, colonialist notions of progress, and white supremacy. We conclude our article with an exploration of some guiding  principles within noncarceral antiviolence organizations that espouse a liberatory feminist framework.

This article examines the experiences of black, gender-oppressed women, and transgender activists in the anti-prison movement in the U.S. and Canada. By foregrounding the experiences of transgender and gender non-conforming activists, the author makes visible the reality of gender complexity and multiplicity within women's prisons and the anti-prison movement. The article explores the activists' motivations for involvement, and barriers to participation, and explores spirituality as a source of resilience and guidance. It examines the participants' political analysis and abolitionist visions and explores the possibility of "non-reformist reforms" that take up the challenge of a radical, antiracist, gender justice perspective. The article posits the existence of a unique abolitionist vision and praxis, centered on the participants' direct experience of gender oppression and racialized surveillance and punishment. This perspective works toward dismantling penal structures while simultaneously seeking the abolition of racialized gender policing and an end to violence against gender non-conforming prisoners. This article is dedicated to the memory of Boitumelo "Tumi" McCallum. Her spirit is a continued inspiration in the struggle against intimate and state violence.

The U.S. immigration detention center is both a transnational space and a foreign policy microcosm. Its detainees reside physically within the nation yet legally outside, while its walls, fences, and doors clearly demarcate those bodies that do not belong to the nation from those that do. The detention center is not merely a domestic place where foreign policy is executed. It is a place both locally and globally defined, where social interactions and cultural narratives transcend concrete walls and nation-state boundaries. Bodies are controlled, marked, and contested in this liminal space. This essay explores the detention and processing of Mariel Cubans at Fort Chaffee in 1980-1 as exercises of biopolitical management in the era of President Ronald Reagan’s revitalized nationalism. Through a process of inclusion and exclusion, a previously welcomed “anticommunist” exile group suddenly became cast by the media and politicians as “undesirable.” While some Cuban refugees were rendered acceptable additions to the national body through “American” cultural training, sponsorship, and resettlement, nonnational “excludables” were simultaneously rendered invisible through the act of detention.