Skip Navigation | Sheffield IMC | UK IMC | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Support Us

UK Indymedia UK Indymedia Sheffield Indymedia Sheffield Indymedia

#541 - Outing Prison 1 (Mass Incarceration Is The New Jim Crow)

Robin Upton | 21.03.2011 12:55 | Anti-racism | Repression | Social Struggles | Sheffield | World

This week we hear author Sasha Abramsky and professors Viviane Saleh-Hanna and Michelle Alexander on the US incarceration industry, or as they call it, the "Prison Industrial Complex". How can a country which used to style itself the "land of the free" lock up far more of its own population than any other country? Why has the US prison population exploded? And what is the connection with racial segregation and Jim Crow?

ug541-hour1mix.mp3 - mp3 27M

ug541-hour2mix.mp3 - mp3 27M


Following on from last week's show, we look at the adult version of US forced schooling - the prison industry. We start the week's show with Sasha Abramsky, author of American Furies: Crime, Punishment, and Vengeance in the Age of Mass Imprisonment. He makes a number of historical parallels with modern US history, such as the panic of Tudor England, a 40 year period during which time over 1% of the population were hanged.

Abramsky highlights the importance of the '' and the huge economic incentives for prison creation. Behind the rhetoric of correction and rehabilitation, he notes a 'WallMart-isation' of prisoners, increasing volume and decreasing quality of provision as pathways to private profit. The legal system with measures such as the '3 strikes' policy and its mandatory minimums is effectively manufacturing criminals while prisons aggravate problematic behaviour. Whilst warning that mass incarceration is coming to define USA just as repression came to define USSR, he frames the US mania for incarceration as a pendulum which will swing back eventually, but like prohibition, it "a lot of very powerful players in a lot of countries would be very uncomfortable".

We start our second hour, with a short speech from Assistant Professor Viviane Saleh-Hanna, on how 'Black History' is not the history of acts done by blacks, but a history of what was done to them by white Europeans, not only providing a 'dumping ground' for misdeeds of white supremacists, but taking the space of the history of what was done by blacks. She recounts some of her research into alternative events which might merit inclusion in 'black history', and links contemporary mass incarceration to a long-standing ideology of separation and traces its roots to the centuries long white-supremacist confinement and genocide of Africans.

Next we hear a 2010 speech by Associate Professor and Civil rights lawyer, Michelle Alexander, on her book "The New Jim Crow - Mass Incarceration In The Age of Colorblindness" who starts her talk with some stark facts of racial minority life in US in 2010. More African Americans are incarcerated, on probation or on parole in 2010 than were enslaved in 1850. More black men are denied the right to vote than in 1870, because they're felons. In some American cities, the majority of black men are felons for life. Felons can be discriminated against in housing and jobs. Alexander argues the mass incarceration of African Americans — under cover of the "War on Drugs" — has created a new racial caste system in America. She says that the system of second–class citizens has been re-branded rather than abolished - the explicit racial language of Jim Crow has been replaced by the sanitized and seemingly impartial term, "criminal".

We close with some words from a speech by Martin Luther King on the importance of challenging injustice wherever we see it. Thanks to KOUW for the Michelle Alexander talk, and to Pirate TV Seattle for the Sasha Abramsky talk.

Robin Upton
- e-mail: unwelcome [at] unwelcomeGuests [D0T] net
- Homepage: http://UnwelcomeGuests.net

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Sheffield Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Sheffield [navigation.actions2016]

Sheffield [navigation.actions2015]

Sheffield [navigation.actions2014]

NATO 2014

Sheffield Actions 2013

G8 2013

Sheffield Actions 2012

Workfare

Sheffield Actions 2011

2011 Census Resistance
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Occupy Everywhere

Sheffield Actions 2010

Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands

Sheffield Actions 2009

COP15 Climate Summit 2009
G20 London Summit
Guantánamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
University Occupations for Gaza

Sheffield Actions 2008

2008 Days Of Action For Autonomous Spaces
Campaign against Carmel-Agrexco
Climate Camp 2008
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Smash EDO
Stop Sequani Animal Testing
Stop the BNP's Red White and Blue festival

Sheffield Actions 2007

Climate Camp 2007
DSEi 2007
G8 Germany 2007
Mayday 2007
No Border Camp 2007

Sheffield Actions 2006

April 2006 No Borders Days of Action
Art and Activism Caravan 2006
Climate Camp 2006
Faslane
French CPE uprising 2006
G8 Russia 2006
Lebanon War 2006
March 18 Anti War Protest
Mayday 2006
Oaxaca Uprising
Refugee Week 2006
Rossport Solidarity
SOCPA
Transnational Day of Action Against Migration Controls
WSF 2006

Sheffield Actions 2005

DSEi 2005
G8 2005
WTO Hong Kong 2005

Sheffield Actions 2004

European Social Forum
FBI Server Seizure
May Day 2004
Venezuela

Sheffield Actions 2003

Bush 2003
DSEi 2003
Evian G8
May Day 2003
No War F15
Saloniki Prisoner Support
Thessaloniki EU
WSIS 2003

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech