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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Mass incarceration'
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1
Wills, Benjamin Todd. "Making art while considering mass incarceration." Thesis, University of Iowa, 2017. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/5682.
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Every day, I write letters to prisoners. I have done this for years now, and have written literally thousands of letters. Somewhere along the way the correspondence gave birth to an art vision—an aggregation of objects and content that has provided the source material for work that I have been creating since 2013.
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Meares, Christina Faye. "DISAPPEARING ACTS: THE MASS INCARCERATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2011. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/aas_theses/8.
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The growth in the number of black women in the prison system necessitates more research become rooted in an intersectional approach. This quantitative study will empirically apply intersectionality to address the unique circumstances of imprisoned black women by comparing and analyzing sentence convictions shared between black and white incarcerated women in Georgia. Drawing on 600 inmate profiles published by Georgia Department of Corrections, this study will address the statistical significance of race, class and gender on the length of sentence for incarcerated white and black women using regression models.
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Novisky, Meghan A. "Aging in Prison as a Collateral Consequence of Mass Incarceration." Kent State University / OhioLINK, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1470057807.
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Martin, Liam. "To Go Straight or Return to the Street?: Life After Prison in an Old Industrial City." Thesis, Boston College, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/2345/bc-ir:104986.
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Thesis advisor: Stephen PfohlIn the wake of decades of growth in the American prison system, unprecedented numbers of people flow out of penal institutions each year: 750,000 are released from state and federal prison, and 7 million more from local jails. Reentry on this scale creates a host of new policy challenges and important openings for social science research. I study the problems of reentry ethnographically. Based on nine months living in a halfway house for men leaving prison and jail, I examine how the prison experience follows people after they leave, the forces and processes that push people back toward prison, and the strategies of former prisoners confronting often extreme forms of social exclusion. My reentry research doubles as a ground-up account of the American prison boom: a window on the world of a small group of men and women rebuilding their lives under the long shadow of mass incarceration. I present the research in three articles: Reentry within the Carceral: Foucault, Race and Prisoner Reentry uses concepts from Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish to re-frame the way we think about reentry, while also taking account of the deep racial inequalities that stamp the American prison system. I argue that people leaving prison are branded delinquent in a society infused with technologies of surveillance and control. In this context, reentry is best conceptualized not as a move from confinement to freedom, but along a carceral continuum of graded intensity. Further, the racialized features of social control in the United States often leave black and brown bodies in themselves marked delinquent. An individual need not commit a crime or spend time inside to become enclosed in social spaces characterized by exclusion and close surveillance. In the case of many black prisoners, formal processing by police and prisons only intensifies a process already underway, and the experience of reentry is best understood as a particular moment in long-term process that begins before imprisonment. The Social Logic of Recidivism: Cultural Capital from Prison to the Street develops a conceptual framework for explaining the cycles of incarceration that so often enveloped the lives of participants. I argue that the growth of incarceration, concentrated geographically along race and class lines, establishes the structural context in which the choice to enter street culture makes sense for large numbers of former prisoners. In high incarceration neighborhoods where street culture is predominant, large-scale movements in and out of prison create networks of relationships that traverse and blur carceral boundaries. Prison and street cultures become partially fused – at different times they are populated by many of the same people - and because of this overlap, the skills and knowledges people learn while incarcerated are also valuable in the street. That is, incarceration involves an accumulation of cultural capital that increases the potential rewards of street crime. Rather than providing roads toward a new life, incarceration creates a structure of constraints and opportunities that pushes people back toward the street. Free But Still Walking the Yard: Prisonization and the Problems of Reentry examines the deep and lasting changes that people carry with them after leaving prison. I argue that prisonization transforms the habitus, as penal institutions are deposited within individuals as lasting dispositions, motor schemes and bodily automatisms. This prisonization of the habitus can be observed in the everyday practices of former prisoners: the experience of physical space, the rituals of cleaning and bodily care, and the practices of consuming food. While some of these habits and dispositions may seem innocuous, they express an underlying adaptation of the convict body to the rules and rhythms of prison life that can have powerfully disruptive effects during reentry: creating feelings of stress and anxiety, making it difficult to function in routine social situations, amplifying exclusion from the labor market and other institutions, and encouraging return to street cultures shared with other former prisoners
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015
Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: Sociology
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Barnaby, Nicole. "The Biography of an Institution: The Cultural Formation of Mass Incarceration." The Ohio State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1459887258.
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Bergeron, Insiyah Mohammad. "Delinking economic development and mass incarceration : imagining new futures for rural communities." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/111260.
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Thesis: M.C.P., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, 2017.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 71-75).
Until recently, prisons were considered an economic development strategy particularly in rural communities struggling with the loss of manufacturing jobs. However, many studies have shown that prisons often have weak linkages to the host community, and sometimes have negligible or even negative impacts on rural economies. A combination of factors including changing sentencing laws, inadequate conditions in older facilities, fiscal conservatism, and increasing reliance on community based alternatives to incarceration are now leading to prison closures all around the country. In this changing context, this thesis explores: (i) What are the real and perceived impacts of prison closures on local economies in small rural counties?; and (ii) Where communities are redeveloping old prisons to boost their economies, how are local needs, politics, and project constraints (related to design and finance) shaping the transformation of these sites? By focusing on two cases where former prisons are being reused for community and economic development, this thesis explores how rural communities might transition to new ways of employing people and generating wealth after a local prison closes.
by Insiyah Mohammad Bergeron.
M.C.P.
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Yela, Castillo Ana Ruth. "Intercepting the Intergenerational Trauma of Mass Incarceration Through Art-Based Parent Programs." Digital Commons at Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School, 2017. https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/etd/313.
