ANGLO-AMERICAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gangmovie a ship taking back soldiers from the 1st world war 
realistic movie a story that could have happened (not happened) it is a 1932 crime drama
starring Paul Muni. A tragic tale of the failures of the justice systemis a social movieit shows
the differences between people  main theme of the moviePaul Muni traumatised by the war
he gets arrested by the police for crimes he hasn’t committed  he wants to be an engineer  he
realises he is not stable enough to do thatalso to work  he is so marked by trauma that he
isn’t strong enough second part of the movie fight between the north (Chicago) and the south
that wants him back in prison  he is condemned to be outlawtrain important in the movie
 train is also a metaphor for the machine something that goes mechanically  respectable
middle class family his family very formal welcome  he already has a job  1928 was
introduced talk in cinema  they’re not taking in consideration that war is not good and it was
different life than normal life  he doesn’t want to take the job they have talked about war for
a minute and they are already talking about the job that he was offered  the war changes him
and he doesn’t want to go on working in a factory  the war has also taught him that he can do
better than he was doing before  the mother and the father are very stereotyped mom very
worried dad very serious  dinner  place of reunion of the family  the family meets there and
the dad is telling the son what he has to do discussions are not welcome  maps that shows
where he travels  the machine is always at the centre of the scene they never recovered from
the trauma of the war because they were not helped recovering their trauma and the shock 
the problems start when he ends up meeting the wrong people  they go to a diner a fella told
him they were going to eat for free but he was going to steal the food (restaurant)  he is
arrested when he tried to escape and he is taken where people has to work hard in the field
In the prison they realised that they could make money through the prisoners
Trucks that transport prisoners  analyse a couple of scenes comment and discuss them
Connections between convict lease and slavery in the USA a lot of scenes takes back to slavery
He tries to escape this scene looks a lot like when the slaves escaped from plantations 
prisoners would escape to locals private houses  then the workers of the private industries were
afraid of farmers (private houses) they knew about the cruelty of convict lease and slavery so
they would have helped those who escaped worker were afraid of being shot by farmers
Narrative details connect scenes without spending so much time on them  through
symbolic imagesat the beginning the main business of convict lease was building railroads
most of the people are white there is just one black man there is some idea of integration 
it is the only black man that helps the protagonist escape by cutting his chains
The fact that people don’t speak in the movie is because in prisons were not allowed to speak
rule of silence for the prison system  a better way to reflect on their sins  people are
allowed to talk only at certain times Noises are very important in the movies  dogs, hammers
He goes under the water to not be smelled by the dogs  in the palude  when he is escaping
He is always depicted as an outsider  he walks down the streets where everyone looks elegant
 he found money to buy clothes we don’t know where he took them from probably stolen
 he is on the front page of the journal a fugitive
The business of falling in love
Scene  there are policeman  and they are waiting for someone on the train  to arrest him 
but he sees them at the station and he is afraid it is him who they are looking for
Cars and train always have an important role in this movie
Metonymic imageis when I use a part to describe the all a part which defines the all It is a
sineddoche from which you can infer the all the outfit  the shoes are falling apart
He is still obsessed with the idea of becoming an engineer The narration of his career is
described by the checks  metonymy of his career  of his social transformation
The woman he is going out with knows his past that he has been in jail she says that if he
marries her she won’t tell anything about him (to the police) she discovered it by intercepting a
letter from his brother to the protagonist  he is chased by his past  they get married
He is going up and up in the social class fancy dresses fancy cars
His career is ruined the police goes to his office warning for your arrest  convince him to go
back to jail  every occasion the south had to go against the north they took it through pages
of journals we can see differences between north and south
Georgia is trying to have his rights respected as a state
People from the south have a very provincial look compared to the aspect of the north men
His lawyer suggests him not to go  that they are not playing a fair game 90 days in jail
convict lease  when he arrives in the south they tell him that there law works as they want it
work not like law in the northin jail he meets some of the old prisoners
Typical reference to slavery and plantationswhen they sing while workingsing to godIt is
still considered as explicit contentbecause inequalities between black and white are still going
on “They refused to pardon you” they just wanted him back  they wanted their revenge 
he has spent the three months he was supposed to spend there and now he has to spend there
nine more months  in order to be born again  reference to pregnancy  after these nine
months they tell him he is not going to go out  so he escapes again  with his old friend they
escape on a truck
He has been building bridges for all his life and now in order to save his life he destroys a bridge
he becomes some kind of mysterious hero he goes seeing his love for the last time because of
course he can’t stay thereat the end of the movie there is the demonstration that once you are
caught into justice you can’t escape it  last sentence What will you do to live? I steal.  the
proof that the system failed  it should correct the behaviour but in this case the system has
created a criminal  before he wasn’t this place didn’t rehabilitate him
A.C. One of the very first novels of this type  form which this movie took inspiration
James Aland sent to a Georgia Chain Gang a way of being condemned to labour forced to
work for a very cheap cost shows the brutality of Chain gang
The first time he escapes  he escapes to Chicago
This movie shows and explain the concept of convict leasing  forcing convicts to work  and
they were constructing railroads condition of being basically slaves and forced to work in a
Chain Gang condition of working during the day and being a prisoner during the night  the
first time he escapes  from a Chain Gang a black niggro man that helps him  quite unusual
at the time How is prison described in the film?  which image does it convey  the
conditions are very very bad  brutality with which these people are treated people treat them
very badly  image of prison which is very strong
What is the main message the movie conveys about the prison system in the US the fact that
the system isn’t working is like a circle that repeats itself  showing the un-correctional aspects
of prison  create criminals instead of rehabilitating prisoners-people system in the US has a lot
of failures and problems for several reasons for economic reasons -racist reasons (age of
mass incarceration)  and there is also a reason why they have moved form jail and county jail to
supermax prisons  why the US increase of mass incarceration Mostly come out of prison 
alienated- traumatized-scared I steal  he escapes three timesfailure of the system that
forces himto steal in the end he is still condemned to this condition of thief
This film is quite complicated  southern accent  in the 1930s
Scene when the Nigro man breaks his chuckles  in that period huge discrimination against
blacks the fact that a nigro helps a white man is quite unusual  a black man helps him getting
out he does not escape in that exact moment he just breaks his chuckles and the very next
morning with the broken chuckles he will escape
Trial scene  shows how the system decides for his final sentence  life in prison  prisoners
mostly treated as beasts and they dehumanize the figure of people
The purpose of prison is not to punish crime but to descrage it  this is the exact point of the
story prison should decriminalize people  people becoming more criminal in prison  James
Allan contrast between  when he comes out of prison the first time he builds a life as a decent
and honoured man engineer  a honest citizen  but then the state decides to punish him
again for having escaped from Chain Gang  there is always this kind of alternation between
people and lawyers traying to consider him as a human being and other people that consider him
as a convict there is always this kind of shift
There is always this moment when they promise you freedom  is like a way of promising him
freedom and parole and in the end not doing that the state  promising something and then
the state decide to take it back failure of the systemtrial eclipse scene  in which it is
explained how the system work  idea of justice  is not always fair thin boundaries between
guilty-innocence it’s really complicated justice is a problem in the US  most of all for black
people idea of race and discrimination
Restorative justice re-educating the criminal  ex. you as a convict forced to be in contact with
the family of the victim  contact with the people that suffered for their crimes  different way
and different forms of justice
Deep south  Chain Gang South Carolina-North Carolina-Alabama-Georgia-Louisiana 
confederate States  racism and discrimination
Prison is somehow the continuum of the slavery in the south is the continuum to try to
perpetrate this idea of race  and the idea that black is criminal  now is different  but it is still
there this discrimination  with Trump even huge
SHANE BAUER-AMERICAN PRISON  A ground-breaking and brave inside reckoning with the
nexus of prison and profit in America: in one Louisiana prison and over the course of our country's
history. In 2014, Shane Bauer was hired for $9 an hour to work as an entry-level prison guard at
a private prison in Winnfield, Louisiana. An award-winning investigative journalist, he used his real
name; there was no meaningful background check. Four months later, his employment came to an
abrupt end. But he had seen enough, and in short order he wrote an exposé about his experiences
that won a National Magazine Award and became the most-read feature in the history of the
magazine Mother Jones. Still, there was much more that he needed to say. In American Prison,
Bauer weaves a much deeper reckoning with his experiences together with a thoroughly
researched history of for-profit prisons in America from their origins in the decades before the
Civil War. For, as he soon realized, we can't understand the cruelty of our current system and its
place in the larger story of mass incarceration without understanding where it came from. Private
prisons became entrenched in the South as part of a systemic effort to keep the African-American
labor force in place in the aftermath of slavery, and the echoes of these shameful origins are with
us still. The private prison system is deliberately unaccountable to public scrutiny. Private
prisons are not incentivized to tend to the health of their inmates, or to feed them well, or to
attract and retain a highly-trained prison staff. Though Bauer befriends some of his colleagues and
sympathizes with their plight, the chronic dysfunction of their lives only adds to the prison's sense
of chaos. To his horror, Bauer finds himself becoming crueler and more aggressive the longer he
works in the prison, and he is far from alone. A blistering indictment of the private prison
system, and the powerful forces that drive it, American Prison is a necessary human document
about the true face of justice in America.  Conversation Starters During his short prison stint as
an undercover journalist posing as a prison guard, Shane Bauer reveals that within four months,
about 12 incidents of stabbing have occurred; "use of force" against inmates were used often; cell
doors could be opened by inmates; medical care was substandard; and a suicide happened which
appeared to be preventable. He quotes a prisoner complaining: "Ain't no order here...inmates run
this bitch, son." To make the prison budget work, educational and recreational services were
removed. A prisoner had his legs cut because of an infection that was not given medical attention.
Bauer reveals he himself slowly succumbed to the prison mindset of paranoia and
authoritarianism.
Plantation system in Texas was well built because of the prisoners work, when they realised it
was working really well they decided to open a new system in Arkansas this led to a
privatisation of the prisons and that is perfect for fiscal problems ( no taxes and the government
will give you more money ) and to be tough on crimes so they will have more people in prisons so
they can work in the fields.
Be tough on crimes also means that they isolate convicted people so they go insane and they have
to stay more in the prisons
VocWhite trashsmall amount of people in the south that were white and had no money when
they worked in the fields they had to be paid and that was more expensive than having a slave
Third strike  Convict lease
Penal practices  birth of the penitential
Most of the prisoners in the USA in the 18th century were British and they were sent to USA
because the prisons in the UK were fullbut once they reached America they were sold
involuntary and used to work in tobacco fields Prisoners were told they had to work in the USA
for an amount of years in order to be free or they could pay the debt to the owner of the
plantations in order to be free since they had no money they worked until the debt was paid and
so the owner didn’t have to keep them when they were old and could not work anymore.
IMPORTANTThis slavery was administrated by the government and the penal reformers
believed that force labour was common sense
Important house of repentance was built so people will not see convinced in the streets and
there prisoners could reflect on their crimes while still being profitable for the states
The isolation and the working turn them into machines
Convict lease modern penitentiary is based on the idea of Panopticon was created by a
European architect The panopticon is a type of institutional building and a system of control
designed by the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the 18th centuryThe
concept of the design is to allow all prisoners of an institution to be observed by a single security
guard, without the inmates being able to tell whether they are being watched  but was then
moved on basically to all the country in the world is a structure where there is a tower in the
middle some kind of modern penitentiary Panopticon was basically invented only at the end
of the 18th century before up to the first part of the 19th century the US prisons were on a much
smaller scale and there was no need for controlling everybody because people/prisons were very
huge  it was even more evident in the south because there the only people who were in prisons
were white people  black people would be punished on the plantation they were considered
as properties and not as human beingstherefore there was no need to put them into jail they
hadn’t the right to be in prison
These reformers believed that putting all these criminals in the same place in a penitentiary was
like teaching them teach the science of robbery so there was a big movement against
penitentiaries  a lot of people were in favour of death penalty for major offences therefore they
didn’t see the importance of having a penitentiary  even the abolitionists (in favour of the
abolition of slavery) were in favour of creating penitentiary  that is in favour of organising
criminals life on a daily basis rather than interrupting it  there is a big movement now against
weight sentences with no expectation of coming out of jail they live their life in isolation so
they call it a daily death sentence
One of the main problems at the beginning in these penitentiary was in the US not let people
getting in touch with each other and form some kind of resistance against the prison system the
Panopticon was really in a way the best solution for that because they could put everybody in a
single cell and get in contact with other prisoners
One of the most cruel and common practice in the Us penitentiaries wasRule of silence people
were not allowed to talk they couldn’t talk to other inmates they work to make a profit for
the stateit doesn’t include rehabilitation  largest number of inhabitants in prison a lot of
people are in prison in the US  they should meditate about their crimes during the night 
recidivism  it means that prison is not rehabilitating them  they are a threat to society the
mean idea to make sure they will not commit the same crime when they come out of prison
main concept that person in prison has to recognize his crimes  if he works all the time he will
not be able to do it it is very difficult for a person who lived for a lot of years in prison to be
reintroduced into society  80% of people are in jail for pitty crimes mass
incarcerationbecause they realised the inmates would have worked prison are overcrowded
 it means business it needs a lot of money a lot of work… obliged to work a big amount of
hour a day  there’s no way it would be a productive citizen privatization of prison the
alternative to death is build more prison with less activities, quality the
Present position behind prison system is making money and not rehabilitating sometimes
there are no spaces available and people don’t go to the prisons they have been assigned  they
are moved skype calls not face to face meeting skype visits-call visits they charge the
inmate or the family of the inmate these calls 3 or 4 times more than normal calls  state
lawyers people who can not afford a private lawyer  they are paid very little  prison system
make a profit/money out of communication people who have less money are likely to be more
violent  it is the system which is made to multiply the crimes private prisons work like
hotels there is to put as many people as possible in t prison  prisons have become one of the
major incomes in the US (major business)  a lot of things are sold to the prisons plastic
balloon bottles and so on..  when people come out are probably worst than when they entered
It was a major issue in the south  black and white people in jail creating a penitentiary would
have meant to create a place where white and black would have been treated the same way the
same situation  it would mean that even the white man can be treated as a property they
could have become friends with one another because they were treated the same way it
would have become a threat to the white supremacy  black people treated in a way of total
inferiority Slaves usually be punished in plantations another was the idea that the state would
have had an income through prison considered unethical  slavery is a very old thing ( also in
the bible)
Another a genetical/scientific reasonblack people didn’t come from God (Adam and Eve were
white)They thought they came from monkeys  from animals
They thought from Haiti (French land ) French people from Haiti escaped they said that in
Haiti there was a revolution in which black people (slaves) killed a lot for French people French
people from Haiti escaped in the US in Louisiana and they told French owners of plantations what
was going on in Haiti in that period white people in the US were 1 to 8 so they were afraid it
could have happened also there so they acted big repression violence against slaves they
didn’t anything about black slaves revolution in Haiti that they could act against this repression
People from Haiti would have gone to Africa to workHaitian workers  sexual contacts with
local women  the legend was that whenever these women wanted to get pregnant they would
go to a sorcerer  he would have helped them mixing their blood with the blood of very fertile
animalsand reinjected into these women’s veins like Monkey Cercopitecus monkey with
HIV in his DNA they would have had sex with Haiti workers and they would have contracted this
illness back to Haiti  US gays prostitution US citizens  US gays  Haitian workers
African women  MONKEYS this thing of the monkeys come from the ignorance of African
women who don’t understand that what they were doing was very dangerous it wasn’t Haitian
people don’t mix with the black because you will be contaminated
In the first part of the 19th centuryat that time New Orleans was the richest city the US  centre
of Slavery now probably the poorest city of the US
Alcatraz island  most difficult prison to escape from shut downeven the business of visiting
closed prison become an income for the state  also in the 19th century
Prison were privatized  they are made to punish criminals not to make money
1846 prison started to become really productive like producing boots for the soldiers
At first there was no separation between men and women in prisonthey had sexual
relationships and women got pregnantwomen raised their children till the age of ten
During the civil war prisons were places where the inmates created staff for the war and the
soldiers like weapons, clothes, uniforms
The 13th amendment of the constitution says that slavery is abolished and doesn’t exist anymore
but it exists as punishment for a crime Prison
produced violence  prison can be run as a business  everything becomes a way of making
money
THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM-EDGAR ALLAN POE protagonist is the brain time and space in
the movie the time passes and it will cut his skin  pendulum is related to the passing of time
Science fiction in the US starts with Poe  is also the inventor of the detective fiction
Dupin protagonist of Poe’s detective fiction  Poe thought that to write a detective story you
need to know everything about the structure and the story  a detective story begins with the
crime  with who committed it
Edgar Allan Poewas a master in analysing mental processes
“The Murders of the Rue Morgue” 2 women were killed it was an Ourang-outan
Pro-slaveryChildish behaviourblack people a genetic evolution coming from monkey 
sailor‘mimetic propensities’ tendency to imitateslaves are like children  slavers have to
keep them under control  American Gothic horror stories the mental process produces
monsters  1765 Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto  in literature you start having all these
aristocratic features  aristocracy  ghosts- vampire Blood refers 1. To the peasants 2. Blue
blood  when someone is from an aristocratic family it is called blue blooded the figure of the
vampire refers to aristocracy  Bourgeois  rich people with NO blood ties to their past
The pit and the pendulum interrogating the mental process of the human being
Utter state (fear and terror) vs perception (intuitivity and reality)
To Poe the state of Utter state is a phase which leads to good intuition
Terror  to be scared of something that is about to happen
Horror  unconscious fear
The story is about the torments endured by a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition, though Poe
skews historical facts The narrator of the story describes his experience of being tortured The
story is especially effective at inspiring fear in the reader because of its heavy focus on the senses,
such as sound, emphasizing its reality, unlike many of Poe's stories which are aided by the
supernatural The traditional elements established in popular horror tales at the time are
followed, but critical reception has been mixed.
