The Prison Journal

In the United States, racialized people are disproportionately selected for punishment. Examining punishment discourses intersectionally unearths profound, unequal distinctions when controlling for the variety of victims’ identities within the punishment regime. For example, trans women of color are likely to face the harshest of realties when confronted with the prospect of punishment. However, missing from much of the academic carceral literature is a critical perspective situated in racialized epistemic frameworks. If racialized individuals are more likely to be affected by punishment systems, then, certainly, they are the foremost experts on what those realities are like. The Black Lives Matter hashtag came about during the aftermath of the George Zimmerman non-verdict in the killing of Trayvon Martin, and it helped to cultivate the organization which turned into a multiracial international movement in defense of Black dignity and humanity. While Black Lives Matter was initially inspired by police violence, it has expanded its reach to include causes beyond police malpractice and brutality. This special issue of The Prison Journal seeks to merge principles associated with Black Lives Matter (as noted on their website) with critical issues endemic to community reentry after incarceration and the racialized and gendered impediments it produces. The empirical pieces included are qualitative to reflect the epistemologies of the affected, as we believe that narratives more powerfully capture these hard-to-reach (or deviant in comparison to the norm) perspectives. This special issue includes articles that critically foreground the voices of formerly incarcerated citizens (including some who are mothers and fathers) and reentry service providers. Importantly, it provides suggestions for new directions in reimagining a more democratic and racially equitable society without current punishment regimes.

The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement is a challenge and resistance to White Supremacy and state-sanctioned violence. The proliferation of social media and smart technology has allowed the recording, documenting, and archiving of police misconduct and brutality against Black bodies. Furthermore, BLM is critical of various institutions that create disparities, including the criminal justice system. This article examines the nexus of BLM and prisoner reentry. Using qualitative research conducted in the weeks and months following the death of Trayvon Martin in February 2012, a collective of formerly incarcerated and recently released Black men discussed and analyzed this death and its impact on the Black community. Here, these individuals shared their ideas surrounding punishment and justice as well as reflected on their own past, present, and future roles in their community.

Mass incarceration as a system of racialized and gendered social control has disproportionately impacted Black women, many of whom are mothers. Contrary to dominant social constructions of motherhood, these women employ their own strategies of mothering unique to their lived experiences. This study relies on interview data to understand Black women’s motherhood experiences post-incarceration. Drawing from five semistructured interviews of Black mothers across a large urban area in Texas, we argue for more critical, qualitative research of formerly incarcerated Black women, grounded in Black feminist theory (BFT).

Formerly incarcerated Black males face many barriers once they return to society after incarceration. Research has long established incarceration as a determinant of poor health and well-being. While research has shown that legally created barriers (e.g., employment, housing, and social services) are often a challenge post-incarceration, far less is known of Black male’s daily experiences of reentry. Utilizing critical ethnography and semi-structured interviews with formerly incarcerated Black males in a Northeastern community, this study examines the challenges Black males experience post-incarceration.

The punitive carceral system is expected to tame people of color into docile bodies through their imprisonment. Furthermore, the oppressive and punitive U.S. context embodies patriarchy and injustice in which women of color endure unique obstacles at the intersection of race and gender. Given the power structures built to destabilize women of color before and after incarceration, this study uses interview data to examine their perseverance through carceral systems. The findings illustrate how oppressive regimes shape postincarceration obstacles and explore how women of color combat social-structural inequalities after incarceration.

The prisoner reentry industry (PRI) emerged as a by-product of mass incarceration, with the stated purpose of helping the formerly incarcerated reenter society and achieve a new “law-abiding” status. Traditional criminological studies point to high recidivism rates in the United States as proof that U.S. reentry fails to rehabilitate offenders. Utilizing data from 57 in-depth semistructured interviews with formerly incarcerated individuals and 10 interviews with reentry service providers across five states, we posit that although the PRI purports to rehabilitate offenders, it operates using mechanisms including parole conditions and fee-based reentry services that ensure the formerly incarcerated remain trapped in a cycle of failure. Hence, the PRI is not a broken system. Rather, it is an intentional form of structural violence perpetuated by the state to ensure the continued oppression of the most marginalized groups in our society.

The global prison industrial complex was built on Black and brown women’s bodies. This economy will not voluntarily loosen its hold on the bodies that feed it. White carceral feminists traditionally encourage State punishment, while anti-carceral, intersectional feminism recognizes that it empowers an ineffective and racist system. In fact, it is built on the criminalization of women’s survival strategies, creating a “victimization to prison pipeline.” But prisons are not the root of the problem; rather, they are a manifestation of the over-policing of Black women’s bodies, poverty, and motherhood. Such State surveillance will continue unless we disrupt these powerful systems both inside and outside prisons.