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This study discusses the intergenerational impact of mass incarceration on families. The general literature repeatedly described the negative effects of mass incarceration among children who have an incarcerated parent by pointing to the difficulty of educational attainment, social exclusion, stigma, substance abuse, and the exacerbation of mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, and antisocial behavior (Kjellstrand & Eddy, 2011; Miller & Barnes, 2015; Turney, 2014). Unfortunately, most incarcerated individuals are parents and most incarcerated women are mothers (Scudder, A., et al., 2014, and Miller, et al., 2014). Through the use of art, service providers (artists, clinicians, etc.) that facilitate parent based programs in correctional facilities or re-entry programs can alleviate the trauma caused by incarceration that affect the emotional and mental well-being of families. Two organizations that provide art programs to incarcerated parents participated in a qualitative study about the effective use of art in their programs. Themes from the interviews discussed the value of cultural humility, as well as the role of social justice and restorative justice frameworks when providing art-based programs for parents. The lack of trust, compassion, and empathy were barriers in the process of delivering services to families. Since the creative process is inherently inclusive and actively engages its participants (e.g., therapists, patients, observers), the results of this study point to art creation as a vehicle that promotes trusts and supports family relationship restoration in order to intercept the cycles of intergenerational trauma.
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Kim, Elaine Minjy. "Confined in the margins of the margins : the urban form of mass incarceration." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/111391.
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Thesis: M.C.P., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, 2017.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 152-156).
The historically unprecedented and internationally incomparable rate of incarceration in the United States merits an analysis of the prison as a key political, social, economic, and physical institution in America. This research sits in the gap in the existing literature between sociological research on incarceration and architectural studies of the conditions of confinement by turning my attention to urban design scale physical characteristics and their interaction with their context. It begins with the premise that the characteristics of the prison as a physical structure are entangled with the prison as cultural item, political tactic, and social concept. I ask: what is the urban form of mass incarceration? The question is investigated by focusing on a sample of 45 federal correctional complexes. Each complex is measured according to five different metrics through the use of spatial data to address three scales of concern: regional, city, and site. To address the regional scale concern of incarcerated populations being placed far from their home communities and barriers to maintaining social connections, I measure each complex's proximity to an urbanized area and accessibility to transit. I study the city scale concern of facilities being relegated to the remote and ignored margins by considering measures of visibility: distance to the nearest major road, and the number of nearby points of interest that may bring people within proximity of the prison. To investigate the building scale concern of the generous amounts of space correctional facilities demand, I compare the complex's size to the size of the hosting city. I find that correctional complexes are not well sited or designed to address the issues associated with all three scales. Analyzing the variation among the complexes, the results show that the facilities built during the rapid rise of incarceration share similar physical characteristics. Interpreting raw measures using metric-appropriate checkpoints, I find that even the complexes that are more integrated relative to others are in reality isolated and disconnected. Looking at the public comments and design descriptions for the facilities among the highest ranking and lowest ranking sites, I find that the design intention is to blend the facility into the rural landscape, and that the ability of residents to "forget that it's even there" is seen as a design success and benefit.
by Elaine Minjy Kim.
M.C.P.
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Wilson, Olivia S. "The Accountability of Private Prisons in America During the Era of Mass Incarceration." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2016. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/829.
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The thesis will focus on prison privatization and the accountability that private prison companies should maintain to build and operate them. It starts by detailing the political history of the privatization of prisons, starting with the Reagan era and the legislation and ideologies that emerged from it, highlight the reasons and justifications the government gave to outsource its system of punishment. By examining the War on Drugs and Tough on Crime legislations, it will show the way that mass incarceration allowed private companies to develop a solid grasp on the criminal justice system, transforming prisons into a system of hyper incarceration, capitalization and expansion. Using Richard Harding’s book, Private Prisons and Public Accountability, the second chapter will then focus on the accountability that the private prison companies must maintain to effectively and acceptably punish lawbreakers. It will also examine the justifications of the criminal justice system and private prisons, using a utilitarian and retributivist lens. Finally, Chapter 3 will investigate the accountability of the world’s first and largest private prison company: the Corrections Corporation of America. By using its website, this chapter will investigate how the CCA’s claims line up with its actions and what that indicates about its accountability. In the end, with a solid understanding of the flaws of CCA and private prisons, the conclusion will then question the position of private prisons within American society, providing ways to improve the flawed system.
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Santiago, Maleny. "The Rise of Mass Incarceration: Black Oppression as a Means of Public “Safety”." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2019. https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/2249.
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Abstract
Mass incarceration is a popular term in today’s society that is means to describe the high incarceration rate in the United States. Because of this, the United States has the largest prison population in the world. Mass incarceration is a movement that truly began to make headway during Reagan’s presidency and his declaration of a War on Drugs. The sensationalization of the dangers of crack cocaine sparked a “tough on crime” mentality and a long series of punitive measures that would come to disproportionately affect the black community. Today, mass incarceration has become an extremely controversial topic. The debate has centered on whether this country is too punitive and how current policies may be disproportionately affecting black men as they make up 33% of the prison population but only 12% of the general population (Alexander, 2010). However, regardless of the controversy, mass incarceration continues to affect millions of individuals in this country. Thus, the question is why individuals continue to be imprisoned at such alarming rates. Not only has the prison system take a strong foothold in this country but its power and influence continue to grow with the prison industrial complex. Therefore, ensuring that future generations will continue to be affected. In order to stop mass incarceration, we must consider alternatives to our prison system, such as a focus on rehabilitation rather than deterrence. Or perhaps an abolition of our prison system altogether.
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Hayes-Smith, Justin. "Maintaining racial inequalities through crime control the relationship between residential segregation and mass incarceration /." [Gainesville, Fla.] : University of Florida, 2009. http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/UFE0041240.
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Miles, Corey J. "Niggaz Wit Aesthetic: A Sociological Conceptualization of Diasporic Hip-Hop Identities in the Era of Mass Incarceration." Diss., Virginia Tech, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/100324.
