Since the early 1980s mass incarceration has become a critical fixture on the U.S. social landsca... more Since the early 1980s mass incarceration has become a critical fixture on the U.S. social landscape. Prison and jail populations have increased almost fivefold since 1980 with similar increments in the ranks of those under parole and probation. Historically many labor analysts and unions have regarded incarcerated people as an aberrant sector of the working class. Labels such as “lumpen proletariat,” “criminals,” and the “undeserving poor” have often been applied. In some instances, people doing poorly paid production work while incarcerated have been categorized as “scabs” who undermine hard won union gains. Such thinking is at odds with current realities, if it ever was appropriate. The recent patterns of criminalization have led to the imprisonment of significant swaths of working class people of color, largely the targets of the War on Drugs or anti-immigrant repression. Despite the fact that this racialized roundup now holds millions of workers captive, the process remains larg...
Michelle Alexander's critical analysis of the US criminal justice system contained in The New Jim... more Michelle Alexander's critical analysis of the US criminal justice system contained in The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness has received extraordinary critical and popular acclaim. Her main thesis, that mass incarceration constitutes a new system of racial oppression akin to slavery and the original Jim Crow, has had a profound impact on mainstream and academic framing of criminal justice issues. This article outlines her main thesis, then builds on and critiques her work by interrogating her notion of 'racial caste', updating her statistical breakdown of the racial demographics of the incarcerated population, and outlining the constituencies and organizations which are essential to the building of a social movement to reverse the mass incarceration process.
Your article is protected by copyright and all rights are held exclusively by Springer Science +B... more Your article is protected by copyright and all rights are held exclusively by Springer Science +Business Media Dordrecht. This e-offprint is for personal use only and shall not be selfarchived in electronic repositories. If you wish to self-archive your work, please use the accepted author's version for posting to your own website or your institution's repository. You may further deposit the accepted author's version on a funder's repository at a funder's request, provided it is not made publicly available until 12 months after publication.
A nkle bracelets are almost fashionable these days. Martha Stewart wore one on her television sho... more A nkle bracelets are almost fashionable these days. Martha Stewart wore one on her television show. Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton may have converted them into a rite of passage for inebriated starlets. In fact, Chanel's 2008 spring show featured ankle pouches ...
This paper outlines the reasons why electronic monitoring is an alternative form of incarceration... more This paper outlines the reasons why electronic monitoring is an alternative form of incarceration rather than an alternatives to incarceration. It highlights how an alternative to incarceration must be an actual substitute for locking people up in prisons or jails but must also embody a non-punitive philosophy.
This paper outlines the reasons why electronic monitoring is an alternative form of incarceration... more This paper outlines the reasons why electronic monitoring is an alternative form of incarceration rather than an alternatives to incarceration. It highlights how an alternative to incarceration must be an actual substitute for locking people up in prisons or jails but must also embody a non-punitive philosophy.
This paper outlines a research agenda for electronic monitoring in the US, a topic that has been ... more This paper outlines a research agenda for electronic monitoring in the US, a topic that has been woefully understudied and mis-characterized as an alternative to incarceration.
(James Kilgore lived in South Africa from 1991-2002. During that time he was a fugitive from U.S.... more (James Kilgore lived in South Africa from 1991-2002. During that time he was a fugitive from U.S. justice living under the pseudonym " John Pape ". He worked as an educator and researcher for unions and social movements. In 2002 he was arrested on the streets of Cape Town, then extradited to the U.S. where he served six and a half years in prison. In July 2012 he returned to South Africa for the first time since his arrest. Here he presents his reflections on the journey.) My connections to the " land of Mandela " and his African National Congress (ANC) sustained me during my years of incarceration. Part of it was maintaining the links to my wife Terri and our two sons who still lived there. But it was more than that. While the democratic South Africa may not lived up to our expectations, the flow of letters, postcards, books and pictures from Cape Town and Johannesburg was a constant and much needed reminder that the entire planet did not function with the misanthropy and racial hatred of a California state prison. A better world was possible. Once I paroled in 2009, I was determined to go back for a visit. It took me two years to get a passport. Then the South African government declared me an " undesirable immigrant " because I had lived there under a false name. A mini-campaign by my friends and lawyer convinced the Minister of Home Affairs that I was a desirable after all. Once I had the green light, I wasn't quite sure what South Africa would hold for me. Would it feel like the wonderful, comforting, engaging and complicated home that it once was? Would I have anything to talk about with old friends and comrades? They, after all, had been carrying on with their normal lives during the intervening period. They hadn't climbed up onto a steel bunk every night and wondered if they would ever see life again outside a concrete box. They had been drinking their Rooibos tea, eating samoosas and pap, taking their kids to school and watching them grow up. We had travelled down very different paths. Even Terri, who would be coming with me and had spent five years there with our children after my arrest, wasn't sure how this visit would all turn out. The travel itself went smoothly. I wasn't on any hit lists, didn't get pulled into any dark rooms by men in suits and sunglasses asking who I was visiting or if I planned to return to the United States. Laura and Rick, our most stalwart friends were waiting at the airport. We shared hugs, smiles, laughter, followed by the tedium of retrieving bags, getting a sim card for the cellphone. As we headed down the freeway toward Cape Town, everything looked at once totally familiar and foreign. The shacks were still there, by their thousands. At least they hadn't built walls to hide them. I began to recall that part of the psyche of South Africa is living with the intensity of the contradictions. Poverty is in your face, even in the suburbs. At every traffic light, around every corner someone lurks, flaunting their desperation-selling combs and sculptures that no one really wants, slapping water on your windshield before you have time to tell them not to bother, diving into a dumpster to sort through the day's pickings. Then there is the ample cohort of " tsotsis " ready to simply jump on you and implement their own vision of democracy. Unlike the U.S., South Africa has not yet perfected the art of tucking poverty away so thoroughly.
