Carceral state

Carceral state describes '''institutions, structures, ideologies, and practices that engage in punitive “solutions”, especially as a means of responding to crime, poverty, migration, and those living with health issues and addiction; a complex web of social institutions that includes the prison industrial complex, medical industrial complex, surveillance culture, and border patrol — all of which perpetuate harm through criminalization and institutionalization. - Ruby Tapia, adapted by Michelle Xie

By definition, carcerality extends beyond the formal incarceration itself (prisons, detention centers, and carceral programs of probation and parole). Carcerality includes the ways we shape and organize society and culture through policies and logic of control, surveillance and criminalization. The carceral state has both produced and reinforced massive inequalities along lines of race, class, gender, sexuality, and other identity categories.

Examples of the Carceral State

Adrienne Maree Brown	"I tend to think of abolition as one result of transformative justice: abolition is the end of prisons; transformative justice is the methods people use to uproot injustice patterns in communities. I tend to think of abolition as a totality, and I think that can be tricky. People set out to abolish slavery and we ended up with the prison industrial complex because while there were surface and policy level shifts, the culture did not shift. That deep underlying racism and classism remains and is now roaring to the surface as we write this. So, while I identify as an abolitionist, I find speaking about the iterative tangible work of transformative justice makes more sense to me now–I don’t simply want the prisons gone, I want a radically different way of interacting with each other to grow."
Mia Mingus	"I understand abolition to be a necessary part of transformative justice because prisons, and the PIC, are major sites of individual and collective violence, abuse, and trauma. However, transformative justice is and must also be a critical part of abolition work because we will need to build alternatives to how we respond to harm, violence, and abuse. Just because we shut down prisons, does not mean that these will stop. Transformative justice has roots in abolition work and is an abolitionist framework, but goes beyond abolishing prisons (and slavery) and asks us to end–and transform the conditions that perpetuate–generational cycles of violence such as rape, sexual assault, child abuse, child sexual abuse, domestic violence, intimate partner abuse, war, genocide, poverty, human trafficking, police brutality, murder, stalking, sexual harassment, all systems of oppression, dangerous societal norms, and trauma."
Amanda Aguilar Shank	Interpersonal harm is inevitable. Abolition imagines that "each moment where harm happens is an opportunity to transform relationships and communities, build trust and safety, and grow slowly toward the beautiful people we are meant to be, in the world we deserve."

The carceral state includes all aspects of life in which people are subject to surveillance and the threat of punitive policies under the premise of safety. For example:

• There is a higher deployment of police in poor, mostly black and brown communities while wealthier white communities are left alone, and subsequently the mass incarceration of these populations.
• Carcerality is ingrained in our way of living. Do you need to call the police if your neighbours music is too loud? Or can you knock on their door and ask that they turn it down? (Example from PG Watkins from No New Jails Detroit).
• Restrictions placed on immigrants compared to people with full citizenship.

If you have any suggested revisions or additional resources to share related to the above content, please email them to kenzie@lehub.ca.

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