Pressure of the situations underlined the fear of death is becoming aware of his punishment
 he is aware when he is waiting punishment
Concept of the sublime(disproportionate, excessive, chaotic) death seems to be the ultimate
manifestation sub limen  death and fragment
Vs classicism (order, proportion, harmony )
In the 1st part of the 19th century there was not such an American literature America was
recently born  before they had to fix the life system and economic era
The main literature they read was British like Dickens  the only books selling in that period
were the novels British and German  the US writers in order to sell hade to change genre
The American public doesn’t have a sense of national identitythe first works to be published in
USA were  short stories in America short stories are very popular
Distances between cities 2 problems 1st problem it is difficult to communicate
The sublime is strictly connected to deathThat is why Poe Is constantly talking about death
one of the main thing has to do with industrial revolution  Poe chooses the sublime genre
Pit and the pendulum the architecture is totally deformed, chaotic sublime  gothic
Artist’s despair  art during that period  representation of the sublime  kind of setting we are
in representation of that era the sublime can be positive or negative
Whenever the sublime cannot be contained it gives you a sense of death, of fear  deathnot
just as a religious and moral category but also as cultural death and death of aristocracy
In the sublime we also got another main feature that is Fragment
If you talk about classicism you always have reliable narrator while if you talk about sublime you
have unreliable narrator
In the pit and the pendulum narrator from the very beginning is telling you that his disease
sharpen his senses and we see that he is an unreliable narrator we see that he is quite
unstable he has a sharp sense of pain
Corpora a collection texts
This poet uses quite a lot the word violence paragraph from (“Amid -to thing”)main theme in
here  he has memories  theme: memory  dreams  heartmadness  down descent
 amid  limits of the limitless repetition repetition  negative sublime  these
repetitions are all connected to the idea of the negative sublime  to death
Stillness going down  motionlessness  difference/comparison between Motion and
motionless (life and death)  both connected to mind and body perception
Theme of perception  emotional states
Negative sublime in a sense that bodily perception takes to mental perception and mental
perception takes you to the possibility of dying death
Microcosm heart  small universe which mirrors a larger one
Macrocosm  universe itself these two cosmos take us back to pre-Socratic philosophy 
thought Universe expansion and contraction a pulsation of the universe expanding and
contracting  similitude between the human heart and pre-Socratic Universe the perfect crime
is when the criminal is discovered  in this case he is discovered because of something he said
the criminal is so depressed that no one will know how well he did the whole thing
The narrator is obsessed with the old man’s heart beating  the point that obsesses him with the
beating of the heart is  the beating of the heart is made of two moments the beat and the
pause  he is obsessed with the idea of immortality he understands that immortality is
impossible  he denies death so he kills the old man it was him to decide to kill him and not
the Universe denies the natural course of life  changing the natural course of things  the
protagonist sentences to death the old man
Description of the place where he is imprisoned
The Pit and the pendulum narrator is not just facing the old man death but also his death
Then in his brain he find information that can help him
Repetition makes meaning invisible ex with the ratswanted to eat his food he kept
moving his arm to make them go away  repetition the rats don’t care anymore
He uses the pendulum in the story because it is like a clock counting the timethe passing of time
Prison is like a company and his products are criminals  because there is no rehabilitation
teaching  the prison system is violent and doesn’t help them when they come out
Up to 70% of people that are in jail in the US  can’t afford a lawyer  they are given an office
lawyer  Poe aggresses the problem of space in prison
Business of analysing perception goes mentally to what something evokes in him there is
something moving
Everytime he is about to die  it is unespectatly
Herman Melville  born August 1, 1819, New York City-died September 28, 1891, NYC) 
American novelist, short-story writer, and poet, best known for his novels of the sea including his
masterpiece, Moby Dick (1851)  when it was first published he sold very little copies it was a
flop  then  “Bartleby” published November 1853 he understood that the only way to be
recognised in the US was to write short stories  his family never really accepted his job his
writings are usually an attempt of being accepted by the family  from a inner-psychological point
of view  from 1853 to 1891 he didn’t publish anything  “Bartleby” is like a testament  he
decided not to continue writing  he wanted to be recognised professionally
Bartleby, the scrivener. a story of Wall-Street (1856)a short story Story of a business
lawyer  an employee  in a way he loves the lawyer he is attracted by him, in another way he
hate the lawyer  it is set in Wall-Street  mean that this place becomes the emotional frame
is the central aim in his life  lawyer law-copyist Bartleby there isn’t a satisfactory
biography of this man it is an irreparable loss to literature  idea of a career
References in the story to John Jacob Astor Bartleby and John shares something
The narrator is an elderly, unnamed Manhattan lawyer with a comfortable business in legal
documents. He already employs two scriveners, Nippers and Turkey, to copy legal documents by
hand, but an increase in business leads him to advertise for a third. He hires the forlorn-looking
Bartleby in the hope that his calmness will soothe the irascible temperaments of the other two. An
office boy nicknamed Ginger Nut completes the staff In the story, a Wall Street lawyer hires a
new clerk who, after an initial bout of hard work, refuses to make copies or do any other task
required of him, with the words, "I would prefer not to" Bartleby arrives in this office and he is
placed in a corner  the lawyer keeps putting barriers between his scriveners  at first Bartleby
keeps writing  he copies documents written by other people these workers should be happy
because this is a safe work  but the lawyer is also worried because  Bartleby wrote on silently,
palely and mechanically 
Poet is a creative job scrivener is a repetitive job it is an indispensable part of a scrivener’s
business to verify the accuracy of his copy, word by word. It is a very dull, wearisome, and
lethargic affair  when two scriveners assist each other in this examination  one reading the
copy, the other holding the original to some sanguine temperaments it would be somehow
intolerable
He is located in between
Bartleby  answers his boss “I would prefer not to”  he wanted to kick Bartleby out  but it
was like kicking Cicero outan expert of rethorics  symbolically would mean because rethorics
has a lot to do with the job of the lawyer  he refers to the sculpture that is in the office  kicking
out this idea of rethorics- creative production is compared to the idea of kicking Bartleby out  he
looks at him like a creative writer not just like a scrivenerhe is aware of his creativity-expression
 it would be like kicking Cicero outHe is the symbol to the resistance to this job-uncreativity
he is saying that he has the right be creative  Bartleby is very gentle and mild
His decision was irreversible Bartleby will go away
Pg. 22 Others may have loftier parts to enact; but my mission in this world, Bartleby, is to
furnish you with office-room for such period as you may see fit to remain. The lawyer decides
that he is to give him help until Bartleby will need it
When Bartleby doesn’t do something  in the mind of the lawyer a lot of thoughts develop  ex.
When he doesn’t do something and there is some visitors in there  denying old authority leads
to perplexion of the visitors that turn into a scandal and into the claim of possessions  Authority
perplexing  claim possessions perpetual conspiracy  criminalization of the poor
The lawyer afraid of this situation
He cannot socially be structured  in social class of society not a lawyer not
He wants to write but he doesn’t want to copy
He is so afraid of facing the situation that he offers hospitality because he is a coward(Lawyer
offers hospitality to Bartleby but he says he would prefer not to )
Being a vagrant in New York Meant denying business  it was because it was so bad being a
vagrant  this is why he was imprisoned  sent to jail
The tombs (a prison) in NY a prison that with the name reminds the scrivener that was his job
Idea of continuation of life after death  death doesn’t really mean the end The prison is not
the centre of the story but it Is important because it is the metaphor of the lack of life
Assistant’s class
Bartleby is like an image of Melville
Relationship between Bartleby and the lawyer hate and love relationship he could not accept
that he didn’t want to copy documents but neither did he do something
He doesn’t want to go out but he is kicked out by the police and he doesn’t know where to go
 so he is convicted for vagrancy
He goes to prison to visit him and he feels guilty  Bartleby doesn’t want to talk or act and the
lawyer feels more guilty in the end he dies for starvationbecause he doesn’t wanna eathe
refuses to eat he is confined also before going to prison isolation isolation in workplace and
also isolation in prison isolation important theme in the story with also rejection
Contrast between freedom versus captivity
When he is in prison idea of alienation that there was also in the office he was put in a corner
idea of confinement
Bartleby dies out of starvation but prison is not the centre  prison is not only the physical
place of confinementother types of confinement idea of the prison of the mind  mental
kind of prison  (Malcom X talking about the imprisonment of black ideology)
Bartleby is considered to be one of the most famous short stories of Melville for several reasons
 is the first short story ever made by Melville came in a moment of extreme despair for
Melville after Moby Dick was an epic failure he didn’t write what he wanted to write but he
wrote whet the public wanted him to write it was an opportunity to write something else
This is not considered as a classic in prison narratives
In the 1850s  he is a copyist copies document in a Lawyer office in New York
Relationship between Bartleby and the lawyer is difficult and strange shift(of t lawyer) between
saving him and not saving him  helping him and not doing it or helping him when is too late
Reflects also the figure of Melville at that time his sense of despair in that period
Bartleby internalized in prison at the end of the story  it comes at the very end persecuted
for the crime of vagrancy (like Jack London) he spends at the tombs  he dies there
How is prison described in Bartleby, The Scrivener prison here has very secondary role  life
of refusal and denial
Relationship of Bartleby with Melville why can we talk about Bartleby as a Psychological double
of Melville?  for the sense of despair  Melville was a writer in despair  and the quote that
Bartley repeats continuously “I’d prefer not to” refers to Melville because he has to write short
stories in order to sell copies instead of writing novelsthis character reflects psychological
condition of Melville at the time
The role imprisonment resonate throughout the story  imprisonment is not just physical but also
mental mental imprisonment (like African American imprisoned in their condition of being
black)  condition of being a copyist (static and passive figure)  mental imprisonment in this
condition condition of being forced to copy staff  he always sits in the corner and at the
beginning and at the end of the story he is always is the same position  condition of being
imprisoned here in two ways like black people were imprisoned in their condition of being
slaves  prison Is the physical place where he is imprisoned  but also plantations
Always this kind of shift between mental and physical imprisonment
The position of Bartleby throughout the storyis always the same  form of recurring to this
kind of position  copyist and prisoner he is quite elusive as a character and also the ending is
overwhelming for several reasonBartleby he is convicted for vagrancy and he is walking around
the streets of NY  and refuses to eat and dies for starvation
The crime for which he is imprisoned  vagrancy Other narratives with the same crime  Jack
London  Pinched  story is exactly the same he was a Tramp  spent time in prison for this
reason
Why can we talk about the contrast between freedom vs. captivity  these two concepts are
quite the opposite  free to choose to die and free to refuse to copy staff captivity  condition
of being capted is more or less the same of being imprisoned capted  using prison for
economic reason the reason why US has the 5% of prison pop.  being capted in this condition
of copying staff 
Rebellion vs. rejection  rebellion is exactly what Bartleby does refuses to copy staff-to work
 idea of rebellion against the system but at the end he is imprisoned and chooses to die 
rejection is like rebellion rejecting the role that society is giving them  who is responsible for
the condition of Bartleby? both him and the society  we can’t talk about free choice  in the
end there is this idea of rejecting what the society is giving him  rejecting the decision of the
society and rejection the condition of being a copyist his decisions
Why and how we can talk about isolation in and outside of prison  idea of alienation  the
core of the whole text alienation of someone who is capted in prison people in prison are
always alienated from society etc..  this idea of alienation repeats itself in the story  Bartleby
is always alienated isolated in the office-in the street-in prison
Explain Bartleby condition of physical and mental loneliness in the workplace compared to the
idea of the convict idea of mental loneliness in the condition of being forced to copy staff 
being capted-lonely and extremely isolated mental and social isolation in prison again also
this idea of being forbidden to talk  prohibition to talk  the silence rule
Farsi la galera + commenti da parte di questo sociologo  popolazioni a rischio  spazio/
tempo prison as Human warehouse Mass incarceration VS Hype incarceration  who’s got
money to defend himself can avoid a way harder punishment  in America office lawyers even
50 cases in a morning  now exist also volunteer lawyers  that are not paid  but are more
encouraged disappearance of the ghetto inner city in a city  where there is a concentration of
criminality  es. New York  a mayor  Giuliani  prisoners should be helped after their
release  but this doesn’t happen  Prison studies  study of the languages that are spoken in
the American prisons languages create the gangs  rehabilitation of the people that are in
jailprisoners want jobs  because it’s a way of doing something where there is nothing to do
jobs are given in a cyclically  in the past 20 years prison has become object of study social
phenomenon  prison studies  prison life is boring after you read a book that talks about
prison the others (prison stories) are very similar the same prison stories are interesting but
useless  while prison studies are a little bit more useful and interestingactivism in favour of
the prisoners in this work (Farsi la galera Italian experience)  there is  a Chapter about
school, a Chapter about jobs and work, a Chapter about health and a Chapter about the contact
with the outside  Convict Criminology form of criminological literature adopt a method of
research that is criminological  convict criminology  difference between the inside life and the
outside life Correctional officer a very stressful job suicide rate% between them is higher
than the normal rate% of suicides a lot of them to not suffer pretend not to see
Penitentiary administration often don’t think about the problems in prison example: the
officers should talk the other languages that are talk by the prisoners  in America but also in
Italy relationship between officers and prisoners in USA officers have a very strong power 
administration don’t do nothing to improve the level of responsibility- emotional intelligence of
the officer emotional intelligence  very few officers have it  there is a lot violence  there
is always a constant alert that characterizes the life in prison
African American between 18 and 35 most of the prisoners
Northern Europe prisonsthey share the meals they share a step towards integration 
process of criminalization is very advanced in the US who is poor is a proof that who is poor/
homeless becomes a criminal people often arrested just because they live around the streets
 they haven’t done any crime racism of American police example of a prestigious Harvard
teacher who was brought to police station just because he was wandering around a residential
neighbourhood while looking for a parking  if he hadn’t been a prestigious teacher and was 20
years old African American he would have immediately gone to prison in the US prison Is a
place where is very dangerous to go
Pg.47 air hour  often end with quarrelsdeaths  there are created games of power 
prisoners are always alert and also officers are always alertalways have to control the
prisoners repress their instincts and feelings  also violence   job that should have a
mental preparation  which economically is not possible there is a business behind prison
there is an inner commerce to make this business work incarceration is stimulated
Order in prison is insecure-precarious disorder is always there
Pg.56 a prisoner in prison  makes “friendships”  but they are not real their life is like
outside  conscience of black people  that feel themselves controlled by society outside they
understand that they have to do it their wayinside  gangs and ghetto against the others 
if you are black you stay with black people (better)
Pg.58  cell becomes a private place prisonization is a process in which the prisoner takes
conscience of how life in prison is reversed  if this process doesn’t work the prisoner might go
crazy-mad dangerous for the prison system
Deprivation everything must be bought  inside the prison  nothing outside
Personal security they always feel in danger always in alert  state of alert
Promiscuity  a lot of different people rich-poor-graduated
Relationship between time and punishment is crucial in prison life  time of detention is a
static time  in jail there isn’t daily life you have to forget ritual of daily life
Prisoners create a personal space they create a personal life  the others are outside
In some prisons  they have open cells (to help prisoners feel better)  during the day  it
produces potential problems  they always try to do business like outside
If you don’t commit any other crime in prison every six months you receive a reduction of the
sentence of some days  like if you are not involved in a brawl
Somministrazione e revoca di benefici
Rapport osmotico con l’esterno nel carcere risentono di tutto ciò che accade all’esterno
delazione (infamia)  in Italia viene chiamato “bicicletta”
Patteggiamento
Ribalta/Retroscena concetto di Goffman  presente nel testo  clima di tensione  spesso
presente  fanno torti ad altri per non fargli ottenere giorni di sconto di pena
Isolamento Italia meno presente USA  spesso  anni in isolamento
Prigionizzazione adattamento risorse per superare la deprivazione  strategia per superare
Cards of George Jackson  Parole Committee 1 year to life
Guardie e ladri debolezza  feelings vs self
Isolation unknow your body  job of rehabilitation put the prisoner with other bodies which
are not humans  Trauma absence of the present  trigger  something that scares you
because it was something that characterised the trauma  the trigger produces the arousal 
therapies on the trauma  to bring the traumatized person back to present
Education  can be cause of conflicts  if the prisoners are negated education courses a key
element of rehabilitation education: one of the possible forms of rehabilitation a) Economic
b) human warehouse Wacquant c) Mineral water
Hyphenated Americans
Right benefit in prison the rights can be converted into benefits nothing is sure