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When mainstream institutions fail to provide adequate avenues for black Americans to develop humanizing understandings of their identities and exclude them from full citizenship, how do black Americans develop identity, belonging, and community within structures of oppression? Through ethnography and archival research this study documents how the aesthetic realm historically and contemporarily serves as a site of articulation where rural black Americans recast notions of black subjectivity and local belonging. To understand the process of rural black Americans using the aesthetic realm to reposition the importance of mainstream institutions, this research uses a 'socio-diasporic' framework to view the ways those socially positioned as black come to understand that positioning via the way institutions structure their day-to-day reality; and how through the forging of diasporic connections black people have been able to construct knowledge within, alongside, and independently of those institutions. Specifically, this ethnography situates the criminal justice system as a primary institutional apparatus in defining the societal significance of blackness in northeast North Carolina. Hip-hop has served as a performative avenue to engage negotiations of identity, and through this search for identity black centered epistemological and ontological understandings of black subjectivity have been created. To appreciate black Americans' unique understandings of the world that I argue they construct, I advance the notion of "vibe" as a methodological tool to conceptualize the way specific aesthetic and cultural sensibilities are used to construct understandings of blackness, gendered identity, and local belonging.Doctor of Philosophy
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Comfort, Megan Lee. "Home sweep : the social and cultural consequences of mass incarceration for women with imprisoned partners." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.407426.
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Mallory, Jason Leonard. "Prisoner oppression, democratic crises, abolitionist visions towaqrds a social and political philosophy of mass incarceration /." Diss., Online access via UMI:, 2008.
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Tidwell, Wylie Jason. "Stigmas Associated With Black American Incarceration Through an Afrocentric Lens." ScholarWorks, 2015. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/1577.
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Although extensive quantitative research has been conducted on Black American incarceration rates, to date, there has not been a study from an Afrocentric (Black American) perspective in the field of public policy. Using Dillard's conceptualization of Afrocentric theory, this study added to the field of public policy by examining how the stigmas associated with mass incarceration have reduced political and economic opportunities for Black Americans born 1965 - 1984. The purpose of this ethnographic study was to provide an Afrocentric voice by which the members of the Black American community are the center of the data collection on the stigmas associated with incarceration as a product of the new Jim Crow (mass incarceration) for those born between 1965 -1984 (the hip-hop generation where the music is the center of the culture) in the United States. Data were collected through semistructured interviews with selected informants based on their background work, experience, and cultural orientation within the Black American community; these data were analyzed via a summative content analysis, which revealed new perspectives on the stigmas associated with incarceration. The new perspective that was gained asked for the structure of the Black American church to be reexamined due to the rise in the mega-church, an improved culturally sensitive K-12 public educational system, and the overall reconnection and strengthening of the Black American family structure. These findings suggest that social change can only occur when researchers of color are allowed to provide their perspectives on issues that affect those they represent. Hence, the social change implications for this study ask that political leaders work directly with the hip-hop generation and the Black American community as a whole to make changes in legislation through political liberalism.
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Sherard-Redman, Melody J. "THE EFFECTS OF PARENTHOOD ON INCARCERATED MEN:AN ANALYSIS OF PRISON PROGRAM PARTICIPATION AND RULE BREAKINGIN A NATIONAL SAMPLE OF INCARCERATED MEN." University of Akron / OhioLINK, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1479472670692849.
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Duxbury, Scott W. "Angry and Afraid: Race, Public Opinion, and the Politics of Punishment in the States." The Ohio State University, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1586110727735148.
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Hale, Jacob S. "Reading Street Lit with Incarcerated Juveniles: The Myth of Reformative Incarceration." University of Dayton / OhioLINK, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=dayton1523966308255071.
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Berlinghoff, Maddison Brooke Kapua'Ena. "Has Neoliberalism Affected American Civil Liberties? Examining the Criminal Justice System and the Welfare State." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/103623.
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Neoliberalism once started as an economic theory but overtime has developed into an arm of state social control. This thesis asks if neoliberal economic policies have affected civil liberties in the United States and sets out to understand this relationship in several ways. Firstly, by investigating the shift from Keynesianism to market fundamentalism. Secondly, by evaluating the growth in the prison industrial complex. Third, by asking questions of growing social insecurity from an increasingly privatized social safety net. This thesis explored four hypotheses, each one finding support. The overall argument is that the economic sphere and the free market has obstructed the social sphere. Finally, the thesis concludes with a brief discussion of toxic individualism as it relates to socialization after a long period of extreme market privatization.Master of Arts
Ever since the 1980s, the United States has experienced an increase in incarceration rates, and simultaneously a more substantial shift in economic practices, from Keynesianism to what became colloquially known as "trickle down economics." This thesis argues that the economic change, defined in this work as neoliberalism, subsequently affected how welfare and social services manage social insecurity in the United States, including the criminal justice system. This paper will discuss the tenets of neoliberalism and how these core tenets, i.e. privatization, affected the welfare state and the prison industrial complex.
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Salmons, Patrick Jeremiah. "Hip Hop Voices in the era of Mass Incarceration: An examination of Kendrick Lamar and The Black Lives Matter Movement." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/77954.
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The United States has many problems currently, the most persistent of which is the issue of race, and the problem of Mass Incarceration. This thesis addresses what Mass Incarceration is, as well as developing a theoretical understanding of how to overcome Mass Incarceration through the music of Kendrick Lamar and The Black Lives Matter Movement. This thesis presents the questions: What is the era of Mass Incarceration? How does Kendrick Lamar's music inform the problems of Mass Incarceration? How does The Back Lives Matter Movement use this information to create a solidarity movement against the oppression of African Americans? What does this mean going forward? Creating a synthesis of Mass Incarceration, the music of Kendrick Lamar, and The Black Lives Matter Movement, that overlaps and propels an intersection of culture and activism that inform one another. This all leads to the main takeaway of the thesis, that attempts to provide an interpretive understanding that pop culture, social media, and activism have created a different civil sphere, a Black public sphere that informs and educates through different avenues. All in all this thesis shows that music, social movements, and policy are all interconnected, and the music of Kendrick Lamar and the activism of The Black Lives Matter Movement provide a catalyst for change in the era of Mass Incarceration.Master of Arts
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Durso, Rachel M. "“Shackles and Chains:” Three Essays on the Determinants and Consequences of U.S. Mass Imprisonment in the Twenty-First Century." The Ohio State University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1405703457.