Moments after I arrived in the living unit at the federal penitentiary in Lompoc, California, a y... more Moments after I arrived in the living unit at the federal penitentiary in Lompoc, California, a young white man named Carl approached me. He seemed to be in charge of rolling out the welcome mat to all the white "new fish." He wore standard day room fare-black work boots, white boxer shorts and no shirt. But the only thing I really noticed, while trying not to, was the six-inch, high ink portrait of Adolf Hitler on his upper arm. He asked me if I needed anything-toothpaste, shower shoes, soap, Top Ramen Chili Beef. I politely declined the offers, shook his hand and thanked him for his hospitality. I did my best to keep my game face. People wearing Hitler on their arm was a new experience for me,
After more than three decades of sleepwalking, mainstream America is waking up to the fact that t... more After more than three decades of sleepwalking, mainstream America is waking up to the fact that the dragnet of mass incarceration has captured lots of innocent people. In the past few months, media productions framed around this notion of innocence have gone viral. Millions of "Making a Murderer" viewers are following the case of Stephen Avery, a middle-aged white man, as he appeals a questionable murder conviction. Avery previously spent 18 years in prison for a crime he definitely did not commit. An online petition requesting President Obama to exonerate Avery and free him immediately has drawn more than half a million signatures.
Since the early 1980s mass incarceration has become a critical fixture on the U.S. social landsca... more Since the early 1980s mass incarceration has become a critical fixture on the U.S. social landscape. Prison and jail populations have increased almost fivefold since 1980 with similar increments in the ranks of those under parole and probation. Historically many labor analysts and unions have regarded incarcerated people as an aberrant sector of the working class. Labels such as “lumpen proletariat,” “criminals,” and the “undeserving poor” have often been applied. In some instances, people doing poorly paid production work while incarcerated have been categorized as “scabs” who undermine hard won union gains. Such thinking is at odds with current realities, if it ever was appropriate. The recent patterns of criminalization have led to the imprisonment of significant swaths of working class people of color, largely the targets of the War on Drugs or anti-immigrant repression. Despite the fact that this racialized roundup now holds millions of workers captive, the process remains larg...
Michelle Alexander's critical analysis of the US criminal justice system contained in The New Jim... more Michelle Alexander's critical analysis of the US criminal justice system contained in The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness has received extraordinary critical and popular acclaim. Her main thesis, that mass incarceration constitutes a new system of racial oppression akin to slavery and the original Jim Crow, has had a profound impact on mainstream and academic framing of criminal justice issues. This article outlines her main thesis, then builds on and critiques her work by interrogating her notion of 'racial caste', updating her statistical breakdown of the racial demographics of the incarcerated population, and outlining the constituencies and organizations which are essential to the building of a social movement to reverse the mass incarceration process.
Your article is protected by copyright and all rights are held exclusively by Springer Science +B... more Your article is protected by copyright and all rights are held exclusively by Springer Science +Business Media Dordrecht. This e-offprint is for personal use only and shall not be selfarchived in electronic repositories. If you wish to self-archive your work, please use the accepted author's version for posting to your own website or your institution's repository. You may further deposit the accepted author's version on a funder's repository at a funder's request, provided it is not made publicly available until 12 months after publication.
A nkle bracelets are almost fashionable these days. Martha Stewart wore one on her television sho... more A nkle bracelets are almost fashionable these days. Martha Stewart wore one on her television show. Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton may have converted them into a rite of passage for inebriated starlets. In fact, Chanel's 2008 spring show featured ankle pouches ...
