Dartmouth Events

Halfway home: Race, Punishment and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration

Reuben Jonathan Miller Assistant Professor in the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration

Friday, May 11, 2018
3:30pm – 4:30pm
Room 002, Rockefeller Center
Intended Audience(s): Public
Categories: Free Food, Lectures & Seminars

While more people are incarcerated in the United States than in any other nation in the history of the western world, the prison is but one (comparatively) small part of a vast carceral landscape. The 650,000 people released each year join nearly 5 million people already on probation or parole, 12 million who are processed through a county jail, 19 million U.S. residents estimated to have a felony conviction, and a staggering 79 million Americans with a criminal record. Yet the size of the population marked by the carceral state is secondary to its reach. Upon release, incarcerated people are greeted by more than 48,000 laws, polices and administrative sanctions that limit their participation in the labor and housing markets, in the culture and civic life of the city, and even within their families. They are subject to rules that other people are not subject to, have rights that others do not have, and shoulder responsibilities that other people are not expected to shoulder. They, in fact, occupy an alternate form of political membership—what I call “carceral citizenship.” This presentation examines the afterlife of mass incarceration to interrogate the lifeworld’s of poor black people and the urban poor more generally who must navigate a hidden social world that we've produced through law and crime control policies and practices—what I call the “supervised society." Drawing on observational and interview data collected in three iconic American cities—Chicago, Detroit, and New York—this presentation explores what it means to live in a “supervised society” and, more importantly, how we might find our way out.

For more information, contact:
Laura Mitchell

Events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.