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Lehman, Andrew. "Transitional Architecture: Architectures Response to a Social Program." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1470043128.
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Bidwell, Joshua. "The Next Step for the Justice Reinvestment Initiative: Making Mental Health a Priority." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/20491.
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The criminal justice system in the United States was not created to treat mentally ill people. Despite this fact, the number of seriously mentally ill people in prisons and jails now exceeds the number in state psychiatric hospitals by tenfold.
At the same time, the epidemic of mass incarceration in the United States has become one of the most pressing economic and social problems our country has faced in the last three decades.
One novel approach to reducing prison populations and lowering costs to taxpayers has been justice reinvestment. However, for justice reinvestment to meet its ultimate goal of reducing incarceration rates, saving tax payer dollars, and creating safer communities, the JRI must begin to focus more attention and resources on how to better address the unique needs of the mentally ill in the criminal justice system.
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Bohuski, Laura. "Nidoto Nai Yoni "Let It Not Happen Again": The Effect of World War II and Mass Incarceration on Japanese American Women's Gender Roles." TopSCHOLAR®, 2019. https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/3104.
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This thesis analyses the experiences, memories, and events of the World War II mass incarceration of Japanese Americans to determine what changes this traumatic event engendered in the gender roles of Issei and Nisei women. The events of incarceration separated families and broke down traditional societal norms leaving a deeply emotional and psychological scar upon the Japanese American community. Ironically, new opportunities arose for Issei and Nisei women as both a result of the effects of the mass incarceration upon the Japanese American community and because of governmental pressures such as labor shortages and the cost of housing over one hundred thousand prisoners. Issei women stepped into authority roles after the arrests of Japanese American community leaders and, in some cases, asserted their authority as mothers to stay in the United States against their husbands wishes. Nisei women were offered more opportunities in higher education and careers which allowed them to choose if they wanted to pursue an education or a career. These opportunities also allowed women more choices for marriage. While the decision of when to marry during the war years seems split between immediately before, during, and then in the years following the war, there is also a consistent pattern of women waiting to marry until after they had finished their education or worked for a few years. These patterns differ from both Issei and older Nisei women who often married early. World War II and mass incarceration is an extremely painful event that left deep wounds upon the Japanese American community, however it also gave Issei and Nisei women opportunities to choose what roles to fill and when.
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Newport, Melanie Diane. "Jail America: The Reformist Origins of the Carceral State." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2016. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/392194.
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HistoryPh.D.
As policymakers reckon with how the United States became a global leader in imprisonment after World War II, scholars have suggested that the roots of this phenomenon are in conservative backlash to postwar crime or in federal intervention in American cities during the urban crisis. However, historians and social scientists have overlooked the role of jails in the origins story of mass incarceration. Through a close historical examination of Cook County Jail in Chicago, my research addresses how policymakers used reform claims to rationalize the growth of large urban jails from the 1950s through the 1990s. As a massive state building project, mass incarceration was contingent upon branding urban jails as providers of social services and rehabilitation, even though there was proof that jails failed to provide such services and as jail policymakers built bigger and more brutal jails. While activists, lawyers, and prisoners challenged dehumanizing conditions and state violence, jailers responded to public scrutiny by assuring the public that Cook County Jail was in the process of becoming a space that was beneficial to people awaiting trial there. This project locates the emergence of the contemporary carceral crisis in the battle to transform America’s jails.
Temple University--Theses
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Germansky, Hannah Constance. "Dr. Lillie Jackson Center for the Arts and Social Justice." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/103636.
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Architecture informs the structure of society, determining how people move, whose paths cross, and which resources are accessible. By merging social justice initiatives and architectural design, buildings have the power to provide equity, strengthen communities, and encourage dialogue. Empowerment of residents and the disruption of mass incarceration are the goals of this proposal, implemented through community engagement techniques and a mixed-use program supporting employment, job training, housing, social networks, and healing.
Located in Midtown Edmondson's neighborhood of West Baltimore, this social justice center restores a dilapidated parcel of land and former ice factory. The proposed food hall, community center, and garden invite fluid exchange between this hub of resources and the larger society. Simultaneously, current inmates will have the opportunity to engage with the development process through a construction and design apprentice program. Former inmates will find immediate resources to ease the transition back into their community upon release, with supportive networks contributing towards lower recidivism rates and the restoration of voting ability and voice. In a cyclical process, upward individual and communal growth will be redistributed back into the community. Alongside these individuals, local residents are also invited into the fabric of this social justice center.
The project offers interdisciplinary and multi-scalar design from landscape to interiors, adaptive reuse, to new build architecture. By acknowledging history, actively listening, and designing with intention, this project meets current needs and offers a unique perspective on social architecture. With human rights at the forefront of design decisions, the final proposal reveals that design has the power to incite and actively work towards social justice and disrupt systemically racist institutions, like mass incarceration.Master of Architecture
Design that disrupts, takes action and initiates social change against mass incarceration is the goal of this thesis. Through an interdisciplinary approach, engaging with the community through landscape, interior and built form, architecture has the power to interrupt current models of discrimination at the community level and provide platform for people to be empowered to work towards change. The Dr. Lillie Jackson Center for the Arts and Social Justice showcases an alternative means to incarceration, mass surveillance, and removal of voice in West Baltimore. This community center reinforces the idea that public land remain public and that employment, housing, and community networks be seen as a human right, freely accessed. This new model for community empowerment uses architecture to demand autonomy, where people determine the future of their cities and livelihoods. It showcases that the removal of racist institutions and policing policies is not only possible but imperative to attaining social justice. Built environments shape how people experience a city and the degree of safety, freedom, and power which is felt by each individual who occupies it. With this idea in mind, the Dr. Lillie Jackson Center states through its design moves, that mass incarceration must end and in its place, a new model for community driven, bottom-up initiatives which restore, heal and offer opportunities for growth.
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Kott, Alexander John. "The Compromises Progressive Prosecutors Must Make: Three Case Studies." Oberlin College Honors Theses / OhioLINK, 2021. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1621774926855052.