This paper outlines the reasons why electronic monitoring is an alternative form of incarceration... more This paper outlines the reasons why electronic monitoring is an alternative form of incarceration rather than an alternatives to incarceration. It highlights how an alternative to incarceration must be an actual substitute for locking people up in prisons or jails but must also embody a non-punitive philosophy.
This paper outlines the reasons why electronic monitoring is an alternative form of incarceration... more This paper outlines the reasons why electronic monitoring is an alternative form of incarceration rather than an alternatives to incarceration. It highlights how an alternative to incarceration must be an actual substitute for locking people up in prisons or jails but must also embody a non-punitive philosophy.
This paper outlines a research agenda for electronic monitoring in the US, a topic that has been ... more This paper outlines a research agenda for electronic monitoring in the US, a topic that has been woefully understudied and mis-characterized as an alternative to incarceration.
(James Kilgore lived in South Africa from 1991-2002. During that time he was a fugitive from U.S.... more (James Kilgore lived in South Africa from 1991-2002. During that time he was a fugitive from U.S. justice living under the pseudonym " John Pape ". He worked as an educator and researcher for unions and social movements. In 2002 he was arrested on the streets of Cape Town, then extradited to the U.S. where he served six and a half years in prison. In July 2012 he returned to South Africa for the first time since his arrest. Here he presents his reflections on the journey.) My connections to the " land of Mandela " and his African National Congress (ANC) sustained me during my years of incarceration. Part of it was maintaining the links to my wife Terri and our two sons who still lived there. But it was more than that. While the democratic South Africa may not lived up to our expectations, the flow of letters, postcards, books and pictures from Cape Town and Johannesburg was a constant and much needed reminder that the entire planet did not function with the misanthropy and racial hatred of a California state prison. A better world was possible. Once I paroled in 2009, I was determined to go back for a visit. It took me two years to get a passport. Then the South African government declared me an " undesirable immigrant " because I had lived there under a false name. A mini-campaign by my friends and lawyer convinced the Minister of Home Affairs that I was a desirable after all. Once I had the green light, I wasn't quite sure what South Africa would hold for me. Would it feel like the wonderful, comforting, engaging and complicated home that it once was? Would I have anything to talk about with old friends and comrades? They, after all, had been carrying on with their normal lives during the intervening period. They hadn't climbed up onto a steel bunk every night and wondered if they would ever see life again outside a concrete box. They had been drinking their Rooibos tea, eating samoosas and pap, taking their kids to school and watching them grow up. We had travelled down very different paths. Even Terri, who would be coming with me and had spent five years there with our children after my arrest, wasn't sure how this visit would all turn out. The travel itself went smoothly. I wasn't on any hit lists, didn't get pulled into any dark rooms by men in suits and sunglasses asking who I was visiting or if I planned to return to the United States. Laura and Rick, our most stalwart friends were waiting at the airport. We shared hugs, smiles, laughter, followed by the tedium of retrieving bags, getting a sim card for the cellphone. As we headed down the freeway toward Cape Town, everything looked at once totally familiar and foreign. The shacks were still there, by their thousands. At least they hadn't built walls to hide them. I began to recall that part of the psyche of South Africa is living with the intensity of the contradictions. Poverty is in your face, even in the suburbs. At every traffic light, around every corner someone lurks, flaunting their desperation-selling combs and sculptures that no one really wants, slapping water on your windshield before you have time to tell them not to bother, diving into a dumpster to sort through the day's pickings. Then there is the ample cohort of " tsotsis " ready to simply jump on you and implement their own vision of democracy. Unlike the U.S., South Africa has not yet perfected the art of tucking poverty away so thoroughly.
Moments after I arrived in the living unit at the federal penitentiary in Lompoc, California, a y... more Moments after I arrived in the living unit at the federal penitentiary in Lompoc, California, a young white man named Carl approached me. He seemed to be in charge of rolling out the welcome mat to all the white "new fish." He wore standard day room fare-black work boots, white boxer shorts and no shirt. But the only thing I really noticed, while trying not to, was the six-inch, high ink portrait of Adolf Hitler on his upper arm. He asked me if I needed anything-toothpaste, shower shoes, soap, Top Ramen Chili Beef. I politely declined the offers, shook his hand and thanked him for his hospitality. I did my best to keep my game face. People wearing Hitler on their arm was a new experience for me,
After more than three decades of sleepwalking, mainstream America is waking up to the fact that t... more After more than three decades of sleepwalking, mainstream America is waking up to the fact that the dragnet of mass incarceration has captured lots of innocent people. In the past few months, media productions framed around this notion of innocence have gone viral. Millions of "Making a Murderer" viewers are following the case of Stephen Avery, a middle-aged white man, as he appeals a questionable murder conviction. Avery previously spent 18 years in prison for a crime he definitely did not commit. An online petition requesting President Obama to exonerate Avery and free him immediately has drawn more than half a million signatures.
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