Punishment & Society

Discussion on legitimacy has highlighted its dialogic nature. The diversity of stakeholders in the penal system implies that penal policies and practices should be justifiable both internally (to offenders) and externally (to society at large). While most studies have focused on the internal aspect of penal legitimacy – the justification of authority through offenders’ perspectives – this paper calls for attention to the external stakeholders’ demands. Consequently, it becomes relevant to envisage ways of balancing between the conflicting standpoints of offenders and society at large regarding the justifications of penal power. For this purpose, this paper builds on Sen’s justice framework, whereby the best way to enhance justice is to avoid debating utopian ideals, and aims to apply its logic to the debate on penal legitimacy. It argues that it is not feasible to envisage a ‘legitimate prison’, and therefore it is better to focus on existing or possible alternatives of penal policies and practices. Since there are better and worse uses and justifications of penal power, legitimacy becomes a matter of degree. The reconciliation of conflicting views between preferable or less preferable uses and justifications of penal authority is suggested to be possible through exploring the potential of public debate.

This paper contributes to the criminology of genocide through examination of settler colonial destruction within the broader context of what we term ‘genocidal carcerality’. We employ this term to examine the ways in which space is implicated in the physical, biological, and cultural destruction of group life. In this paper, our purpose is not to create a typology of genocidal carcerality, but rather to demonstrate the multiplicity of spatial strategies at work within any genocidal context, with specific focus on Indian Residential Schools. In so doing, we critique attempts to reduce genocidal carcerality to a single spatial form, such as the camp. We illustrate our main points through a case study of the Fort Alexander Indian Residential School in Manitoba, Canada.

Recently, scholars have increasingly criticized descriptions of significant penal change as “ruptures”—sudden breaks with past practices, often replacing old technologies with new. This article promotes an alternative understanding of penal change as the layering of new penal technologies over old technologies to describe the complicated coexistence of old and new penal technologies following significant moments of change. This study demonstrates the layering process through a case study of the first major American penal reform: proto-prisons adopted between 1785 and 1822 are often described as the first great rupture in which long-term incarceration replaced capital punishment. Using the relationship between America’s emerging proto-prisons and declining death penalty, this article illustrates the complicated coexistence of penal reforms with older technologies. While proto-prisons emerged out of revulsion with capital punishment, many states adopted proto-prisons independently of their decisions to reduce capital offenses and most states retained relatively robust death penalties. Rather than a replacement or rupture, the emergence of proto-prisons represented an additional layer of punishment that partially displaced older technologies.

Roughly 700,000 people are released from American prisons every year, yet we know little about their ground-level experiences at or near the moment of exit. This ethnographic study fills part of the gap by examining the aspirations and corresponding actions of soon-to-be-released prisoners, “short-timers.” While previous research suggests this population wants a “successful reentry,” few have detailed such a desire beyond its obvious mismatch with life chances. I show that in addition to verbalizing lucid hopes and plans for the “straight life,” short-timers act in reference to these aspirations while incarcerated by drawing on two meager resources: family and penitentiary. Such aspirations and actions are not markers of ignorance. Instead, I argue that they signal a practical orientation in a world where staff dominate inmates. In friction with the durable forces of inmate objectification, short-timers can use future-oriented perceptions and practices to realize some degree of selfhood. Meanwhile, their custodians, who are never committed to despotic control or total mortification, impose complementary lessons in personal responsibility through the discourse of prisoner reentry. Besides spotlighting a rarely studied moment in prison, I offer a model for how prisoner subjectivity emerges as both a rejection and product of penal power.

Despite great strides in research on the collateral consequences of incarceration, we know relatively little about family life during imprisonment. In an effort to extend prior work, the current study examines family processes among caregivers, prisoners, and children during prison visitation. Drawing from in-depth interviews with 52 caregivers of children of incarcerated parents, we use open and axial coding techniques to identify the interactions and interpersonal exchanges that take place among family members during prison visitation. Analyses revealed that in addition to universal engagement in Family Time, three familial processes unfolded in the carceral setting: Attempts to Bond, Declarations of Family Responsibilities, and Messages of Reform. Our findings illuminate the complex needs and fragile relationships of prisoners and their families, and have important implications for reentry, offender rehabilitation, and family well-being.

After 30 years of relentless expansion, the United States’ prison system faces the prospect of considerable contraction. This was certainly not expected and continues to be refuted by policy makers, activists, and academic theorists alike. Using evidence drawn from New York State, this essay argues that decarceration is taking place and may be expected to continue. Preliminary findings indicate, however, that the outcome is not likely to be the most commonly speculated ones: a return to a rehabilitative model, liberal reform along the lines of justice reinvestment, or the straightforward replacement of mass incarceration with parole and probation. Evidence to date suggests that a new and harsher criminal justice regime marked by justice disinvestment is being forged, entailing a significant shift from state penal institutions to differentiated, community-based social control, new private and non-profit actors, and new data and hardware technologies. These observations suggest a substantial rethinking of the political economy and theories of mass incarceration and the ‘carceral’ or ‘centaur’ state.