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Beverly, Walker V. ""I JUST GOT OUT; I NEED A PLACE TO LIVE": A BUSINESS PLAN FOR TRANSITIONAL HOUSING." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 2018. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd/771.
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The United States has a serious epidemic of mass incarceration and high recidivism rates. The U. S. must act on these high recidivism rates by implementing social services programs that help the formerly incarcerated stop committing crimes. The formerly incarcerated are being oppressed by a historic process that has continued to incarcerate and control them, even after they had served their time for their crimes. This project attempts to assist in reducing the high recidivism rates by creating an education-based transitional housing facility with a plethora of supportive services that will be open to formerly incarcerated individuals. This project sheds light on some of the problems that continue to plague this demographic group of people, while providing a possible solution to help reduce recidivism. The outcome of this project is a business plan that explains a procedure to help create a non-profit transitional housing facility that will be located in Palm Springs, CA. The steps of building this non-profit business are detailed in an implementation plan following this manuscript.
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Negrete, Alfaro Mabel Alejandra. "When the Invisible Punishing Machine is everywhere ... : the mechanism of social control (mass incarceration, institutionalized racism, slavery and repression) in the USA shapes the individual as well as the social space." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/70384.
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Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, February 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. [177]-181).
Framed by the following poetic statement: "When the Invisible Punishing Machine is everywhere, creeping into my body, life and spaces, it is like living in a colossal architectural nightmare", this thesis serves first as a testimony of the author's personal stories. Second it illuminates the machine as a punitive and disciplinary system affecting the body in visceral ways (although the author resists its power by inventing critical and artistic counter narratives that are described). Thirdly, it analyzes the nightmarish machine, the genesis of the machine and how the machine as a mega structure infiltrates the institutional systems in this country. Therefore, the purpose of this written thesis is to interrogate, reveal, and ultimately work to transform radically the intangible effects of the invisible punishing machine on our bodies, minds and souls. Once we have remedied ourselves of the effects of this omnipresent force, we can begin to eliminate the institutions in this country that perpetrate brutal repression and inequality. This thesis uses various methodologies including ethnography, social theory, artistic conceptual strategies and a methodology created specifically for the project: "The Paradoxical and Interrogative Remedies" (PIR). This is an analytical and artistic method to communicate meaningful bio-political issues and encompasses radical live action, performance, multimedia installation, documentation and the production of tactical objects. PIR is applied to artistic research, activism, personal therapy and radical pedagogy. The new methodology of criticality developed through these projects will contribute to the fields of contemporary art, social sciences and prison activism. This "Written Thesis" serves to distill ideas culled from a body of personal stories ("Check Points"), artistic works (Glaciers Under My Skin), and historical research ("The Colossal Architectural Nightmare"). The distilled concepts from this written thesis are being used to shape the ongoing artistic thesis project "When the Invisible Punishing Machine is Everywhere: The Weight I Carry With Me."
by the Counter Narrative Society (CNS) a.k.a. Mabel Alejandra Negrete Alfaro.
S.M.
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Tisel, David. "Unfree Labor and American Capitalism: From Slavery to the Neoliberal-Penal State." Oberlin College Honors Theses / OhioLINK, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1368618418.
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Wilson, Katie. "Carceral Camouflage: Inscribing and Obscuring Neoliberal Penality through New York City's Borough-Based Jail Plan." Oberlin College Honors Theses / OhioLINK, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1576859980056084.
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Perryman, Donald L. "The Role of the Black Church in Addressing Collateral Damage From the U.S. War on Drugs." Antioch University / OhioLINK, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=antioch1560867458247709.
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Long, Polly. "Diminishing the Discipline Gap: Restorative Justice as a Promising Alternative in One Urban School." University of Dayton / OhioLINK, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=dayton1436815423.
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Lane, Shelby. "Recognizing the Flaws of the Emotive Regime: The Benefits of Pragmatic Criminal Justice Policies in the United States." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2016. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1313.
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In recent years, criminal justice reform has become a hot-button issue in public policy realm. Public officials, academics, and activists alike have brought issues like police brutality, mandatory sentencing laws, and illicit drug policy to the forefront of the American political conversation. In an effort to contribute to this ongoing conversation, this thesis will explore three main topics within the criminal justice reform debate in the United States and provide potential solutions that policymakers can implement. The topics include illicit drug policy, mass-incarceration, and policing methods.
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Hart-Johnson, Avon Marie. "Symbolic Imprisonment, Grief, and Coping Theory: African American Women With Incarcerated Mates." ScholarWorks, 2014. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/146.
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African American men have been incarcerated at unprecedented rates in the United States over the past 30 years. This study explored how African American females experience adverse psychosocial responses to separation from an incarcerated mate. The purpose of this qualitative grounded theory (GT) study was to construct a theory to explain their responses to separation and loss. Given the paucity of literature on this topic, helping professionals may not understand this problem or know how to support these women. Disenfranchised grief and the dual process model of bereavement were used as a theoretical lens for this study. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews conducted with 20 African American women over the age of 18, from the Washington D.C. metropolitan area, and who had incarcerated mates. Systematic data analysis revealed that women in the sample experienced grief similar to losing a loved one through death. They also were found to engage in prolonged states of social isolation, emulating their mate's state of incarceration. As a result of this study, a grounded theory of symbolic imprisonment, grief, and coping (SIG-C) was developed to answer this study's research questions and explain how loss occurs on psychological, social, symbolic, and physical levels. The findings from this study may promote positive social change by informing the human services research community of SIG-C and assisting helping professionals with a basis for context-specific support for affected women to contribute to their well-being during their mate's incarceration.
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Mays, Nicholas S. "`WHAT WE GOT TO SAY:’ RAP AND HIP HOP’S SOCIAL MOVEMENT AGAINST THE CARCERAL STATE & CRIME POLITICS IN THE AGE OF RONALD REAGAN’S WAR ON DRUGS." Kent State University / OhioLINK, 2021. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1627656723125548.