In prison there is no privacy  privacy is a completely absent concept
Promiscuitydifference between the prisoners religions-transgender
Sex offenders are put in different places of the prison for these types of crimesterrorism
and so on  rifiuto Self-harm very frequent in prison to call attention
Periods of work alternated to periods in cell
People around the prisoners are affected by his state  poornesschildren what are they
going to do to live Forgotten victims all people that are around the prisoners
Contact with the outside world
Article about Cianci prisoner who had a prize permission of 12 hours
They consider the prisoner like a walking crime not as a person as it should be
When you enter a prison Process of institutionalization social rules have changed everything
has changed  inside the life changes from the inside who stays a lot of time in prison they
keep a memory of the reality that has completely changed when they go out  as a prisoner you
end up building an identity for yourself
Anxiety producing element is the idea of freedom of the outside  that produces anxiety
When this system it’s not there anymore  when the prison system it’s not there anymore to
control you and you are lost
When you get out and you haven’t been undermined a process of rehabilitation the person goes
outside and goes back doing what he was doing before being imprisoned
Handicap of the criminal is that he thinks he was born as a criminal
Only the o,oo7% of the people who got a prize permission are recidive commit crimes  there
will always be, not matter how good the psychologists and meds are, people who are left free and
they go back committing crimes
The body keeps the score Van der Kolk
Talks about the idea of trauma  it shows and it is based on the assumption that a lot of people
are going through traumas it really gives a good insight of life  it gives a better understanding
of how human’s mind works
If you star thinking thatPeople who commits crimes are not that different from you it is almost
impossible to think that the only thing to do is to send them in prison
For these people is impossible to stand the present it is to strong they become absent (like
war trauma)  like sexual abuse they try to forget it but the brain system and the body do
not forget it memorized and imprinted in the body
Trauma has a very shocking effect on the part of the brain which controls the body  you do not
recognize yourself anymore  you reject your body
A person who suffered a traumaIs always in a total alert
There are drugs that should help overcome traumas  psychic problems but psychiatrists are
questioning this procedure more and more
Neurosis
Psychosis the mind has been changed-manipulated by something  you cannot use the
linguistic analysation of the trauma
War traumas for soldiersFor these people in order to accept the therapy is easier if the person
who is talking to them is one of theme  the therapist wears a uniform  soldier is what they are
Vietnam Veterans PTSD  post-traumatic stress disorder usually is a person who is always
alert who suffers
Numbing  a person who not recognizes herself anymore hard time looking at themselves in
the mirror he is insensitive he doesn’t feel anything If not the shame and anger
The person is suffering because of his memoriesif you are under the effect of a trauma
memories have the most negative effect memories are suffering
The flashback of the trauma becomes more relevant than the trauma itself  you never know
when the flashback will come and how long it will last you are constantly pushed back to the
past you are constantly living in the past you have a loss of imagination traumatized people
look at the world in a different way from us  they always see the same thing  everything takes
you there also when they are doing other things  their mind takes them back to the moment
of the traumaWar starts at home
Trauma is not a single event but is an imprint that have constant consequences which live on
the mind ,on the body and on the brain of a person  can’t be deleted the trauma of the past in
that person  sometimes the cure can re enact the trauma instead of delating it
Around 80% of prisoners have suffered of sexual trauma  is quite a lot
For Van der Kolk focuses on the body  The body is the place in the human being which cannot
be recognized by a person who has suffered trauma  when the body is not recognized and there
is a shock the only way of escaping when you are traumatized you are not necessary looking to
escape the trauma  sometimes people who have been traumatized do not try to escape  it is
difficult to understand the gravity of the trauma  you can’t categorize  instead of falling in the
unknown sometimes these people get stuck in a kind of fear that they already recognizein these
people’s life that kind of trauma is repeated  instead of trying something new it seems easier to
go back to that trauma  the hormone system  resilience capacity to go back to balance 
from a stressful situation to a balanced situationresilience is deeply inhabited in every human
being  every living being show signs of resilience resilience is a chemical-hormonal response
which tries to put back the body in a situation of balance-normality the system always tries to
reach a minimum use of energy  condition of quietness  you don’t burn energies if you are
constantly under stress you have a less amount of energy
Post traumatic stress disorder stress after a trauma will be longer activated  even if the
trauma is not there anymore  trauma is constantly activated by others inputs  that we call
triggers
Section 2 the brain has two way of reacting stress  1. Is to accelerate people get anxious,
angry, aggressive 2. People fall in a state of noneliness absence
Sense of extreme alert it falls under the category of angriness there is not resilience  either
they are absent or they are too activated to the point that they become angry
The reaction of a person that has undergone trauma does not depend on the fact that he has
undergone trauma that time  but because the trauma continues to come back
In some situations you continue to repeat something  you keep repeating the trauma in your
mind  you are in a loop  in order to solve this trauma  you are stuck in the past  some
people loose their mental lucidity
A way of recognizing that they exist  they harm themselves masochistic way
Studies say 95% of people that are in prison have undergone some kind of trauma in prison
the chance to see psychiatrist is very low  life in prison can be very traumatic  inevitably you
are constantly exposed to trauma
Pharmacy  drugs put patients in some kind of stand-by  but it is not recovering not solving
the trauma  give these inmates drugs to keep a situation of stand-by  outside prison is
different if you go to a psychiatriststudiesDrugs end up distracting you from the situation
and from the problem  they do not look at a way of solving it
Psychotic crisis when you do not recognize yourself anymore  you think you are somebody
else also children can have psychotic crisis after a trauma no just adults These drugs
(pharmacies) are given to children to make them more treatable  but they are expensive 
question?  is it better to solve the problem or to calm down the problem
Using these drugs makes these inmates easier to manipulate but they make them less
cooperative  it doesn’t solve the problem  also side effect of using too much drugs
Adaptability or illnessmodel of mental disease is based on 4 points  1. The capacity to hurt
each other related to the capacity to take care of each other reconstructing relationships is
fundamental to construct the wellbeing of people not exclusion but belonging they can be
part of the group, social group 2. Language gives us the power to change ourselves and the others
 find what we are 3. We can regulate our phisiology  through some activitieslike breath,
movement and touch first thing that stops is breathing  when we breath we are related to life
 shallow breathing is the manifestation anxietyit helps to regulate the breathmovement 
tense of hiding in the corner  because the trauma makes them think that if they go away they
might encounter something worse  they stay in the corner after trauma they have to be re
educated to movement  touch  Van der Kolk explains  that if a person has undergone
trauma is dangerous to touch him can be triggered to re experiment the trauma  to solve it 
start from touching other things that are not human beings  animals, objects substitute
human context with animal context 4. We can change social conditions
3rd chapter technical chapter we talk about what they do in hospital for these traumas 
brain activated during the trauma trigger every sign and every event that activates trauma
response  reaction to stimulus the arousal  is the modification of the nervous system as a
reaction to a stimulus which produces a sort of excitement and reactive attitude
Amygdala Part of the brain where the decision is made  a gut reaction  risposta di pancia 
people who have suffered trauma usually react this way even if there is no danger
Emotional intelligence is a way to train the system to react in a more relaxed way when you are
not facing a violent situation which needs to be reacted upon very quickly traumatized people
thinks they always have to react very quickly
Empathia You can relate to other people in a more constructed way  you control emotions
Cover-up story is meant to let people know something about the trauma that they underwent but
it is not the whole story
Sometimes you don’t deal directly with the trauma but with the sensations of it  like smell
impulses and sensations that makes the system on alert on stressthese sensations-
feelingsthey are always there and can come out independently from remembering the trauma
 just hearing that voice or smelling that perfume
In the trauma the right side of the brain is the one which activates Images of the trauma
activate the right hemisphere of the brain and disactivate the leftthe left hemisphere of the
brain is the most rational side while the right side is the one which we use for art, music..
The two halves of the brain speak two different languages The right side of the brain is
intuitive, emotional, visual  the left part linguistic, sequential and analytical  where we talk
we are basically using the left part  Dyslexia usually confound syllables  syllables sent to the
hemisphere of the brain left side  but in Dyslexia  sent on the other parts  your brain
doesn’t know no more which part of the brain send information left part of the brain has to do
with the language right part  with the music, emotions  right part is the part firstly
developed children first develop it very emotional-they draw..  the right part of the brain
remembers everything which is not linguistic  feelings
In order to make something real to translate something into something rational you have to
translate it into language  from the right part to the left part
Stuck in flight fight some chemicals responses flight fight response  sleep problems-
irritability stress hormone  adrenaline  takes some time to go back to resilient position 
go back to a situation of normality in people who have undergone trauma (adrenaline) it
produces some effects on the system  memory, attention deficit, sleep disorder, irritability ,
physical  the alternative the body reacts by modifying something  but there is also non-
modifying reaction  when there is deny the unconscious mind recurs the threat but the
conscious mind does not react  emotional brain  the conscious mind meets rational brain
we have alarm signal that keeps going on  that keep sending messages to the muscle  escape
from the problem or fight the problem  or freezing something might go very wrong so I have
to prepare myself these emotional responses are emergency procedure  in traumatized
people very often this become chronic responses the system is constantly stressed  but in
case of emergency procedure everything happens very quickly  you need to respond in the less
time possible  it has to be done very quickly  but if you are under stress because of a trauma
 when you meet something threatening they you do not recognize what the procedure  they
are always under stress without a cause  the reaction which should be fast becomes chronic 
there is no reaction  you are chronically under stress and when there is a threat you don’t
respond  you freeze  traumatized people are often under substances because they cannot
deal with that chronical pain  there is something that triggers a memory and produces pain in
the system it is not just unpleasure it take a lot of energy  memory erasers  alcohol drugs
medicines  legal or illegal you take substances that take your mind somewhere else 
constantly living in the pasta what they try is to erase the past but these substances are only
breaks  prison system tends to give you how many medicines that you want  pills to inmates is
a common way to keep them quietto not have bigger problems they might become
dangerous to live better you need to have money in prison work, sell drugs, pills medicines
in case then you don’t need those pills you can sell them to other prisoners
People working in prisons  officers-nurses.. All these people are possibly drug dealers 
people who work in the prison make very little money public prisons officers earn very little but
private prisons officers earn even less  private prisons are usually constructed in places which
are economically depressed areas  they will give job to a lot of people (underpaid)
Alcohol is very rarely available  less easy to hide a bottle of wine than a gram o cocaine
Talking cure for people who are traumatized cannot reconstruct the trauma  in many cases
talking about the trauma makes no sensewill not take to a state of resilience
Chapter 4fight for my life (propria) you adapt the situation to a personal situation where
tragic elements can be solved  you become the saver of the situation  give a reason why it
happened  recreate a situation where people don’t die no more
Face and body signals are easier to interpret than words When you go to psychoanalyst  You
can’t just talk for people who have been traumatized you cannot exclude any part of the system
 take in consideration every part
Difference between mind and brain?  brain is where the engine is  made to function in a very
complex way  mind is not necessarily brain/physical located  the mind stay in the system 
mind is the consequence of how our system work  if they are not working well  is always
something that become a problem  become resilience
The brain produces chemical reactions are full of information  messages  going from the
brain to the part of your body which might be useful to react  in traumatized people it happens
for real the brain send reaction to the mind and the mind send it to the body If a person Is so
much under stress that freeze
Prison is not a place where people help each other  but it’s a place where they want to
discharge their detention  emotional tensionyou loose any kind of compassion  and you do
anything to discharge detention  chronically violent reaction  difficult for inmates to have any
kind of support  when they have undergone a trauma
If something bad happens  your body is programmed to go away
Emotional brain  part which are most ancient of the brain  Reptilian
Emotional brain  unconscious brain and the conscious brain which is the Rational brain are
constantly fighting each other for which one to take control constant fight based on the
quality of your perception the brain tends to explain things rationallythe more the emotional
brain takes over and the more the rational brain can stop It
To identify the threat The amygdala  in the middle of the brain  when the information goes
directly to the amygdala there is an instant reaction  gives me a very quick emotional response
it is directly related to the release of stress hormones  when you are under stress  and you
have to take a decision quickly
People in prison are constantly activated  all the time  never relaxing  they feel they are
always under threat
Mindfulness somebody who is present at the process of the mind means knowing how your
mind Is going to react in some specific situation
Emotional brain  reacts in a very uncontrolled way but it doesn’t mean that you cannot train it
 emotional intelligence  not just between the boundaries of your emotional brain but also
between the ones of the rational brain we can’t always react without thinking because there are
going to be consequences  it might create a problem  traumatized people always overreact 
not just in a violent way
Mindfulness means to train the emotional brain to the point that it will take time to reactIt
allows the person to think about his reaction  not always reacting in a violent and impulsive way
Men can only do one thing at a time  they cannot keep everything running at the same time
Female brain  they can do up to 16 things at the same time
In prison they become intolerant to anything which happens- which bothers them  everything
is on the same level  everything is equally a disaster
Function of the body  which is at the same time autonomous and automatic and aware 
breathing in a traumatized person emotional and rational are mixed up breathing has to do
both with the rational sphere and the emotional sphere  breath can be automatic but can also
be changed  it’s one of the little function of the body that can be both rational and emotional 
working on it can be very good for traumatized people  they don’t relax
Main problem of traumas is that we don’t make a distinction between mental, physical and
emotional (we put them together)  in order to solve it
One thing that usually is important for psychologistseverything has to do with the body
Body language and face language are really important  explain a lot signs when you are telling
a lie the truth comes out from the signs it’s pretty easy to control what to say but it’s not easy
to control our body and face language  the body keeps the score the body knows the truth
In the brain limbic system and frontal lobe  limbic has to do with the emotional part of brain
the part of the brain that keeps that in control is the frontal lobeis processing the information
Every time there is a life or death situationdangerous situation the communication between
the limbic system and the frontal lobe interrupts  when the issue is survival intuition is not
very good if we have to survive instinct in a case of a traumatized person you don’t act in
front of that situation you remember that trauma in the past and the emotions you felt you
act because you are always alert and the symptoms reminds you of that traumatizing episode in
the pastyou act like it is that episode it is not a danger symptom but a chronic symptom
Many people think they are the victims and when they suffered a traumastealing, committing
a crime  they feel entitled to do that because of something that was taken away from them
there is a feeling of having been abandoned  from the family  how do you recover  they feel
that through stealing they can fill that loss and sense of emptiness that their family provoked
A lot of people end up in prison after committing those crimes like stealing but they did it to
recover from something that was taken away from them and a trauma that they suffered In
prison people aren’t re-educated  they do that (the crime) to recover from something that was
taken away from them  that’s why a lot of people end up going back to jail
Dissociate and Relievedissociationin psychology related to skizophrenia the personality is
divided and you are yourself and someone else you dissociate from the situation  because It is
painful A person who suffered a trauma  constantly try to relive the trauma and constantly try
to be someone else  dissociation is the essence of trauma  you are no longer in control of
your bodypeople who suffered a trauma, mostly sexual trauma don’t remember it because it is
too painful  it is so painful to remember the trauma that they can’t remember it  they
remember the emotions, sounds, smells.. these people are not aware of the relationship
between their reactions and their trauma
A lot of people who undergone trauma  don’t understand it and it is so irrational that they think
that to solve it they have to do something irrational  to break the point
Prison  it’s very noisy
Another deep problem in the US prisons children coming alone or with their families from
Mexico  US has the highest child detention in the world  one of the most advanced country in
the world has this rate of under 18 teens in jail  trauma of being detained, trauma of being
separated from the family  this is the preparation for traumatized children that will become
criminal when adults  children of the Mexican families passing the frontier between Mexico and
US  they will be criminals  because they don’t have anyonethe only way to live is if they
steal  immigrant children there is no situation of resilience  no window of Tolerance 
trauma enacted by a situation like this is very strong and tough
The system produces criminals  prisons are like factories, industries  not just because they are
in contact with other criminals
When people are so much stuck into the pastpeople who suffered sexual abuse  people are
very shy and they become very shameful a conversation between a psychiatrist and the patient
who suffered that trauma  talking about their trauma is impossible it is impossible to have a
conversation about their trauma (mostly sexual abuse) all their reactions are all irrational and
are also involuntary reactions of the body  hiding the truth becomes the main concern 
shameful If you don’t accept the trauma it will never go away
Dissociation  the only thing you can do is dissociating from the consequences that will come
after doing something  and order  you must forget and remove those traumas  if not it
becomes impossible to continue working  it is necessary  the price you pay for not identifying
with the suffering of the other is dissociation jobs like police officers, and officers in jail, nazis
soldiers in the camps suicide here is higher than in any other category of jobsin this year 46
police officer already committed suicide in Italy  it proves that these category lives under a lot of
stress strong training is absolutely necessary
You cannot heal from trauma to do it you need to turn smells, sounds.. into rationality
To identify what’s happening inside of us is the first step of healing You have to perceive what’s
happening in the body  to first perceive it you have to name that physical sensation  first step
of healing of a trauma is not a mental step and psychological step is a physical step
In prison Time can be very fast or very slow alteration of time  Time becomes a main issue
in prison (and also in trauma)  you are constantly living in the past  one of the things that
make difficult situation tolerable  is that it is sooner or later going to finish it allows you to
build an expectation  if you perceive that the situation is interminable  it becomes intolerable
it doesn’t allow you to relax you usually relax if you have an expectation
Necessity of people to feel grounded it means that you are stable, you have stability to do so
you have to live in the present
We find a filter of what is right or what is wrongtrauma means that you cannot develop
categories about reality means like what is more important what is less important, what is more
relevant or less relevant trauma is a collapse of category in family incest  is a collapse of
categories  the moment that you are a child girl and you are being molested by your father he
becomes the husband  it is a collapse of category  you don’t have filter from being
overcharged  you are overcharged  child doesn’t perceive anything anymore  the future is
going to be very dark if you don’t have social connection anymore  solitary confinement
institutional numb procedure  learning to live in the present
The window of Tolerance  Optimal Arousal Zone
Arousal -Resilience
Perception-Memory  memory is building up your knowledge perception is based on the past
but it is immediately taken back to the present
Stress hormones which are giving you a very quick reaction
We become intolerant intolerance you can’t see anything else  predator like an
eagle/hawk  typical predator
Tolerancepredated animal is not going to attack is going to escape  usually is a vegetarian
 be suspicious  be alert  cow  window of tolerance you are acting normally What
happens if you have been traumatized and you go out of the normal arousal zone  you don’t
have a clear perception of reality  you go above the normal arouse, you go above the normal
window of tolerance What
is emotional intelligence  when you know why you feeling in some way  it’s a way of self
regulation  in order to be emotionally intelligent you don’t have to let your arousal go above the
window of tolerance  you don’t go beyond the limit of tolerance
Gabor Mate people who have been traumatized often go on drugs people who are under
heavy drugs has usually suffered a big trauma  trauma (often in the childhood) is translated into
the body in some kind of illness and also some kind of addiction he says that in a 12 year
period he has not meet a woman who had not been sexually abused  in the patients who were
addicted to drugs  addiction as either a choice that people make police is making this
situation chronic  people who just use drugs like marijuana go to prison and then they go out
after 15 years and they have become fulltime criminals they are worst
When people are traumatized it raises the possibility of their addiction to drugs
Addiction is everything you do in order feel some relive and to receive some kind of pleasure 
addiction doesn’t have to do with drugs or alcohol everything you do compulsively can be
considered as an addiction shopping, food..  addiction Temporary relive from stress that
gives you temporary pleasure Addiction is not a problem  is way to try to solve a problem
when you go out of tolerance window  you can’t tolerate yourself anymore  your addiction
takes you back to the tolerance window  your addiction helps you to feel a temporary pleasure
 narcissism of a child  when he is treated badly (in every possible way) he thinks because it
is his fault and he is a bad person  low self esteem isolation
When children are traumatized or abused  more probable to have some issues and illnesses
There is a relationship between trauma and immune system  physical reaction to trauma if
you don’t have self esteem  relation between emotions and physical status
The first level of immune system not working  a cold example  in the days before happened
something that made you feel you were worthy some illness  you cannot separate the mind
from the body  whatever happens in the brain has an effect on the body
The intolerance nowadays  problem child compensation  the child thinks he not enough
Crime and criminality as a compensation
The child has been taught not to react this is why he is very calm but then explode  he has
tried to suppress himself
Human relationships are important to maintain a healthy human life
A traumatized child  his eyes go black and without feelings their eyes are dead because what
they had to see was too painful  so they decide not to see
Cap. 5basic emotions which are 7  are produced by the same things
Emotion is meant to make you competitive in survival
Heartbeat  is not stable  we a rhythm machine  HRV relationships are important
because if they are true they build trust trust is probably the most important sensation for
mental health
Three levels of response 1. 2. Anxious response 3. Collapsing response
Coping
The reptilian brain is the one who rules the whole thing
The brain  is a Cultural organ  VS Innate cultural means that you learn it
The brain is cultural organ because it is developed through experience the brain works through
experiences if you suffer a trauma as a child your brain as an adult will develop his own capacity
to face situation different interpretation of situation if a child has undergone trauma
Descriptions of children who have suffered traumas  of some situations  even if the situation
is calm and there are people smiling they see what is going to happen after that  something
tragic  the description is always tragic and badtragedy is about to happenTheir descriptions
 are always fragmentary flashbacks, smells , sounds, sections story is desegregatedIt tells
us that the reptilian brain is always taking over  they can’t tell a story in a logical way (pg. 125)
state of alert  they don’t trust human beings  they can’t have a relationship  they can’t
trust other people  if they are traumatized is difficult to understand if they are in a normal
situation or they are really in danger  in prison people traumatized should have a safe situation
around them which should help them
Chapter 6  emotional abuse and his affection on the body  there is a separation of the mind
from the body  the trauma lower your perception of sensations they do not know how to feel
alive  they think that the only way to feel alive is to kill that sensation (like cutting)
Agency  ability to take charge of your life
InteroceptionAwareness of everything that you can feel inside of your body to feel inside of
yourself we are not talking about thoughts but about sensations  ceptionperception and
interoinner  in other words  what you know is because you feel it  what I know is what I
feel  the basis for recognizing my body
Cellular memoryThe idea that you carry  a memory of events  that don’t happen to you 
but something that happens to your family years before  there is always a question of shame in
the family your cells carry the memory until it is necessary to carry it: being aware of what u feel
When you cannot find resilience you cannot have a good relation with your body  people use
drugs..  one of the strategy that these people used  Alexythimia not being able to transform
emotions into words people who are affected by itcannot recognize emotions in the face of
other people  if they are angry, happy..  the more you are separated from the emotions,
feelings of other people the capacity to protect yourself is very weak  I don’t have a sense of
protection  trauma and autoimmune system  because you don’t have a sense of protection 
feel of depersonalization  the brain turns off  your sensation of the self can leave
Establishing a visual contact is painful  brain and body are connected  a traumatized person
has problems with visual contact  only area areas which generates alertsome people live in a
state of alertness some people are always in survival mode you don’t recognize what the
others are doing  you recognize your own programme of the situation  you superpose your
instinctual interpretation you see what you think is happening not what is really happening 
when you are in survival mode you only recognize your own sequence you interpret it
Chapter 6 and 7part of the book which mentions that the loss of the body as loss of the self 
usually psychiatrist has been discussing mental issues as mental problems  but Van der Kolk
considers mind and body as a single thing
Interoception  this word relates to another word which is agency ability to be in charge of
your life  interoception is almost chemical ability to have an awareness of yourself
Any kind of trauma reduces every kind of interoception when you are under stress  you
focuses on that and point your intention to that specific thing and everything else becomes
irrelevant  when you are under stress and the reason of the stress ends  you go back to
resilience and to normal it takes you back to the window of tolerance interoception is the
contrary of alertnesswhen you are under stress you are in a sense of alertness and then you go
back to normal when you have been traumatized you can’t go back to normal
When you traumatized you are constantly in alert and you don’t have interoception  and
you can’t go back to normal the pain always stays there and never go away when you are
always in alert you see everything as a threat  Van der Kolk tells us that the first react is
always physical the body then the mind builds up a story  the mind always tries to find a
justification for everything explanation  to reduce the feeling of anxiety  but if the mind
doesn’t find a solution and an explanation  the level of anxiety rises
The body is the first you need to recover to recognize a mental state that might be more stable
and neutral  you don’t have to hide from yourself
Alexythimia Emotion that are not translated into words incapacity to translate emotions into
words language is a convention  symbolical thing language is a form of translation for us 
into process of communicating we translate  two basic form of communication  oral
communication or written communication the distinction stays in nomadic and non-nomadic
social classes  nomads they move from a place to another  for nomads people it is
impossible to carriage such a heavy group of books  also form the economical point of view  it
doesn’t help their survival  they have very little that let them live  they don’t need additional
things  when people starts to move from the countryside to the cities that produces a kind of
social organization there can’t be a tribe chief anymore a lot of new rules are needed and
this makes it necessary to have book of rules
Minorities that use oral communication  native Americans, but also slaves  people in the
south didn’t want the blacks to have information didn’t want them to react they couldn’t read
African American culture is so different from white culture  capacity to tell stories of the blacks
 in an oral tradition there is no first edition in everyone add things a lot of versions 
because repeating stories orally people used to add things create different versions  there
is a richness which is no longer there in written tradition
If you cannot produce orally what you feel  poor
People who could tell stories were considered the most important
Rhetoric The skills to organize a speech  we could call it the law of words  you should be
able to defend something which you don’t believe in  in rethorics you have a suspension of
judgement you make a point about a specific matter  which you think is wrong
A lot of people who studied psychology had problems themselves
Depersonalization if you prevent yourself from your feelings-from knowing what you feel and
why you feel  your person disappear you become depersonalized  you also have
dissociation  you loose the sense of yourself and you live outside of yourself in order yo
overcome trauma you have to be friend with your body  if you are not aware of the physical
sensation of your body you will never get rid of the physical sensation of the past
When he mentions children he says that the world of children is full of triggerschildren have a
lot of triggers everything
Theory of attachment  very central in understanding this book theory according to which the
person is considered to become healthy when he becomes an adult if he had and healthy
attachment the first source of attachment is the mother
In the first month the child doesn’t really see as when he grows  he hasn’t developed yet the
capacity to understand that around us we have objects and people  the child at first he see the
body of the mother as little fragments  then he starts seeing full images the child at first he
sees the mother as someone that is not separated from him  but is something mixed with him
The first trauma of the child is to recognize that there is someone else in this marvellous
relationship which he has with the mother  a rival  the father Lacan  scientist who
developed this theory  then the child will understand that the mother doesn’t love him less
because there is someone else  but she loves both in the same way the father and the child
share the same love of the mother  when the child accepts the name of the father  there is
the acquisition of language  is very strong related to the fact that the child recognizes that there
are two figures in his life  understand the composition of the family..  when in the family
occurs a trauma father that beats the mother, someone who is an alcoholic, or he is in jail..
for a child who has a parent in prison he sees/associates the idea of family as/to separation
When the attachment is too strong the body in fragments fase becomes too long children will
start speaking later the child becomes atypical when he is given to much attentions
If the father is not recognized or is recognized lateronly when is recognized the child will start
talking  alexythimia has often to do with it  language has to do with what happens with the
bodyex. Children with dyslexia often didn’t walk four feet
The attachment with the mother means to have a very solid base for future  you suffer you
don’t have a sense of the self
Other problem children who can’t attach because they don’t have anyone to attach to  they
can’t attach to nobody when they need to you try to develop narcissism 
Good form of attachment trust if I can trust someone Safe attachment
Coping cognitive effort to answer to external request  the outside is giving me a message
Healthy-secure attachment when the mother goes away they cry to call their attention and they
try to bring her back to them
Avoiding attachment are kids who are so suffering because of the loss of attachment they
look indifferent when mothers go away they don’t cry resources found out that when the
mother goes away even if they don’t cry their heartbeat goes faster so they are in a state of
arousal hyper arousalconstantly in a state of arousal
Anxious attachment these are the children who try constantly to call your attention they
think their life need to be like a theatre
Disorganized attachment these are children who are very ambivalent about the mother they
don’t know if when they show their attachment to the mother  there will be an outcome of
affection or an outburst of violence an outburst of disappearance-abandonment  it usually
happens when the parents undergone some kind of trauma themselves those parents have to
be treated as well  the mother is dangerous and safe at the same time  sometimes she is
acting as a mother and she is safe and sometimes she is acting crazy and she is dangerous
What determines how the children react and act if the parents are relaxed and in the window of
tolerance their children will be relaxed if the parents are always stressed and anxious the child
will be the same  the child is always thinking of himself as the centre of the universe  and if
people treat him badly he thinks this is because he is bad  he feels guilty
If you have disorganized of the sense of yourself you are like programmed to go through a
trauma When the communication with the mother stops  the child is going to be angry and
violent  criminal behaviour, suicide behaviour
Dissociation is a way of running away from the problem like to anticipate a problem  if you
disappear through dissociationyou don’t have to face the problem sometimes you know you
disappear sometimes you don’t know
If you don’t feel real nothing is important  either you disappear or you do something
extreme cut themselves, punch people this is not a solution is a pathological solution
Chapter 8 autoimmune illnesses  if you are weakened also your immune system is weakened
When children have a sensation of terror is when the figure of attachment is the same of fear
you have to give up the idea that attachment is good because sometimes is good and other
times is bad  expressing trauma  confused way
( Educational Attainment Prior to Incarceration and Recidivism Rates in Relation to Correctional
EducationAccording to Pete Wagner and Bernadette Rabuy, writers for the Prison Policy
Initiative, there are approximately 2.3 million inmates in juvenile, local, state, and federal jails and
prisons (2016). Additionally, thousands of inmates each year leave U.S. prisons and correctional
facilities and return to their homes and communities, with an estimated 95% of inmates to
eventually be released from custody (Scott, 2016, p. 148). Although numerous inmates
successfully reintegrate into society, becoming productive members, approximately 76.6% relapse
into criminal behavior and are reincarcerated.
There is a significant discrepancy among the differences in the recidivism rates among different
genders and races (school-to-prison-pipelinebad schools) and compare them to differences in
education attainment prior to being arrested.  has education a significant role in prevent people
from committing crimes? yes Due to
high incarceration rates, U.S. prisons are “operating at 99% capacity”. The National Institute of
Justice (NIJ) estimates around 76.6% of inmates will be reincarcerated within a 5-year period;
however, these rates diminish when inmates participate in educational programs (2014).
According to the Department of Justice(2015), on average, “inmates who participated in
correctional education programs had 43 percent lower odds of recidivating than inmates who did
not.”
In 2015, approximately 58.9% of the U.S. population aged 25 years of age or older had at least
some form of college or trade school education. However, multiple studies indicate inmates have
significantly lower rates of educational attainment.
The studies analyzed suggest there is a higher proportion of men who enter prison with lower
levels of education (high school education/GED) than women. American male inmates with only a
high school education/GED who are overly represented in the U.S. prison system compared to
their counterparts, be they Caucasian, Hispanic/Latino, or female. When examining the actual
recidivism rates between men and women, men are 1.2 to 1.5 times more likely to recidivate than
women. Caucasian inmates are considerably more apt to recidivating than Black/African
Americans or Hispanic/Latinos. From another studyindicates Black/African American inmates
have a greater probability of recidivating than their Caucasian or Hispanic/Latino counterparts
The economic repercussions associated with programs such as these also bear immense
importance because it will supply people to the labor force and has the potential to save money
from decreased costs associated with housing inmates. As stated beforehand, there are
approximately 2.3 million inmates in juvenile, local, state, and federal jails and prisons.
Hypothetically, if half of the prison population was successfully reintegrated into society as
productive citizens, this increase in the labor force would serve as an engine for development and
stimulate gross domestic product. Additionally, educational programs offered to inmates have the
potential to save taxpayers money through a reduction in the amount of people who are
readmitted into these correctional facilities. Currently, inmates are not rehabilitated during their
time in prison, and are instead being “warehoused” like warehouses for human beings )
Avoiding people produces long term problems 
Trauma diagnosis concentration  two very important elements for study
Channel all the forces to stand this situation  I’m constantly looking around for danger  cannot
understand the difference between the past and the present
Obstacles are good to build up resilience
There is no distinction between the body and the mind
2 types of memory Ordinary memory
Traumatic memory this fragmentation becomes irrelevant if there is a trauma
Revealing the secrets of trauma part 4 synopsis of the whole book in normal rational and
emotional brain condition but when the arousal is high it disconnects  emotional brain
expresses his alterate activation through changes of the emotional arousal
Something happened in the past if you tell it  it becomes more normal
Chapter 13 is very importantskip chapters 14-15 from chapter 16 on skip chapter 20-21
Documentary13th Du Vernay
Has been added to the constitution when slavery was abolished  it abolished slavery but it
provided the criminalization of African American  “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude,
except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist
within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."  reconstruction after the civil
war since slavery criminalization of blackness 13th amendment of the constitution
US 5% of Mondial population but has 25% of global prison population
The phenomenon that we now call mass incarceration was born in 1970
It’s with the Nixon era and the law and order period when crime begins to stand in for race 
there is a cry for law and order
Public enemy in the US drugs  crime number one speaking in subtle and non racism terms
 racism expressed by talking about drugs, crimes, law and order veiled racism “get tough”
and “law and order” Nixon coins the term “war on drugs”  but it was Raegan who turned that
rhetorical one into a real one Ronald Raegan sort of criminalized every problem and issue that
there was in the US  like drugs addiction, drug dealers, problem of economic inequality,
hypersegregation  criminalizes all of that into a war on drugs
This sort of war on drugs was more like a war on the communities of colour  black and Latinos
Everyone who is white doesn’t understand the challenge that is being black in America
Why is the black community so weak?
Angela Davis-Malcolm X- Martin Luther King
Alec American legislative exchange council  increase number of people in prison
Is the system developed behind (mass incarceration) which authorizes this kind of police violence
Criminalization of black
Clinton authorized a criminal bill if you feel threatened you can defend yourself also by killing
someone example of the policeman who shot dead a black teen
1994 mass incarceration  criminal bill  for every drug crime  investments in prison  and
put police officers on the streets
In the US  mass incarceration race incarceration also because of the race
Prison is the solution to make a tendency disappear  in the US
Like a crimmigration system immigration system + law system
6.5% of population in the US is black  40% of population in prison in black
Opposite of criminalization is humanization
Chronology of what happened in the US to black peopleracialized and criminalized  criminals
now and then  prosecution of African Americans in the US
Prison as a legalized form of slavery
FilmSurvivors guide to prison
Being in jail and how to survive prison what is the genre ?  of this film  author and producer
This film is important because main themes everything about the authors and the
characters  this movie in particular is full of data and statistics researches  two main
branches of narration  1. The themes that are treated 2. Protagonists  talk about a few people
who went to jail for some reasons one who was put there unjustly (white man) and others
Important also the glossary different characters in the American prison system ≠ Italian
Genre of this film  documentary
Director  Splin writer editor, Matthew Cook
Producer Danny Trejo (former jail inmate)
There is like a guide  behind every instruction  concerning how to deal with justice  and
criticism of the US prison system in justice
Difference between prison and jail substantial difference when it comes to the justice system
Jail is a local facility and it is usually under the jurisdiction of local authorities cities, counties and
districts smaller facility institution  designed for short term imprisonment  especially for
those who are waiting for the final verdict or the trial to start If you have to stay less than a year
 you can stay in a local or county jail
Prison  institutional facility which is controlled by the state or the federal government  a
bigger facility and is designed for longer sentences probably violated some kind of federal law
Some prison are private
Specific kind of information  Amendment  one is the 6th amendment which state the right of a
speedy and public trial and the right to have someone to defend you
Another important one 8th amendment  excessive bail (cauzione) should not be imposed
prohibits the federal government from imposing excessive bail, excessive fines, or cruel and
unusual punishments. (torture)
13th  abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime  which
kind of contradicts the 8th amendment
Sort of tutorial on how to survive to jailand to every situation you might find you in
Situation 1 How to handle an out-of-control police officer  -Always be polite
-Do not engage in an argument
-Ask: am I being detained or am I free to go?
-Not detained? Leave immediately
-Yesask for an attorney
You shouldn’t tell your story to anybody also inmates  none of these inmates are your friends
How to survive county jail  - Phonecall family, friends and lawyer to find out how to get out
-Try to find money to post bail it is important to stay out of jail while you wait your verdict  if
you go to your trial in your normal clothes  it is better different opinion about you
-Mind your business -Ask permission for everything you need to do -Shut your mouth
Situation number 3An authority figure tells you to do something that you find immoral. What
would you do?
Situation 4In prison, someone tries to take one of your belonging. Will you let them?  no they
will always ask for more and more -stand up for yourself even if you loose -lift weights to be
ready to defend yourself -Be aware that situations can get out of hand
Situation 5 eventually you end up in prison, even though you are innocent. What would you do?
-Be aware you may never get out -Send preservation letters to Police Dept. Labs and Court to
request all evidence saved -find an Innocence Project  more affordable account of money
-Be patient, it may take years
Main themes and their meaning 1 -Handling an out-of-control police officer denouncing
police brutality -Surviving healthcare in prison  denouncing the lack of mental health facilities in
prison and outside -Surviving county jail and how to post bail denouncing violation of 6th and 8th
amendments
Main themes and their meaning 2 -Surviving solitary confinement  denouncing inhumane
punishments and violation of 6th amendment -Surviving authoritarianism denouncing
ineffectiveness of justice, plea bargain  an arrangement between prosecutor and defendant
whereby the defendant pleads guilty to a lesser charge in exchange for a more lenient sentence or
an agreement to drop other charges  people just accept because they are exhausted and don’t
have other money
Main themes and their meaning 3 - War on drugs, prison-building boom and segregation in jail
 denouncing 13th amendment-justified slavery and explaining private prison business “13 th”
-Finding a hustle in jail  denouncing the lack of basic needs and education as a cause of
recidivism  hustle high cost of basic needs + impossibility to get luxury or illegal items
alternative ways to make cash
Main themes and their meaning 4  - Rules of engagement  denouncing the inhumane
conditions in prison as the main cause of recidivism and increasing violence
-Surviving wrongful conviction  drawing attention on the amount of innocents in prison and the
abuse of plea bargain
Main themes and their meaning 5
-How to be a good cop denouncing the difficult condition of law enforcement agents and
denounce prosecutorial misconduct
-Surviving getting out  explaining the difficult health and social conditions of jail survivors
( PTSD, agoraphobia, paranoia, money/ job/ home etc. ) Very difficult to get a job if you are a
former convict
Main themes and their meaning 6 
-Who is a murderer?  debunking the idea that a murderer is always someone who likes to kill
and can never change
-Surviving the prison model since the current system does not work, spread information about
alternative systems
Proposed solutions
 1. End of war on drugs
2. Stop policing for profit
3. Yes to: restorative justice, mental health centres, addiction treatment
4. Yes to: citizen oversight and public servant accountability
Jack London  Pinched
Autobiographical work He was born in San Francisco in 1876  embodies the myth of the self-
made artist he didn’t end school for sometime  and did a year of Universityreaches
popularity through short stories-novels writer but also as a journalist  involved in political
worldsocialist beliefs join a Party at 18 years old
He actually was a kind of literary superstar at his time  adventurer who had become a writer
 self-made author  completely autobiographical
He very much believed in the value of community
In 1909 publishes “Pinched”  he was already very famous  a transposition of himself
pinched concerns London life in prison experience of being arrested
Part of collection  “The Road” - 1907  «The Road», 1907: autobiographical narrative of
London’s life as a tramp in the 1890s «I went on ‘The Road’ because I couldn’t keep away from
it; because […] it was easier to than not to» (incipit to ‘Road Kids and Gay-Cats’, in «The Road»)
London life as a tramp a person who has no means of income and wonders around cities..
London concern with aspect of contemporary life  1890s he came from a lower class  but he
wasn’t forced to become a tramp  he could do something else  but he decides to do it
tramps used to travel around US by boarding trains illegally without paying the ticket and
they got off when the train was approaching the station
It takes place in 1894  year of a strike 1893financial crisis he is stopped by the police
while he is on the road at 5 a.m.put In jail for 30 days  new experience  collect materials to
take revenge against the corrupt system of justice unfairness of the trial, shifting mood in prison
He knows he doesn’t want to experience prison anymore He is so destroyed by what he has
suffered Absurdity in the penitentiary  he gives us a picture of a micro society that is formed
in jail is the reflection of the external societypowerful minority take over a powerless majority
We have his roots in mobility  trampsmain crime is that people move from places to other to
find stability  mobility  was there at the beginning  find a place, settle down and create a
family  moral judgement again tramps  vagrancy is still a crimevagrancy regulation 
unconstitutional  poorness is not a crime  tramps are poor violation of the 14th amendment
of the constitution Vagrancy regulation imply too severe punishment for people who might not
want to be in a situation of poverty..  not the case of London
Vagrancy  a present issue  question Why are we still using a 19th century law that
criminalizes poor people? accused of vagrancy people more or less like in the 19th century
Deciding not to own and to travel is a problem London
Penitentiary as an institution the idea of a cell with inmates solution to problems the best
way to protect and establish social order was imprisonment  they had to be checked  the
penitentiary seemed to be the perfect compromise have an eye on them and make them work
London stress on his Americanness  use of irony  he underlines the Unamericanness of what
he has gone through
He joined the division of coxis army  workers who had lost the job decided to march and
protest after 1893 panic decided to march of Washington DC and other cities
Description of the penitentiary  many ways in which prisoners are controlled
What was his crime?
Sentence to life in jailstraitjacket very heavy torture
He uses slang social and Slavistics subset of the largely formal vocabulary of US English (from
subcultures)ethnicity-experiences-field
He was really aware of who his audience was a lot of his expressions were not standard English
 he also gives indications and explanations (not always) Use of field labels for slang words
In the Italian translation different from the original one Some words are not translated 
expedient to transpose a reality into another one?
In the first line he is going towards the city of Niagara Falls no towards the Niagara Falls it is
kind of disturbing  in Italian the city is interpreted as the falls
Italian translation  It looks more formal
John Law is the police is a name through which we talk about the police  not a person  and
in Italian it is not translated  (like in Italian the Madama)
Different Italian translations of this work  one tries to translate it more literally and the other
tries to find the equivalent of that word in Italian  and also tries to translate it as if it was 1907
 are used terms which are more near the language/slang of that time
When comparing two translations Bad town-città cattiva he says brutta città
It is an actual autobiographyTransposition of facts
ThemesPenitentiary + Language  characteristic of the whole production
Convicted for vagrancy  jump on and of the trains
He describes somehow a chain gang this kind of prison with other people walking on the
street and people that watch them as spectators
Narration of London is pretty descriptive and clearuses a very slangy descriptive language
What is his condition of convict  what is the prison he is describing  a chain gang  people
chuckled together in brutal conditions people that watch them connection between convicts
and the prison with the city in which they are and with the industry of that city
Image of imprisonment he is describing  brutal  language he is using  narrative style
language very slangy  strongly marked language narrativeclear and descriptive
Always a sense of punishment behind prison state always repressed and punished some kind of
attitudes  HerePublicly exposed to punishment  repression of some kind of attitudes but
through punishment  prison doesn’t help to reform and rehabilitate -reintroduce people
He is talking about a positive outcome of prison he came out and prison served as a way to re-
correct his tendencies  he has somehow grown a respect for the system and for the criminal
justicecoming out and deciding of not living that experience again not to be internalized again
Slides  Sociological background 1: vagrancy regulations in the us

Melossi e Pavarini, Carcere e Fabbrica, Il Mulino (1977)The Prison and the Factory
2nd section  2chapters
The book came out at the end of the 70s right after Focault
Prison history in the US
Deviant behaviors the definition is not universal  there are different definition of deviant
behaviour the idea of deviant has much to do with the idea of tolerance  the starting point of
whole idea of punishment and prison is the concept of poverty  because poverty is potentially
deviant Deviance-tolerance + Poverty is potentially deviant because people who don’t have
money are potentially criminalspeople who are potentially deviant must be punished
Punishment vs social inequality
Pre-revolutionary United States before the war against England when US was a colony  at
that time the idea of poverty was very much related to religious ideas
Poverty-religion the idea of manifest destiny  comes out from puritan ideology we were
selected  a special group of people who was selected by god to come here and create this new
world  a sort of garden of Eden on earth interpretation of the bible  they have been
selected  it puts a lot of stress on the idea of ETHICS  moral behaviour people who have
moral behaviour have the moral obligation to take care of people who don’t have it
The sense of community was very strong agricultural society people who were healthy had to
help the poor charity as a sense of redeeming
All the problemscathastrophies were described through this model of religious punishment 
that came from god because he didn’t like the way some people were behaving
The basic concept is the idea of stabilityIsolated communities looking for stability  stability is
related to solitude in this case solitary confinement
Stability translates to immobility  the idea of solitude comes very strong to prison  in solitary
confinement  ex. Albert Woodfoxthe solitary confinement very deeply in the idea of prison in
the US constant state of immobility people have to live in  when in super max maximum
security prisons
Stability vs. Nomadism (=vagrancy/as crime) Is difficult to locate somebody who always move
from one place to another
The idea of stability is what make distinction conflict between Townsmen vs. Dependent outsiders
In order to be an individual you have to be independent  individuality comes with independence
 SELF-MADE MAN  Pioneer
Made some laws to limit the phenomenon of vagrancy
Poverty (local poors) vs. Pauperism (poor strangers)  two different thingsPoverty the
community does something to help them PauperismIs seen as a choice they come looking
for help because they are lazy they don’t like rules  seen as a sort of danger Poverty outside
the community becomes pauperism and is considered a crime
1721-1723 have an official residence and a certificate of residence  society needs stability and
is against vagrancy
Not having a place to stay  seems to define the person as a criminal  like immigrants
Charity assistance to local poor vs. War on immigration
Detention centers for migrants  idea that people coming from other places without money 
are a danger
House of correction (workplace)  where lazy people  vagrancy  and sometimes they are
workingcommunity puts them to work and give them some money  is a correction of
deviance
Jail  initially is exactly like a workhouse  where often the inmates have to work so they have
money to pay the community for being kept are a development of what were before the
poorhouses
House of correction these people has trespassed the law
America becomes very soon industrial  from agriculture to industry  in the US 3.6 million
people lived in the country  cities initially had no more than 150  in 5years factories goes from
2 to 87 from the idea of a local community to an industrial situation where towns begin to grow
larger and there are not enough people to work
At that time  USA three main areas1. South plantations and slaves – 2. North-east 
most industrialized area – 3. West new land based on agriculture  small farms and small
Machinery substitute workers  because there are not enough people to work for such low
wages Luddism  John Ludd
All these situations create more poverty also for people who have a job the money they earn
don’t let them to buy a house  industrialization creates poverty they don’t have money to pay
for rent
Being homeless  has now become such a big phenomenon that US has started to regularize this
kind of situation homelessness
If poverty is a crime then we can put all these people in prison idea of punishment  they are
guilty of being poor legislation of cruelty a punity approach to the issue of poverty  poverty
become pauperism
Criminality and deviance strictly connected to the idea of poverty
Alcohol and poverty also related
Poor-relief  now the origin of poverty is vice  vicious people that are lazy the origin of
poverty is no longer natural as before  religion
Dependence of alcohol you are no independent as you should be  self-made man
All idea coming from religion
American structure pre-revolutionary American structure was based on the family, on the
community 
Poverty a Pauperism  a chosen situation
Government has to educate these people who are lazy, people who don’t want to work you
have to re-educate these people to normal social behaviour put these people in a situation in
which they have to work and can’t drink work becomes a spread out idea
Vagrant childrenorphans becomes the idea of a prerequisite to becoming criminal  a
serious threat that you will become a criminal when you grow up
Workhousewhere people who committed small crimes were put and they worked there
and they didn’t disturb society
Devianceused also for the issue of mental health can act in a very unexpected way 
dangerous are a threat so they are deviant people who are deviant can contaminate society
 they have to be sent away from society
USA was a place whereGood and evil were fighting all the time  alcohol  devilish substance
 that turned good people into evil people
There were trials that were like the inquisition in Spain women were accused of being witches
where women had to confess they were witches they were tortured till the point they couldn’t
take it anymore and confessed false things  things that they hadn’t done (deviant)
Person without mental health  threat to society  taken to resales and sometimes to prison 
also nowadays  problem still present
Mental deviance-criminal deviance  have to be handled by the government  best way 
imprisonment put these people in particular institutions where they don’t have any contact with
the outside also psychiatrist
Issue of prison goes together with the issue of psychiatrist hospitals discipline-work and religion
important for the creation of American prison system
Religion is not a moral choice but it’s a duty which will help youthey will check on you there is
the prison chaplain  Philadelphia system
The original idea is that people who work in jail will become better people  prison a place where
to put people to work  but it was not very successful
We move from the idea of the house of correction to penitentiary  putting them to work  but
prison as an institution people we move from the idea of correction to the idea of punishment
 industrial society you have to be productive if you are not you will become inutile
Prisons become more and more central to the structure of American society  punishment is
based on the idea of intimidation  prisoners are given the possibility to work but if you are not
productive you will be convicted to stricter and hursher punishments
Correction was based on the idea of re-education
There are not enough people workinghuge land huge territories: not many people are available
 so the idea of using inmates for working become very liable to raise productivity
1787  Philadelphia experiment system something meant to be philanthropic  institution
created in Philadelphia was based on the idea of individual isolation, individual confinement
(solitary)  inmates could not talk to each other  the other point  this structure little by little
substituted the old prison in Philadelphia
solitary confinementsilence Absolutely forbidden to talk to each other, meditation not
being able to listen to other people voices  start elaborating their crimes
Religion elevating yourself to silence, to meditation on your crimes (like monks) a kind of
religion experience  but it can turn people crazy, manipulate them not able to re-enter society
This kind of institution is created in order to control everything
People who created Philadelphia prison they thought solitary confinement would be the best
solution They wanted prisoners to be alone because they thought that human context was
actually going to be a crime generating factory  by talking to each other, by communicating with
each other inmates would become and would go deeper into criminal mind and criminal activity
solitary confinement some kind of introspection
40 years after the creation of the Philadelphia system they wrote a report in which they said
this seemed to be the Most humane and civilized way to hold prisoners even if the rate of
prisoners with mental problems and rate of prisoners committing suicide was going up in an
incredible way  at one point people start realising having people not doing anything all day long
 was unproductive  and having people with problems after their solitary confinement  they
thought they should go working for free and so make them work make prison make money
and this little by little starts the practice of putting work into prisonat first people are still
isolated in their cells but then little by little the prisons come up with the idea of common work 
even if is still very stricted little by little people are put to work  after the Philadelphia
experiment based on total solitary confinement combine the idea of segregation /of inmates
living in solitary isolation and making them productive  they have to stay in their cells during the
night and they have to work during the day  this is the Auburn system
In this system it combines solitary confinement at night and common work during the day
This system is called silence system reinforce the possibility they will think about what they have
done based on the way factories are build  equation between inmate and working man 
being in prison becomes like being a working manprison system as a grave people are not
allowed to do what human being usually do communicate, can’t look at other people
Re-educate themselves if you can work you are a good person if you can’t do it you are
deviant production costs are reduced by the use of inmates that don’t cost muchreason to do
this (from the factory)  Is not just because inmates don’t cost but also because workers were
needed  there was little working class  convict employment  debate starts again  convict
employment becomes the way to transform prison into business 
Duty of the company to regulate organization subject prison as a factory  taken out of prison
to work in a factory
At this time  1820s-1830s Many places where convicts are  economical system is still very
agricultural  falsely philanthropic ides  basically two ideas
1. The work is organised by and handled by the administration of jail
2. The work is organised by private company which can either operate inside the jail or outside the
jail set this system is called  state use system state is using the prisoners either to work
directly (sell things)  is also sometimes transformed in a public work system make public
work like railroads, houses work can also have public utility (against human rights) a system
which is not very productive because punishment is stronger than any other consideration
Contract system lease prisoners go out and work for companies system that goes till the
1960s in some states is very cruel and object of protest in the US helps private enterprises
more chances to be re-elected (mayor..)  issue of security
In Philadelphia for the first time the idea that prisons and factories is the same thing work and
sleep at night (isolation) silence system-Auburn system  use machines same system that is
used in a factory  can’t stop or talk
Re-education of the inmate now transformation of the inmate into a proletarian no rights,
work all day to be able to survive
The protests by the working class system against the usage of inmates in company work goes up
till the 1930s convict leasing went on till 1960s in some states it is showing us that the use of
inmates in factories becomes larger and lager but it is not so much successful
The next stepis to create prison as human warehousesplace where you keep prisoners inside
all day without having nothing to do but without having that idea where you will put people in a
place where they have to keep silence and where they can think about their crimes and renovate
themselvesPrison as a warehouse is a system which is still working these day in the US  where
people are put in prison and kept in a very confined space where still there is very little chance of
moving, talking or communicating to other people, where security procedures are very high
(super-max top level of high security place) the transformation of the criminal into a
proletarian is very clear the object is transformation of human being prison produces working
class people prisons becomes like factoriesprisons produce people that work all day long  it
doesn’t produce merchandise but it produces proletaries  distinction is the criminal inmate on
one hand and on the non-owner inmate the criminal is slowly transformed into a person that
doesn’t have properties because he works all day but he doesn’t make any money out of his
work he is condemned to be a person that doesn’t have any money reason why people that
go out of prison often are put back in prisonwhen they go out they don’t have a job
Social control  when you are in prison it doesn’t matter which kind of crime you committed
the criminal is transformed into what we call an institutional deviant a person who has been
acting deviant behaviours and because of these deviant behaviours has been transformed into an
institutional deviant and an institutional deviant is an inmate somebody who lives inside of
an institution  inmate is not the result of a criminal is the result of an institution
Idea that the job of the prison is the transformation of human being someone who doesn’t own
anything is a criminal like a vagrant  but these people are the product of the prisons prison
produces people that do not have a chance to save money so that when they go out they don’t
have any money  they will have to go back to crime because they don’t have any other chance
 very quickly taken back to prison  police is very efficient the NON-owner is a criminal
and if you don’t have a property you are a threat to people that have a property  and the
American system is based on property you count for what you have not for what you are
Deviant behaviours which are very different, different types of crimes and different types of
deviances are made all the same  because they are made all the same through the same
routine (equal for everybody very boring and very punitive) it creates homogeneous
population of people who are subject to the same daily rules of limits for instance we have
Classification of criminals  sent to different parts of prison depending on which crime they
committed  and also solitary confinement which is still a big thing in the US
The absolute solitary confinement never talk to anybody, never read book, never go out for
themselves the guy who spent more time like this 40 years and was innocent
Solitary confinement produces a loss of consciousness, chronic -physical-mental witness and it
produces in the individual the idea that you depend 100% form what other people decide for you
 that transforms a real subject-a criminal (with criminal personality) in an ideal inmate
become all the same-homogeneous  physical punishment becomes mental punishment
these people are mentally tortured they are traumatized now the idea is to oblige the inmate
to model his daily life in a very mechanical way it is what discipline doesit turns the human
being into a mechanical being there is not the idea of rehabilitation away from human rights
Now working is a prize is a bonus  work available in a prison are never enough  they go on
rotation system  this gives everybody a little chance to work  it doesn’t create an alternative
to the confinement (PH) in a factory you are just depending on somebody else’s decisions 
You are somebody who doesn’t own anything and in the Auburn system  the most important
thing on the other hand is the day association and the night separation system  during the day
you are associated (but cannot talk) and during the night you are separated by everybody else
Individual as robot-programmed machines synchronised to some kind of industrial system 
individual associated to homogeneous behaviour
An Example of Restorative Justice with- Sujatha Baliga
Case of Tinker Bell  a young man stole a car of a woman  she wanted back 4000 dollars  but
he and his family lived in a very hard kind of povertyundocumented, working multiple jobs 
the lawyers meets the woman and one of her friend they say they want to meet this
guyduring the conference the friend of the woman says he was just like him before turning
his life around  he asks the young man  what are you good at?  art  payback the debt
with art the woman asks him to paint a Tinker Belle 5 feet tall (like her )  he does it and from
that day on he has stayed out of trouble  follow the suggestions of the friend of the woman 
stay less with your homies, get a job and do what you like  entered the community of artists
Restorative justice is an approach to justice in which one of the responses to a crime is to
organize a meeting between the victim and the offender, sometimes with representatives of the
wider community.
Transformative Justice in Education-Sujatha Baliga
(TJE) there are three areas that TJE is focusing on  1. Transformative and Restorative Justice
2. Teacher education 3. Humanizing approaches in education
Their whole goal is to interrupt racial inequities in education Access to good education  to
students of colourBuilding it through collaboration  and create new type of teachers
specialized in transformative and restorative justice(education )
Sujatha  inspiration from Rita Alfred trained her around Restorative Justice
In this talk, sujatha baliga will discuss her past decade of work to interrupt the school-to-prison
pipeline through restorative justice, with a focus on how adults in schools settings can personally
and interpersonally benefit from restorative principles and practices, and how positive adult
relationships and approaches to conflict transformation can spread to the children they serve.
Transformative Justice in Education (TJE) Center is a university-community collaborative serving
practitioners and researchers committed to disrupting racial inequities in education by creating
restorative, humanizing, justice-seeking teaching and learning communities
Sujatha baliga’s work is characterized by an equal dedication to victims and persons accused of
crimes. She speaks publicly and inside prisons about her own experiences as a survivor of child
sexual abuse and her path to forgiveness. Through the Restorative Justice Project baliga helps
communities implement restorative justice alternatives to juvenile detention and zero-tolerance
school discipline policies
My Life in Prison  Donald Lowrie (March 26, 1875 – June 5, 1925) was an American
newspaper writer and author. He became a well-known advocate of prison reform work upon the
release of his book My Life in Prison, in which he reflects on his ten-year incarceration in San
Quentin State Prison north of San Francisco, California. Convicted of burglary, Lowrie was
sentenced to fifteen years in San Quentin State Prison, where he remained for ten years until his
early release on good behavior in 1911.  Another five years of parole ahead, Lowrie started to
write down his prison story under the auspices of the San Francisco Bulletin. Lowrie's best
known literary work, My Life in Prison, was published in 1912. Stories in the book were not self-
glorifying but rather plain and descriptive accounts of life in prison. Lowrie's simple writing style
helped in obtaining confidence and understanding among his audience. The portrayal of the
desolate and humiliating conditions prisoners had to face at the time was a central theme of "My
Life in Prison".
Donald Lowrie's book "My Life In Prison" gives a fascinating account of the injustices witnessed by
an inmate who served his time at "San Quentin State Prison" in the early 1900's. San Quentin State
Prison is located on Point Quentin in Marin County, California, and is north of San Francisco. It was
opened in July, 1852 and is the oldest prison in California. The state's male death row is located at
San Quentin, as well as it's only gas chamber. In recent years, however, the gas chamber has been
used to carry out lethel injections. Donald Lowrie, a down and out young man, started out the
book by asking several questions to the reader, showing why he committed a crime of which he
would be sentenced to 15 years! Lowrie asks the reader: "Have you ever been broke? Have you
ever been hungry and miserable, not knowing when or where you were going to get your next
meal, nor where you were going to spend your next night? Have you ever made holes in your
shoes trying to get work, meeting rebuff and insults in return for your earnestness and sincerity,
and encountering an utter lack of an understanding of your crying necessity in those with whom
you have pleaded for a chance? Thousands of persons have felt these thoughts, have suffered
these experiences, but very few have done what I did and then told about it, as I am going to tell".
So what did Lowrie do? Lowrie starts out by explaining that when he was a little boy, some
unknown prowler went into his house at night and stole his father's watch. Lowrie claims that
since he was jobless, homeless and futureless, "that childhood incident came back to me, and the
fact that I decided to emulate the unknown gentleman who had appropriated my father's watch
tends to strengthen the claim that man is a simon-pure imitative animal". Lowrie takes a coin and
decides if it comes up heads, he would rob a house, if tails, he would do nothing. Doing the coin
flip under a gas lamp, it came down "heads". Lowrie relates: "the head of "Liberty" stared me in
the face. I flung the coin into the gutter and buttoned my coat. I had suddenly become a criminal".
Next, Lowrie breaks into a house at night and discovers someone else in the house with him.
Everytime he moves, someone moves simultaneously. Lowrie writes: "I must get to the window,
and quickly. As I moved, I noticed a glare on my right. The next instant I realized what had
occurred. I had been dodging my own reflection in the hall mirror". Lowrie got out of the house
with an 18 karat Swiss jewelled watch and three $20 gold pieces. Eating his first breakfast in 84
hours and reflecting on what he just did, he writes: "somehow I felt that there should be a
reaction, that I ought to be horrified at the thought that I committed a crime: but the food tasted
natural and I was happy, actually and unqualifiedly happy. I actually felt absolutely no qualms of
conscience". Proud of his heist, he pawns the watch for $80 and realizes he needs sleep. Right
before Lowrie goes to a rooming house, the pawn shop owner alerts the authorities of his
suspicious customer and Lowrie is arrested. Lowrie explains next: "Against the advice of counsel, I
pleaded not guilty and stood trial before the Superior Court. Before the trial was half over,
however, I regretted my decision". Lowrie goes in front of a jury and is sentenced to 15 years in
San Quentin State Prison. Lowrie states: "I was taken to San Quentin on the 24th day of July,
1901". Although this book predates both World War One and Two, it's antiquity doesn't tarnish it's
message: "Imprisonment only makes bad criminals worse criminals". Although Lowrie tries to
impress the reader with words that even I, with a fairly vast knowledge of esoteric vocabulary had
to frequently search deeply and laboriously into a dictionary to keep up with his story, he
presented a very clear and lucid journey into the hell of incarceration one faced back in 1901. 
It doesn't seem, although judged vicariously, that things have changed much even today. Lowrie
detailed multiple instances of torture (several grueling instances are expounded upon in the book,
especially in conjunction with the use of a straight jacket in an unlit dungeon for minor infractions)
that the reader of this book will definately conclude is unhumane and barbaric. Here is Lowrie's
description of his encounters with "The Jacket": "They took me down to the dungeon and onto
one of the dark cells. There was an old mattress on the floor and they told me to lay down on it,
and they put the jacket on me. It held my arms so I couldn't move them, but that wasn't enough.
They turned me over on my stomach and laced me up. R....(name intentionally ommitted) put his
foot in the middle of my back so as to pull the ropes up tight, and when I hollered he laughed.
After they had me laced up so I could hardly breathe they went out and shut the door. It was
about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, but when the door was shut it was just like night. For half an hour
or so I didn't suffer much, but gradually I began to feel smothered, and my heart hurt me when it
beat. I got scared and began to holler, but that only made my heart hurt more, and I was afraid I
might die if I didn't lie still. Pretty soon my arms and hands began to tingle, just like pins and
needles sticking in them, and this got so bad that I couldn't stand it and I began yelling again".
