Carceral citizenship as strength: formerly incarcerated activists, civic engagement and criminal justice transformation

During the era of mass incarceration, a history of felony convictions and imprisonment imposes legal and extra-legal sanctions that strip individuals of rights—what Miller and Alexander (2016) call "carceral citizenship." Despite the wide-reaching structural constraints that accompany the...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Smith, Justin M. (Author)
Contributors: Kinzel, Aaron
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Published: 2021
In: Critical criminology
Year: 2021, Volume: 29, Issue: 1, Pages: 93-110
Online Access: Presumably Free Access
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Keywords:
Strafvollzug
Masseninhaftierung
Strafvollzugssystem
Entlassene
Reform
Description
Summary:During the era of mass incarceration, a history of felony convictions and imprisonment imposes legal and extra-legal sanctions that strip individuals of rights—what Miller and Alexander (2016) call "carceral citizenship." Despite the wide-reaching structural constraints that accompany the identity of being formerly incarcerated, many individuals enact their agency with civic engagement to reshape boundaries around individual and collective identity. Building from past convict criminology research (e.g., Ross and Richards 2003), we address the gap of including formerly incarcerated people into policymaking and community organizing around penal system reform. We offer expanded conceptualization of "carceral citizenship" and provide a framework for the transformation of practices that constitute carceral systems. As Goodman and colleagues (2017) demonstrate, the reformation of penal systems is not simply a result of the mechanical swing of a pendulum. Instead, the ongoing contestation between different stakeholders shapes criminal justice. Borrowing foundational theoretical concepts from multiple critical criminology perspectives, we frame the role of "carceral citizenship" within the transformation of the penal system reform.
Item Description:Literaturverzeichnis: Seite 108-110
ISSN:1572-9877
DOI:10.1007/s10612-020-09538-w