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Olurin, Olayemi. "Colored Bodies Matter: The Relationships Between Our Bodies & Power." Ohio University Art and Sciences Honors Theses / OhioLINK, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ouashonors1426797784.
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Alfieri, Gabrielle. "Mass incarceration in America A social problem /." 2007. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1251899011&sid=2&Fmt=2&clientId=39334&RQT=309&VName=PQD.
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Thesis (M.A.)--State University of New York at Buffalo, 2007.Title from PDF title page (viewed on June 26, 2007) Available through UMI ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Thesis adviser: Mohawk, John C. Includes bibliographical references.
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Mathis, Carlton William. "Children's Delinquency After Paternal Incarceration." Thesis, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/151189.
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This dissertation seeks to build on the growing research literature concerning the intergenerational consequences of paternal imprisonment for their children. The existing literature has explored the cumulative process of disadvantage that can result in negative outcomes for these children. However, there is little evidence of the mechanisms by which this occurs. This dissertation explores the possibility of the mediators outlined by Kaplan’s (1986) self-referent theory and Giordano’s (2010) symbolic interactionsist approach by which the intergenerational transmission of delinquency occurs using a unique dataset with information collected from multiple generations. This longitudinal dataset compiles information from 2,722 adolescents aged 11-18 that report their race, gender, level of self-esteem, parental relations, parental deviant behavior/characteristics, and peers and teacher stigmatization. The dataset also contains information on their fathers, 4,212 of the first generation participants, who report the frequency and causes of their own incarceration. Various models were estimated to test whether the association between paternal incarceration and delinquency was significant, the mediating effects of negative self-feelings, agency, identity, and emotion, and the moderating effect of both race and gender.
The results indicate that the association between paternal incarceration and delinquency is significant. The relationship is mediated by negative self-feelings, identity, and anger. Race did not moderate the relationship but gender did. These findings were independent of a litany of individual, family, and structural factors. The implications and significance of these findings are discussed.
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Thompson, Raymond Jr. "Justice undone." Thesis, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/2152/ETD-UT-2012-05-5493.
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The War on Drugs has lead to the incarceration of millions of people. Between 1965 and 2000 the prison population in the United States swelled by 600 percent. There are currently more than 2 million people incarcerated in the United States. As astonishing as these current prison population figures are, they are also deceptive in that they mask the systematic targeting of poor black communities. Critics claim that the boom in U.S. prison population has gone unnoticed because the war on drugs has been fought primarily in African Americans communities. From this view, mass incarceration in America is just another system of racial oppression, which has roots in slavery and Jim Crow legislation. Since the start of the war on drugs more than 31 million people have been arrested for drug-related crimes. With this report, I have documented the cycle of incarceration that U.S. Drug War policies have created in the communities that inmates leave behind.text
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"Mass Incarceration in the Age of Slavery and Emancipation: Fugitive Slaves, Poor Whites, and Prison Development in Louisiana, 1805 - 1877." Tulane University, 2020.
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Yousman, William. "The prisons outside and the prisons in our heads: Television and the *representation of incarceration." 2004. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI3136799.
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During the latter part of the twentieth century, the prison population in the United States rose to unprecedented levels. Despite the increasingly powerful impact that the penal system has on U.S. society, prisons and prisoners are virtually invisible in television news. Simultaneously, however, prisons and prisoners are frequently the focus of fictional narratives in both television and film. Films such as The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and Con-Air have been successful Hollywood products in recent years. On television, prisoners are frequently seen in many popular crime dramas such as Law and Order and NYPD Blue. Cable television offers a serial drama set entirely in a maximum-security prison, Oz. This dissertation explores the nature of U.S. television portrayals of prisons and prisoners. The argument is made that these representations are the raw material from which most viewers forge their conceptions of prison life and prisoners. Years ago, Lippmann (1922) argued that the media help to create a “pseudo-environment” in people's minds. Audiences may believe that they possess knowledge about places, people, and events that they have never experienced, and the “pictures in our heads” may not accurately reflect the “world outside” due to media filtering and distortions. Because most audience members probably have little personal experience with prisons or prisoners, our primary sources of images of incarceration are television programs and films. In the following chapters an initial statement of the need for this research is followed by a review of the relevant theoretical and empirical literature. After introducing several research questions, a description of the methods employed to respond to those questions is offered. The next two chapters examine local television news coverage of prisons and prisoners and national network news about incarceration. Then four prime time crime dramas are analyzed in regard to their images of prisons and prisoners, and the subsequent chapter discusses the prison series, Oz. In the conclusion results are summarized and thoughts on the social significance of the material covered are offered, as well as a discussion of the limitations of this project and suggestions for future research.
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Dhondt, Geert Leo. "The relationship between mass incarceration and crime in the neoliberal period in the United States." 2012. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI3545916.