Lowrie also comments further on the effects of a straight jacket's barbaric use as a means of
maintaining order. Lowrie asserts:"I saw scores of cases and I talked with dozens of victims
immediately after their punishment. The marks of the ropes, the red stripes around the torso and
limbs, were always visible and the skin irritated in between. Quite often a man was unable to walk
without assistance, and those who could walk did so uncertainly and feebly, somewhat like a man
who is drunk". Is this how society corrected a wayward citizen in the early 20th century, or did this
foster incorrigibility? This book's copyright is 1915. One wonder's how strict the laws must have
been at the turn of the century for a first time offender to get 15 years for simple burglary with no
weapon involved in an unoccupied dwelling. To get a feel of San Quentin and it's inmates
attitudes, Lowrie wrote: "Like the public in general, I had imagined that men in prison went around
with elongated countences and an expression of chronic gloom. Instead I found smiles and
indifference-or feigned indifference. Every man realizes that self-pity, or a bid for sympathy, is
dispicable. The jocular sarcasm I learned was merely an effort to delude themselves and each
other that they didn't mind (being incarcerated). It was the innate, manly trait of "gameness".
Many a smiling face in prison, just as in the world at large, conceals a tortured, dispairing soul".
There are numerous stories Lowrie covers, e.g. the problem of tuberculosis (then called
"consumption"), escape attempts that ended in guards committing cold blooded murder of
inmates, how everything in the penitentiary is done "fast" (bathing, shaving, even an execution
was done in less than three minutes), the problems of morphine, opium and heroin smuggled inth
San Quentin. However, most disturbingly, the anecdotes of the stories of straight jacket torture
were the most disturbing part of this book. One must remember, that the inmate was laid on a
mattress face down in a pitch black dungeon for a week a a time tied in a super tight straight
jacket. Could you imagine if you committed a minor crime and found yourself incarcerated and
subjected to this mistreatment? Lowrie reminds the reader that during a bout with "the jacket",
the inmate, with no food nor water, for a week at a time one would lay in pitch black and
repeatedly urinate and defecate on themselves. Lowrie states that many a prisoner would become
deranged in the process and aside from minor infractions, it was also used as a confession
technique when the warden wanted to find out how an inmate acquired narcotics. As far as capital
punishment, Lowrie voiced strong opinions in "My Life In Prison". Here were his thoughts: "It
requires 12 to 18 seconds from the time a condemned man is started from the death chamber
until he is dangling at the end of the rope. Why this scientific swiftness? Why the electric chair
which is supposed to snuff out life in a flash? If the murder really is a deterrant, why not torture
the victim? Why not strangle him to death slowly? Why not do it in the market place, where men
and women may come and see? They used to have public executions. Why have they ceased to be
public? Because it was found that the sight of a fellow creature being murdered in cold blood
hardened those who saw it done. It was realized that such a sight was not good for human eyes
and ears. And after all is said and done, it is the poor man for whom the gallows waits. During all
the years that men have been murdered by the State at San Quentin, only one man with money
has been hanged. Chinese, Indians, negroes, cholos, cripples and dements have died in mid-air,
but only one man died who had money. In murder trials where high-priced lawyers are engaged it
is the opposing lawyers, not the defendant, on trial". Finally, Lowrie creates a convincing argument
that spending time in jail creates the following: "I say calmly and deliberately that few, if any, men
are deterred from the commission of crime by fear of the consequences, even after they know the
consequences down to the last sickening detail. If I felt that anything beneficial to anyone were
accomplished by these conditions, I should have nothing to say. But I know that degradation and a
spirit of revenge, a determination to retaliate, to "get even" is frequently the result". Remember,
Donald Lowrey wrote these words in 1915. History reminds us that Adolf Hitler formulated most
of his anti- semetic hatred of Jews and other minorities and visions of world conquest and
domination while he was imprisoned in Germany following World War One. In fact, prison is
exactly where he wrote his book "Mein Mampf" where he set down all the destructive roots as to
what would follow in the Second World War where over 70 million men, women and innocent
children perished. The question is: would this have happened if Lowrie's ideas of the uselessness
of incarceration and the breeding of "hate and the spirit of revenge" had been listened to? There
has got to be a better way! Regardless, if you can find this book, there are priceless lessons of
man's inhumanity and the faults of our systems of criminal correction that exist even today!
Are Prisons Obsolete? Angela Davis
Why obsolete?because they increase crime prison system should be reformed  prison is
that continue of correcting some tendencies
If you commit a crime you normally go to jail  but In the United States-where capital punishment
has not yet been abolished, a small but significant number of people are sentenced to death for
what are considered especially grave crimes you die immediately
Many people in the US fighting to abolish the death penalty. In fact, it has already been abolished
in most countries prison abolition system  long history  prison activists-even those who
consciously refer to themselves as ”anti-prison activists”- are simply trying to ameliorate prison
conditions or perhaps to reform the prison in more fundamental ways
The prison is considered so ”natural” that it is extremely hard to imagine life without it.
Many people have already reached the conclusion that the death penalty is an outmoded form
of punishment that violates basic principles of human rights The question of whether the
prison has become an obsolete institution has become especially urgent in light of the fact that
more than two million people now inhabit US prisons
Obsolence  how so many people can end up in prison without asking if their incarceration is
efficient  right
The larger number of inmates mass incarceration  by putting more people in prison they
would keep communities free of crime  introduced  longer senteces and certain
imprisonment
More people in prison means more facilities, more industry food… more inmates provoked the
introduction of more actors industries money business from now on we can talk about
Prison Industrial Complex
Tough on crime mass incarceration  Ronald Raegan  industries  that helped him
The racial composition of this prison population is revealing. Latinos, who are now in the majority,
account for 35.2 percent African-Americans 30 percent; and white prisoners 29.2 percent.
There are now more women in prison in the state of California than there were in the entire
country in the early 1970s
Why do prisons tend to make people think that their own rights and liberties are more secure than
they would be if prisons did not exist? Her analysis of the prison industrial complex in California
describes these developments as a response to surpluses of capital, land, labor, and state capacity.
California’s new prisons are sited on devalued rural land, most, in fact on formerly irrigated
agricultural acres made them to work
People wanted to believe that prisons would not only reduce crime, they would also provide jobs
and stimulate economic development in out-of-the-way places that’s why people didn’t fight
back the construction of new prisons
In black-latinos communitiesIt is as if prison were an inevitable fact of life, like birth and death
We take prisons for granted but are often afraid to face the realities they produce. After all, no
one wants to go to prison.
Bush-Raegan Because of the persistent power of racism in the authorities such as politicians-
police officers , ”criminals” are, in the collective imagination, fantasized as people of colour
Simply, this is the era of the prison industrial complex.  The prison has become a black hole into
which the detritus of contemporary capitalism is deposited. Mass imprisonment generates
profits as it devours social wealth, and thus it tends to reproduce the very conditions that lead
people to prison.  abbassa lo stato sociale  a circle
More prisons were needed because there was more crime. In order to understand the
proliferation of prisons and the rise of the prison industrial complex, it might be helpful to think
further about the reasons we so easily take prisons for granted. familiarity with the prison
comes in part from representations of prisons in film and other visual media. The history of
visuality linked to the prison is also a main reinforcement of the institution of the prison as a
naturalized part of our social landscape The prison is one of the most important features of our
image environment. This has caused us to take the existence of prisons for granted. The prison has
become a key ingredient of our common sense. It is there, all around us. We do not question
whether it should exist. It has become so much a part of our lives that it requires a great feat of
the imagination to envision life beyond the prison In other words, the increased flexibility that
has allowed for critical discussion of the problems associated with the expansion of prisons also
restricts this discussion to the question of prison reform. Prison reform  elimination of sexual
abuse and medical neglect in women’s prison, Debates about strategies of decarceration
Chapter 2. Slavery, Civil Rights, and Abolitionist Perspectives Toward Prison
Within the history of the United States the system of slavery immediately comes to mind.
Although as early as the American Revolution antislavery advocates promoted the elimination of
African bondage, it took almost a century to achieve the abolition of the ”peculiar institution”
what is now happening with the prison complex and the fight about injustice incarceration ca be
compared to slavery  The belief in the permanence of slavery was so widespread that even
white abolitionists found it difficult to imagine black people as equals.
Although government, corporations, and the dominant media try to represent racism as an
unfortunate aberration of the past that has been relegated to the graveyard of u.s. history, it
continues to profoundly influence contemporary structures, attitudes, and behaviors.
Slavery, lynching, and segregation are certainly compelling examples of social institutions that, like
the prison, were once considered to be as everlasting as the sun now prison is normality
before normality was slavery
What is the relationship between these historical expressions of racism and the role of the prison
system today?  the racism that always existed against all not-white people is now part and of
the prison system  and it is so rooted that we are used to it and we don’t question it anymore
we don’t notice it it is normal for us
Are prisons racist institutions? Is racism so deeply entrenched in the institution of the prison that it
is not possible to eliminate one without eliminating the other?
The penitentiary as an institution that simultaneously punished and rehabilitated its inhabitants
was a new system of punishment that first made its appearance in the United States around the
time of the American Revolution.
One may perceive in the penitentiary many reflections of chattel slavery as it was practiced in the
South. Both institutions subordinated their subjects to the will of others. Like Southern slaves,
prison inmates followed a daily routine specified by their superiors. Both institutions reduced their
subjects to dependence on others for the supply of basic human services such as food and shelter.
Both isolated their subjects from the general population by confining them to a fixed habitat. And
both frequently coerced their subjects to work, often for longer hours and for less compensation
than free laborers.
Particularly in the United race has always played a central role in constructing presumptions of
criminality The new Black Codes proscribed a range of actions-such as vagrancy, absence from
work, breach of job contracts, the possession of firearms, and insulting gestures or acts-that were
criminalized only when the person charged was black
In the immediate aftermath of slavery, the southern states hastened to develop a criminal justice
system that could legally restrict the possibilities of freedom for newly released slaves. Black
people became the prime targets of a developing convict lease system, referred to by many as a
reincarnation of slavery. The Mississippi Black Codes, for example, declared vagrant anyone who
was guilty of theft, had run away [from a job, apparently], was drunk
The expansion of the convict lease system focused far more intensely on black people than on
whites, defined southern criminal justice largely as a means of controlling black labor. Among the
multifarious debilitating legacies of slavery was the conviction that blacks could only labor in a
certain way-the way experience had shown them to have labored in the past: in gangs, subjected
to constant supervision, and under the discipline of the lash  Since these were the requisites of
slavery, and since slaves were blacks, Southern whites almost universally concluded that blacks
could not work unless subjected to such intense surveillance and discipline  even if not slaves
According to descriptions by contemporaries, the conditions under which leased convicts and
county chain gangs lived were far worse than those under which black people had lived as slaves
They point out-and this, she says, is indeed partially true-that in the aftermath of emancipation,
large numbers of black people were forced by their new social situation to steal in order to
survive. It was the transformation of petty thievery into a felony that relegated substantial
numbers of black people to the “involuntary servitude” legalized by the Thirteenth Amendment.
One of the many ruses racism achieves is the virtual erasure (elimination-Malc-X) of historical
contributions by people of color. Here we have a penal system that was racist in many respects-
discriminatory arrests and sentences, conditions of work, modes of punishment-together with the
racist erasure of the significant contributions made by black convicts as a result of racist coercion.
In the late nineteenth century, coal companies wished to keep their skilled prison laborers for as
long as they could, leading to denials of ”short time”. Today, a slightly different economic
incentive can lead to similar consequences. CCA [Corrections Corporation of America] is paid per
prisoner.  Longer prison terms mean greater profits.
While the convict lease system was legally abolished, its structures of exploitation have reemerged
in the patterns of privatization, and, more generally, in the wide-ranging corporatization of
punishment that has produced a prison industrial complex.
Chapter 3. Imprisonment and Reform As I have already indicated, the origins of the prison are
associated with the American Revolution and therefore with the resistance to the colonial power
of England.
The process through which imprisonment developed into the primary mode of state inflicted
punishment was very much related to the rise of capitalism and to the appearance of a new set of
ideological conditions.
The Western State Penitentiary in Pittsburgh, based on a revised architectural model of the
panopticon, opened in 1826. But the penitentiary had already made its appearance in the United
States. Pennsylvania’s Walnut Street Jail housed the first state penitentiary in the United States,
when a portion of the jail was converted in 1790 from a detention facility to an institution housing
convicts whose prison sentences simultaneously became punishment and occasions for penitence
and reform jail before were only punishment were only Detention facility
Walnut Street’s austere regime-total isolation in single cells where prisoners lived, ate, worked,
read the Bible (if, indeed, they were literate), and supposedly reflected and repentedcame to be
known as the Pennsylvania system. This regime would constitute one of that era’s two major
models of imprisonment. Although the other model, developed in Auburn, New York, was viewed
as a rival to the Pennsylvania system, the philosophical basis of the two models did not differ
substantively. The Pennsylvania model, which eventually crystallized in the Eastern State
Penitentiary in Cherry Hill-the plans for which were approved in 1821-emphasized total isolation,
silence, and solitude, whereas the Auburn model called for solitary cells but labor in common. This
mode of prison labor, which was called congregate, was supposed to unfold in total silence.
Prisoners were allowed to be with each other as they worked, but only under condition of silence.
Because of its more efficient labor practices, Auburn eventually became the dominant model, both
for the United States and Europe.
The current construction and expansion of state and federal super-maximum security prisons,
whose putative purpose is to address disciplinary problems within the penal system, draws upon
the historical conception of the penitentiary, then considered the most progressive form of
punishment  super-max refers to the past not innovative
Inmates in super-maximum security facilities are usually held in single cell lock-down, commonly
referred to as solitary confinement . . . [C]ongregate activities with other prisoners are usually
prohibited; other prisoners cannot even be seen from an inmate’s cell; communication with other
prisoners is prohibited or difficult (consisting, for of shouting from cell to cell); visiting and
telephone privileges are limited
Literature has continued to play a role in campaigns around the prison. During the twentieth
century, prison writing, in particular! has periodically experienced waves of popularity. The public
recognition of prison writing in the United States has historically coincided with the influence of
social movements calling for prison reform and/or abolition. Robert Burns’ I Am a Fugitive from
a Georgia Chain and the 1932 Hollywood film upon which it was based, played a central role in the
campaign to abolish the chain gang.  important also Soledad Brother
If the publication of Malcolm X’s autobiography marks a pivotal moment in the development of
prison literature and a moment of vast promise for prisoners who try to make education a major
dimension of their time behind bars, contemporary prison practices are systematically dashing
those hopes. In the 1950s, Malcolm’s prison education was a dramatic example of prisoners’
ability to turn their incarceration into a transformative experience. With no available means of
organizing his quest for knowledge, he proceeded to read a dictionary, copying each word in his
own hand Prisoners very early recognized the fact that they needed to be better educated, that
the more education they had, the better they would be able to deal with themselves and their
problems, the problems of the prisons and the problems of the communities from which most of
them came.
Chapter 4. How Gender Structures The Prison System
Women have been left out of the public discussions about the expansion of the u.s. prison system
Addressing issues that are specific to women’s prisons is of vital importance, but it is equally
important to shift the way we think about the prison system as a whole.
Women prisoners have produced a small but impressive body of literature that has illuminated
significant aspects of the organization of punishment that would have otherwise remained
unacknowledged
I have quoted this passage so extensively because it exposes an everyday routine in women’s
prisons that verges on sexual assault as much as it is taken for granted.
Despite the availability of perceptive portrayals of life in women’s prisons, it has been extremely
difficult to persuade the public-and even, on occasion, to persuade prison activists who are
primarily concerned with the plight of male prisoners-of the centrality of gender to an
understanding of state punishment  despite literature  people always care less about women
Although men constitute the vast majority of prisoners in the world, important aspects of the
operation of state punishment are missed if it is assumed that women are marginal and thus
undeserving of attention.  The most frequent justification for the inattention to women
prisoners and to the particular issues surrounding women’s imprisonment is the relatively small
proportion of women among incarcerated populations throughout the world
This recent rise in the rate of women’s imprisonment points directly to the economic context that
produced the prison industrial complex and that has had a devastating impact on men and women
alike.  both affected in the same way
It should also be kept in mind that until the abolition of slavery, the vast majority of black women
were subject to regimes of punishment that differed significantly from those experienced by white
women. As slaves, they were directly and often brutally disciplined for conduct considered
perfectly normal in a context of freedom. Slave punishment was visibly gendered-special penalties,
were, for example, reserved for pregnant women unable to reach the quotas that determined how
long and how fast they should work
What is not generally recognized is the connection between state-inflicted corporal punishment
and the physical assaults on women in domestic spaces. This form of bodily discipline has
continued to be routinely meted out to women in the context of intimate relationships, but it is
rarely understood to be related to state punishment.