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The United States prison population has grown seven-fold over the past 35 years. This dissertation looks at the impact this growth in incarceration has on crime rates and seeks to understand why this drastic change in public policy happened. Simultaneity between prison populations and crime rates makes it difficult to isolate the causal effect of changes in prison populations on crime. This dissertation uses marijuana and cocaine mandatory minimum sentencing to break that simultaneity. Using panel data for 50 states over 40 years, this dissertation finds that the marginal addition of a prisoner results in a higher, not lower, crime rate. Specifically, a 1 percent increase in the prison population results in a 0.28 percent increase in the violent crime rate and a 0.17 percent increase in the property crime rate. This counterintuitive result suggests that incarceration, already high in the U.S., may have now begun to achieve negative returns in reducing crime. As such it supports the work of a number of scholars (Western 2006, Clear 2003) who have suggested that incarceration may have begun to have a positive effect on crime because of a host of factors. Most of the empirical work on the question is undertaken at an aggregate level (county, state, or national data). Yet, criminologists (Sampson et al. 2002, Spelman 2005 and Clear 1996, 2007) have long argued that the complex intertwining of crime and punishment is best understood at the neighborhood level, where the impacts of incarceration on social relationships are most closely felt. This dissertation examines the question using a panel of neighborhoods in Tallahassee, Florida for the period 1995 to 2002. I find evidence to support the contention that the high levels of prison admissions and prison cycling (admissions plus releases) is associated with increasing crime rates in disadvantaged neighborhoods. This effect is not found in other neighborhoods. Looking more closely at the issues of race and class, I find that while marginalized neighborhoods experience slightly higher crime rates, they are faced with much higher incarceration rates. In Black neighborhoods in particular, prison admissions are an order of magnitude higher in comparison with non-Black neighborhoods even though underlying crime rates are not very different. If incarceration does not lower crime, then why did prison populations multiply seven-fold? This dissertation argues that mass incarceration is a central institution in the neoliberal social structures of accumulation. Mass incarceration as an institution plays a critical but underappreciated role in channeling class conflict in the neoliberal social structures of accumulation (SSA). Neoliberalism has produced a significant section of the working class who are largely excluded from the formal labor market, for whom the threat of unemployment is not a sufficient disciplining mechanism. At the same time, it has undermined the welfare systems that had managed such populations in earlier periods. Finally, the racial hierarchy essential to capitalist hegemony in the United States was threatened with collapse with the end of Jim Crow laws. This dissertation argues that mass incarceration has played an essential role in overcoming these barriers to stable capitalist accumulation under neoliberalism.
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Arthur, Erika. "Citizens and Criminals: Mass Incarceration, "Prison Neighbors," and Fear-Based Organizing in 1980s Rural Pennsylvania." 2012. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses/786.
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Throughout the 1980s, the Citizens’ Advisory Committee (CAC), a grassroots group of “prison neighbors,” organized for tighter security at the State Correctional Institution at Dallas (SCID), a medium security prison in northeast Pennsylvania. Motivated primarily by their fear of prisoner escapes, the CAC used the local media to raise awareness about security concerns and cooperated with the SCID administration to acquire state funding for projects at the prison that they believed would improve security. Their work coincided with the widespread proliferation of “tough on crime” rhetoric and policies, and the inauguration of the most intensive buildup of prisons ever witnessed in the United States. This phenomenon, now known as mass incarceration, has disproportionately impacted urban communities of color, due principally to the highly racialized nature of the War on Drugs, while the majority of prisons have been located in white rural communities. By imagining themselves as a population under threat, conceptualizing prisoners as potentially dangerous regardless of the nature of the crimes of which they had been convicted, and positioning the prison administration as a potential ally that needed constant supervision, the CAC contributed in complex ways to the solidification of a racially- and economically-skewed, intensely punitive criminal justice system. The CAC’s organizing helps expose an aspect of mass incarceration that has remained relatively unexplored thus far: the role rural communities that surround prisons played in the historical processes that moved the practice of punishment from the relative periphery of U.S. society to its present position as a central apparatus for political, economic, and social organization.
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Smith, Thomas. "Hearing with American Law: On Music as Evidence and Offense in the Age of Mass Incarceration." Thesis, 2021. https://doi.org/10.7916/d8-dchp-ee02.
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This dissertation considers how music has been heard with American law during an age of mass incarceration. Drawing upon records in legal archives for thousands of cases from the late 1980s to the present, it describes how legal hearings of music have contributed towards the reproduction of racial injustice. The dissertation takes two distinct modes of hearing as objects for analysis: (1) the hearing of music as evidence; and (2) the hearing of music as an offense. The dissertation describes how, since the late 1980s, the American criminal justice system has routinely and selectively heard rap music as evidence within its investigations and prosecutions. It shows how rap has served variously as a clue or lead during investigations, an aggravator of charges filed and sentences pursued during plea bargaining, a support for arguments against bail, a form of proof for elements of a crime or elements of a sentence enhancement allegation, a support for an affirmative defense, a witness impeacher, a form of proof for an aggravating factor in sentencing, and a support for arguments against parole. The dissertation questions whether quick-fix, colorblind policy proposals are likely to halt this selective hearing of rap, suggesting the need for frank discussions to take place about the political contours of problematization.
The dissertation then describes how, over the same time period, through both the criminal justice system and the procedures of administrative law, music has been heard routinely as a subfelony offense. It shows how offenses have been heard in music to facilitate narcotics investigations, raise revenue for cash-strapped municipalities, patrol the borders of the nation, and drive residents from neighborhoods. It demonstrates how the academic study of music can become attentive to harms and injustices made possible through hearing that are not reducible to the restriction of musical freedom, including but not limited to harassment, profiling, the imposition of crushing debts, vehicle impoundment, eviction, and deportation, by engaging in fine-grained study of the social life of music’s regulative rules.
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"Starving For Justice: Reading the Relationship Between Food and Criminal Justice Through Creative Works of the Black Community." Master's thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.I.44985.
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abstract: ABSTRACT
Much attention has been given to food justice in both academic and activist communities as of late. This project adds to the growing discourse around food justice by using creative works produced by members of the black community as case studies to analyze the relationship between food justice and the criminal justice system in their neighborhoods. In particular, this project examines two unique sources of creative expression from the black community. The first is the novel Been ‘Bout Dat, the story of a young boy Fattz, who is born into the projects of New Orleans and takes to street life in order to provide for his siblings and struggling single mother. Written in prison by Johnny Davis it offers a valuable perspective that is combined with historical context and statistical support to construct an understanding of how concepts of food and criminal justice influence each other. The second source is the lyrical content of several hip-hop songs from rappers such as Tupac Shakur, Mos Def, Nas, and Young Jeezy. Comparing the content of these works and the lived realities expressed in both brings new and useful insights about food justice and criminal justice as experienced in poor minority communities. Recognizing this relationship may illuminate solutions to food justice issues through criminal justice reform as well as inform fresh efforts at community renewal.Dissertation/Thesis
Masters Thesis History 2017
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Simpson, Nicole B. "Life after sexual trauma and incarceration: a restorative model for wholeness for women who suffered sexual violence." Thesis, 2020. https://hdl.handle.net/2144/41314.
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The abuse of a woman’s body had been a normative practice since the recordings of Old Testament narratives. This study is designed to confront the inherent gender bias that contributed to the devaluation and abuse of a female body, especially for women in minority communities. How did such a transgression become acceptable behavior for men, while women are penalized and even harshly judged for being the victim? Once the pattern of abused has been identified, the research will show sexual traumatization detrimentally impacts the overall behavior of the victim, occasionally leading to criminal activities which further exacerbate mental health issues never properly addressed. Women who are violated suffer mentally and emotionally, yet minimal attention is given to a woman to acknowledge and address the impact of the violation. The research consists of a historical autopsy of sexually traumatized women in the biblical narratives, throughout certain periods of slavery and its aftermath and in society in the 21st century. The goal was to determine if common trends are present for women who endured sexual assault. How did they survive, and did they manage to lead a productive life after trauma? It will also examine the failure of society to support victims, by providing a pathway toward healing and wholeness. The research will show that when the biblical narratives are theologically reexamined, the sacred text provides a strategic plan to help any woman recover from any sexual trauma they endured. It will conclude with a vision life workbook to help women begin the difficult work of moving forward after sexual traumatization.
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Naft, Michael. "Extending the Rejection Sensitivity Model to the Stigma of Criminal Status: Trauma and Interpersonal Functioning in the Age of Mass Incarceration." Thesis, 2021. https://doi.org/10.7916/d8-ex1y-rn53.
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Building on prior work on status-based rejection sensitivity, I propose a social-cognitive model of criminal-status-based rejection sensitivity (RS-criminal record) to account for differences in how people perceive and respond to threats of rejection based on their criminal histories. Study 1 develops a measure of criminal-status-based rejection sensitivity, defined as a tendency to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and negatively react to rejection based on one’s criminal status. Study 2 tests the predictions of the RS-criminal record model that anxious expectations of criminal-status-based rejection are associated with heightened perceptions of criminal-status-based rejection threat and responding to criminal-status-based stressors through self-silencing and anger.
Together, Studies 1 and 2 show that RS-criminal record is distinct from general interpersonal rejection sensitivity (RS-personal), race-based rejection sensitivity (RS-race), and other relevant stigma constructs. Study 3 tests the predictions of the RS-criminal record model experimentally, establishing evidence of the negative effects of criminal record disclosure, RS-criminal record, and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on interpersonal effectiveness in an interview (as assessed by an interaction partner and outside observers) and subsequent affective states. The three studies also test the prediction, based on the dynamics of our model and evidence from focus groups, that higher levels of RS-criminal record should predict greater PTSD symptom severity. Together, these studies provide evidence of the utility of RS-criminal record to illuminate the psychological and structural pathways through which stigma can undermine the task of social integration after being released from prison.
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"From Exclusion to State Violence: The Transformation of Noncitizen Detention in the United States and Its Implications in Arizona, 1891-present." Doctoral diss., 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.I.49244.
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abstract: This dissertation analyzes the transformation of noncitizen detention policy in the United States over the twentieth century. For much of that time, official policy remained disconnected from the reality of experiences for those subjected to the detention regime. However, once detention policy changed into its current form, disparities between policy and reality virtually disappeared. This work argues that since its inception in the late nineteenth century to its present manifestations, noncitizen detention policy transformed from a form of exclusion to a method of state-sponsored violence. A new periodization based on detention policy refocuses immigration enforcement into three eras: exclusion, humane, and violent. When official policy became state violence, the regime synchronized with noncitizen experiences in detention marked by pain, suffering, isolation, hopelessness, and death. This violent policy followed the era of humane detentions. From 1954 to 1981, during a time of supposedly benevolent national policies premised on a narrative against de facto detentions, Arizona, and the broader Southwest, continued to detain noncitizens while collecting revenue for housing such federal prisoners. Over time increasing detentions contributed to overcrowding. Those incarcerated naturally reacted against such conditions, where federal, state, and local prisoners coalesced to demand their humanity. Yet, when taxpayers ignored these pleas, an eclectic group of sheriffs, state and local politicians, and prison officials negotiated with federal prisoners, commodifying them for federal revenue. Officials then used federal money to revamp existing facilities and build new ones. Receiving money for federal prisoners was so deeply embedded within the Southwest carceral landscape that it allowed for private prison companies to casually take over these relationships previously held by state actors. When official policy changed in 1981, general detentions were used as deterrence to break the will of asylum seekers. With this change, policy and reality melded. No longer needing the pretext of exclusionary rationales nor the fiction of humane policies, the unencumbered state consolidated its official detention policy with a rationale of deterrence. In other words, violence. Analyzing the devolution of noncitizen detention policy provides key insights to understanding its historical antecedents, how this violent detention regime came to be within the modern carceral state, and its implications for the mass incarceration crisis.Dissertation/Thesis
Doctoral Dissertation History 2018
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Sciullo, Nick J. "A Rhetorical Analysis of George Jackson's Soledad Brother: A Class Critical and Critical Race Theory Investigation of Prison Resistance." 2015. http://scholarworks.gsu.edu/communication_diss/67.
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This study offers a rhetorical analysis of George Jackson’s Soledad Brother, informed by class critical and critical race theory. Recent rhetorical studies scholarship has taken up the problem of prisons, mass incarceration, and resultant issues of race, yet without paying attention to the nexus of black radicalism and criticisms of capital. This study views George Lester Jackson as a rhetorician in his own right and argues that his combination of critical race and class critical perspectives is an important move forward in the analysis of mass incarceration. Jackson is able to combine these ideas in a plain-writing style where he employs intimacy, distance, and the strategy of telling it like it is. He does this in epistolary form, calling forth a long tradition of persuasive public letter writing. At this study’s end, ideas of circulation re engaged to show the lines of influence Jackson has and may continue to have. Through rhetorical analysis of Soledad Brother, this study demonstrates the utility of uniting class critical criticism and critical race theory for rhetorical studies, and suggests further avenues of research consistent with this approach.