Male punishment was linked ideologically to penitence and reform. The very forfeiture of rights
and liberties implied that self-reflection, religious study, and work, male convicts could achieve
redemption and could recover these rights and liberties. However, since women were not
acknowledged as securely in possession of these rights, they were not eligible to participate in this
process of redemption.
According to dominant views, women convicts were irrevocably fallen women, with no possibility
of salvation.  If male criminals were considered to be public individuals who had simply violated
the social contract, female criminals were seen as having transgressed fundamental moral
principles of womanhood.
Twenty-one years after the first English reformatory for women was established in London in
1853, the first U.S.  reformatory for women was opened in Indiana. The aim was to train the
prisoners in the “important” female role of domesticity. Thus an important role of the reform
movement in women’s prisons was to encourage and ingrain “appropriate” gender roles, such as
vocational training in cooking, sewing and cleaning. To accommodate these goals, the reformatory
cottages were usually designed with kitchens, living rooms, and even some nurseries for prisoners
with infants. However, this feminized public punishment did not affect all women in the same way.
When black and Native American women were imprisoned in reformatories, they often were
segregated from white women
In part as a reaction to the invisibility of women prisoners in this movement and in part as a
consequence of the rising women’s liberation movement, specific campaigns developed in defense
of the rights of women prisoners. Many of these campaigns put forth-and continue to advance-
radical critiques of state repression and violence. Within the correctional community, however,
feminism has been influenced largely by liberal constructions of gender equality. In
contrast to the nineteenth-century reform movement, which was grounded in an ideology of
gender difference, late-twentieth-century ”reforms” have relied on a ”separate but equal” model.
This “separate but equal” approach often has been applied uncritically, ironically resulting in
demands for more repressive conditions in order to render women’s facilities ”equal” to men’s.
Paradoxically, demands for parity with men’s prisons, instead of creating greater educational,
vocational, and health opportunities for women prisoners, often have led to more repressive
conditions for women As the level of repression in women’s prisons increases, and,
paradoxically, as the influence of domestic prison regimes recedes, sexual abuse-which, like
domestic violence, is yet another dimension of the privatized punishment of women-has become
an institutionalized component of punishment behind prison walls. Although guard-on-prisoner
sexual abuse is not sanctioned as such, the widespread leniency with which offending officers are
treated suggests that for women, prison is a space in which the threat of sexualized violence that
looms in the larger socie-ty is effectively sanctioned as a routine aspect of the landscape of
punishment behind prison walls.
According to a 1996 Human Rights Watch report on the sexual abuse of women in U.S. prisons:
Our findings indicate that being a woman prisoner in U.S. state prisons can be a terrifying
experience. If you are sexually abused, you cannot escape from your abuser is always there
Studies on female prisons throughout the world indicate that sexual abuse is an abiding, though
unacknowledged, form of punishment to which women, who have the misfortune of being sent to
prison, are subjected. This is one aspect of life in prison that women can expect to encounter,
either directly or indirectly, regardless of the written policies that govern the institution
Sexual abuse is surreptitiously incorporated into one of the mast habitual aspects of women’s
imprisonment, the strip search. As activists and prisoners themselves have painted out, the
state itself is directly implicated in this routinization of sexual abuse, bath in permitting such
conditions that render women vulnerable to explicit sexual coercion carried out by guards and
other prison staff and by incorporating into routine policy such practices as the strip search and
body cavity search.
But why is an understanding of the pervasiveness of sexual abuse in women’s prisons an
important element of a radical analysis of the prison system, and especially of those forward-
looking analyses that lead us in the direction of abolition?
The increasing evidence of a U.S. prison industrial complex with global resonances leads us to
think about the extent to which the many corporations that have acquired an investment in the
expansion of the prison system are, like the state, directly implicated in an institution that
perpetuates violence against women.
Chapter 5. The Prison Industrial Complex
The exploitation of prison labor by private corporations is one aspect among an array of
relationships linking corporations, government, correctional communities, and media. These
relationships constitute what we now call a prison industrial complex. The term ”prison industrial
complex” was introduced by activists and scholars to contest prevailing beliefs that increased
levels of crime were the root cause of mounting prison populations. Instead, they argued, prison
construction and the attendant drive to fill these new structures with human bodies have been
driven by ideologies of racism and the pursuit of profit. To understand the social meaning of the
prison today within the context of a developing prison industrial complex means that punishment
has to be conceptually severed from its seemingly indissoluble link with crime.
The notion of a prison industrial complex insists on understandings of the punishment process that
take into account economic and political structures and ideologies, rather than focusing
myopically on individual criminal conduct and efforts to “curb crime.” The fact, for example, that
many corporations with global markets now rely on prisons as an important source of profit helps
us to understand the rapidity with which prisons began to proliferate precisely at a time when
official studies indicated that the crime rate was falling.
But an analysis of the relationship between the military and prison industrial complex is not only
concerned with the transference of technologies from the military to the law enforcement
industry. What may be even more important to our discussion is the extent to which both share
important structural features. Both systems generate huge profits from processes of social
destruction.
Punishment no longer constitutes a marginal area of the larger economy. Corporations
producing all kinds of goods.
The massive prison-building project that began in the 1980s created the means of concentrating
and managing what the capitalist system had implicitly declared to be a human surplus. In the
meantime, elected officials and the dominant media justified the new draconian sentencing
practices, sending more and more people to prison in the frenzied drive to build more and more
prisons by arguing that this was the only way to make our communities safe from murderers,
rapists, and robbers.
The prison industrial complex is fueled by privatization patterns that, it will be recalled, have also
drastically transformed health care, education, and other areas of our lives. Moreover, the prison
privatization trends-both the increasing presence of corporations in the prison economy and the
establishment of private prisons-are reminiscent of the historical efforts to create a profitable
punishment industry based on the new supply of “free” black male laborers
But to understand the reach of the prison industrial complex, it is not enough to evoke the
looming power of the private prison business. By definition, those companies court the state
within and outside the United States for the purpose of obtaining prison contracts, bringing
punishment and profit together in a menacing embrace.
As compared to earlier historical eras, the prison economy is no longer a small, identifiable, and
containable set of markets. Many corporations, whose names are highly recognizable by “free
world” consumers, have discovered new possibilities for expansion by selling their products to
correctional facilities.
Private prisons are direct sources of profit for the companies that run them, but public prisons
have become so thoroughly saturated with the profit-producing products and services of private
corporations that the distinction is not as meaningful as one might suspect.
The global prison economy is indisputably dominated by the United States. This economy not
only consists of the products, services, and ideas that are directly marketed to other governments,
but it also exercises an enormous influence over the development of the style of state punishment
throughout the world source of inspiration for other countries example  Turkey  ”IF-
Type” prisons in Turkey were inspired by the recent emergence of the super-maximum security-or
super max-prison in the United States
Radical opposition to the global prison industrial complex sees the antiprison movement as a vital
means of expanding the terrain on which the quest for democracy will unfold. This movement is
thus antiracist, anticapitalist, antisexist, and antihomophobic. It calls for the abolition of the
prison as the dominant mode of punishment but at the same time recognizes the need for genuine
solidarity with the millions of men, women, and children who are behind bars. A major challenge
of this movement is to do the work that will create more humane, habitable environments for
people in prison without bolstering the permanence of the prison system.
Chapter 6. Abolitionists Alternatives
If jails and prisons are to be abolished, then what will replace them?
In other words, we would not be looking for prison like substitutes for the prison, such as house
arrest safeguarded by electronic surveillance bracelets. Rather, positing de-carceration as our
overarching strategy, we would try to envision a continuum of alternatives to imprisonment-
demilitarization of schools, revitalization of education at all levels, a health system that provides
free physical and mental care to all, and a justice system based on reparation and reconciliation
rather than retribution and vengeance.
The creation of new institutions that lay claim to the space now occupied by the prison can
eventually start to crowd out the prison so that it would inhabit increasingly smaller areas of our
social and psychic landscape. Schools can therefore be seen as the most powerful alternative to
jails and prisons. Unless the current structures of violence are eliminated from schools in
impoverished communities of color-including the presence of armed security guards and police
and unless schools become places that encourage the joy of learning, these schools will remain the
major conduits to prisons. The alternative would be to transform schools into vehicles for
decarceration. Within the health care system, it is important to emphasize the current scarcity of
institutions available to poor people who suffer severe mental and emotional illnesses. There are
currently more people with mental and emotional disorders in jails and prisons than in mental
institutions. This call for new facilities designed to assist poor people should not be taken as an
appeal to re-institute the old system of mental institutions, which were and in many cases still are-
as repressive as the prisons. It is simply to suggest that the racial and class disparities in care
available to the affluent and the deprived need to be eradicated, thus creating another vehicle for
decarceration.
What is the prison industrial complex? Put people in prison for economic reasons  to have a
Guadagno a way of exploiting prison for economic reasons Prison labour is cheaper  like 2
dollars per hour
An age of mass incarceration  moment of huge/intense increase of the prison population in the
US a moment when people begin to be massively incarcerated  based on races- ethnicity 
the minorities
Just a way of criminalizing black people  war on drugs
The role of the state in the prison industrial complex surveillance and repression  idea of
surveying people  relationship between prison and surveillancea way of surveying
people(Panopticon central tower that control all the cells around it in circle)idea in the US
prison surveying controlling and repressing
Angela Davis says that Prison is a way of getting rid of certain problems like poor-homeless
and so onand is pretty rare that people come out of prison reformed
The new American worker the convict
The penal system as a whole does not create wealth  not an economic profit  state does not
help solving the problem like helping the homeless with money and so on
She clearly says she is a prison abolitionist
Restorative justicenot go back to prison  a different way of somehow elaborating the crime
What is the relationship between prison and slavery?  Why we consider prison as a continuum
of slavery?  the 13th amendment  prison and slavery both working and exploitedslavery
was a form of imprisonment  plantation  cotton fields  main connection work  both put
at work  exploited underpaid in both cases there is a form of punishment of punishing
people  public spectacle of torture  to intimidate  punishment (now like solitary
confinement)  punishing them emotionally and physically
Posing in Prison: Family Photographs, Emotional Labor, and Carceral Intimacy “Posing in
Prison” examines vernacular photography and studio portraiture taken inside US prisons through
an investigation of the production practices and the circulation of these images in and out of
prisons. The photographs include images that document family visits to incarcerated relatives and
portraits taken by incarcerated photographers in makeshift studios designed in prison. The article
considers how such photographs function as practices of intimacy and belonging for those
imprisoned and their loved ones
Photograph documenting a family visit to an imprisoned relative and was unaware of how
common these images are among certain populations of blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, and
poor whites—groups most affected by mass incarceration
Vernacular Photography and Carceral Scenes Prison portraiture and photographs of family visits
are part of the tradition of vernacular photography. Geoffrey Batchen (2000: 262) examines
vernacular photography as a “non-category” of everyday images that account for the vast majority
of photographs taken since the medium’s invention in the early to mid-nineteenth century. Yet
these photographs are rarely included in museum collections, public histories, and archives (ibid.).
Vernacular prison portraits are produced in makeshift studios and in prison visiting rooms.
Incarcerated artists paint backdrops and, in some cases, design sets for their photo shoots.
Occasionally, minimal props and accessories are available for staging the photographs. These
makeshift studios exist in many prisons across the United States. The photographs capture
individual and group portraits commissioned by incarcerated people and document visits from
family and friends. Incarcerated people and their visitors purchase these images for typically
$2.00–$3.00 per copy, making this a lucrative business for US prisons.
Thus vernacular photographs by prisoners serve a normalizing function in legitimating intimate
bonds and familial attachments among criminalized populations. At the same time, these images
function as points of access to observe the quotidian familiarity of penal settings for large swaths
of US subjects as they navigate familial and intimate relations through the porous and punitive
boundaries of carcerality. There are millions of these images that are sent out of US prisons each
year to relatives, loved ones, and friends. In terms of sheer volume, prison photography is one of
the largest practices of vernacular photography in the contemporary United States. Like most
vernacular photography, these images are primarily stored in private collections, housed in
shoeboxes, photo albums, drawers, and closets. Until recently, the images have had little visibility
outside of their circulation among incarcerated people and their personal networks. However, in
the past few years, vernacular prison portraits have circulated more broadly in public culture
through exhibitions, art auctions, and blogs dedicated to prison culture.
On February 2, 2015, Allen (the cousin of the author) was released from an Ohio prison after
serving almost twenty-one years. He walked out of the facility with his mother and sister
accompanying him. They walked to the family car and took a “group selfie.” It was his first
photograph outside of prison. In the weeks after his release, Allen used the smartphone that his
mother purchased for him and took digital images of many of the photographs that his relatives
had sent him over the past two decades. He then sent those photographs to us in text messages
and e-mails with notes of love and playful emoticons. Many of the images that he returned were
photographs that we had forgotten about. Allen had archived them. In many respects, he has
become the keeper of our family’s photographic record. For the next fve years, he will be heavily
monitored through parole. Nevertheless, he told me to refer to him in this article’s conclusion as a
“free man.”  Nicole R. Fleetwood
Can Forgiveness Play a Role in Criminal Justice?  Conor murders her girlfriend Ann and her
parents forgive him What Campbell didn’t realize was that the Grosmaires didn’t want Conor to
spend his life in prison. The exchange in Campbell’s office turned their understanding of Conor’s
situation upside down and gave them an unexpected challenge to grapple with. “It was easy to
think, Poor Conor, I wouldn’t want him to spend his life in prison, but he’s going to have to,” Kate
says. “Now Jack Campbell’s telling me he doesn’t have to. So what are you going to do?”
Most modern justice systems focus on a crime, a lawbreaker and a punishment. But a concept
called “restorative justice” considers harm done and strives for agreement from all concerned —
the victims, the offender and the community — on making amends. And it allows victims, who
often feel shut out of the prosecutorial process, a way to be heard and participate. In this country,
restorative justice takes a number of forms, but perhaps the most prominent is restorative-justice
diversion. There are not many of these programs — a few exist on the margins of the justice
system in communities like Baltimore, Minneapolis and Oakland, Calif. — but, according to a
University of Pennsylvania study in 2007, they have been effective at reducing recidivism.
Typically, a facilitator meets separately with the accused and the victim, and if both are willing to
meet face to face without animosity and the offender is deemed willing and able to complete
restitution, then the case shifts out of the adversarial legal system and into a parallel restorative-
justice process. All parties — the offender, victim, facilitator and law enforcement — come
together in a forum sometimes called a restorative-community conference. Each person speaks,
one at a time and without interruption, about the crime and its effects, and the participants come
to a consensus about how to repair the harm done.
By midsummer, Andy Grosmaire was meeting Michael McBride regularly for lunch. He knew that,
in a way, the McBrides had lost a child, too. At one of these lunches, he told Michael about
restorative justice. Maybe this could be a way to help Conor. Julie McBride, who wasn’t sleeping
much anyway, started spending late nights online looking for the person who might be able to
help them change their son’s fate. Her research led her to Sujatha Baliga, a former public defender
who is now the director of the restorative-justice project at the National Council on Crime and
Delinquency in Oakland.
Baliga was born and raised in Shippensburg, Pa., the youngest child of Indian immigrants. From as
far back as Baliga can remember, she was sexually abused by her father.
The families called for help from Baliga and she didn’t think this restorative justice in case of
murder was going to happen  but Julie told that the parents of the victim agreed she was
surprised and when Kate called her then started that restorative justice Three weeks after the
conference, citing Conor’s “senseless act of domestic violence,” Campbell wrote the Grosmaires to
inform them he would offer Conor a choice: a 20-year sentence plus 10 years of probation, or 25
years in prison. Conor took the 20 years, plus probation.