Showing papers on "Prison published in 2014"

The growth of incarceration in the United States: exploring causes and consequences

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Arrested justice: black women, violence and America's prison nation

Abstract: ‘Arrested Justice’ framed within a black feminist perspective of activism and resistance is an excellent read. In search of social justice for low-income black (African American) women, the text is...

Global Lockdown : Race, Gender, and the Prison-Industrial Complex

Abstract: Introduction: Feminist Critiques, Transnational Landscapes, Abolitionist Visions, Julia Sudbury Part I: Criminalizing Survival 1. Domestic Enemies and Carceral Circles: African Women and Criminalization in Italy, Asale Angel-Ajani 2. Challenging the Criminalization of Women Who Resist, Lisa Neve and Kim Pate 3. Victims and Agents of Crime: The New Crusade Against Trafficking, Kamala Kempadoo 4. The Prison-Industrial Complex in Indigenous California, Stormy Ogden 5. Through the Eyes of a Strong Black Woman Survivor of Domestic Violence: An Australian Story, Robbie Kina 6. Queering Antiprison Work: African American Lesbians in the Juvenile Justice System, Beth Richie 7. Imprisoned for Zina: Geopolitics and Women's Narratives in Pakistan, Shahnaz Khan Part II: Women in the Global Prison 8. Modern Day Slavery: Inside the Prison-Industrial Complex, Kemba Smith 9. Remaking Big Government: Immigration and Crime Control in the United States, Rebecca Bohrman and Naomi Murakawa 10. Las Mujeres Olvidadas: Women in Mexican Prisons, Cristina Jose-Kampfner, Translated by Dereka Rushbrook 11. Latinas and the War on Drugs in the United States, Latin America and Europe, Juanita Diaz-Cotto 12. From Neighborhood to Prison: Women and the War on Drugs in Portugal, Manuela Ivone Pereira da Cunha 13. "Mules", "Yardies" and Other Folk Devils: Mapping Cross-Border Imprisonment in Britain, Julia Sudbury 14. Nigerian Women in Prison: Hostages in Law, Biko Agozino 15. Occupied Territories, Resisting Women: Palestinian Women Political Prisoners, Elham Bayour 16. Playing Global Cop: U.S. Militarism and the Prison-Industrial Complex, Linda Evans Part III: From Criminalization to Resistance 17. Pierce the Future for Hope: Mothers and Prisoners in the Post-Keynesian California Landscape, Ruth Wilson Gilmore 18. The Justice for Women Campaign: Incarcerated Domestic Violence Survivors in Post-Apartheid South Africa, Lisa Vetten and Kailash Bhana 19. Reproductive Rights in Nepal: From Criminalization to Resistance, Melissa Upreti 20. Sisters Inside: Speaking Out Against Criminal Injustice, Debbie Kilroy

Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics

Abstract: List of Figures xi List of Abbreviations xiii Chapter 1 Introduction The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics 1 Part I The Political Economy of Penal Reform 23 Chapter 2 Show Me the Money, The Great Recession and the Great Confinement 25 Chapter 3 Squaring the Political Circle, The New Political Economy of the Carceral State 48 Chapter 4 What Second Chance?, Reentry and Penal Reform 79 Chapter 5 Caught Again, Justice Reinvestment and Recidivism 98 Part II The Politics of Race and Penal Reform 117 Chapter 6 Is Mass Incarceration the "New Jim Crow"? Racial Disparities and the Carceral State 119 Chapter 7 What's Race Got to Do with It?, Bolstering and Challenging the Carceral State 139 Part III The Metastasizing Carceral State 163 Chapter 8 Split Verdict, The Non, Non, Nons and the "Worst of the Worst" 165 Chapter 9 The New Untouchables, The War on Sex Offenders 196 Chapter 10 Catch and Keep, The Criminalization of Immigrants 215 Chapter 11 The Prison beyond the Prison, The Carceral State and Growing Political and Economic Inequalities in the United States 241 Chapter 12 Bring It On, The Future of Penal Reform, the Carceral State, and American Politics 258 Acknowledgments 283 Notes 285 Select Bibliography 411 Index 439

The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America

Abstract: List of Figures and Illustrations List of Tables Acknowledgements Abbreviations 1. The First Civil Right: Protection from Lawless Racial Violence 2. Freedom from Fear: White Violence, Black Criminality, _ and the Ideological Fight for Law-and-Order 3. Policing the Great Society: Modernizing Law Enforcemen t and Rehabilitating Criminal Sentencing 4. The Era of Big Punishment: Mandatory Minimums, Communi ty Policing, and Death Penalty Bidding Wars 5.The Last Civil Right: Freedom from State-Sanctioned Racial Violence Appendix Tables Abbreviations in Notes Notes Index

The Social Order of the Underworld: How Prison Gangs Govern the American Penal System

Abstract: When most people think of prison gangs, they think of chaotic bands of violent, racist thugs. Few people think of gangs as sophisticated organizations (often with elaborate written constitutions) that regulate the prison black market, adjudicate conflicts, and strategically balance the competing demands of inmates, gang members, and correctional officers. Gangs form to create order among outlaws, producing alternative governance institutions to facilitate illegal activity. The ramifications of these findings extend beyond the seemingly irrational and often tragic society of captives. They also illuminate how social and political order can emerge in conditions where the traditional institutions of governance do not exist.

Breaches in the Wall: Imprisonment, Social Support, and Recidivism

Abstract: Objectives:Drawing on theories that emphasize the salience of social ties, this study examines the different kinds of experiences prisoners have with visitation and the implications of those experiences for behavior after release.Method:This study uses data from a release cohort of prisoners to (1) explore how visitation experiences unfold for different cohorts of individuals serving different amounts of time in prison and to (2) test the effects of longitudinal visitation patterns on recidivism.Results:Findings suggest that individuals who maintain connections with their social networks outside of prison have lower rates of reoffending and that the timing and consistency with which visitation occurs also affect criminal behavior. Specifically, prisoners who are visited early and who experience a sustained pattern of visitation are less likely to recidivate.Conclusion:These findings underscore the importance of social ties for understanding the prisoner experience and its implications for offending. More ...

Stigma, identity and power: Managing stigmatized identities through discourse:

Abstract: We analyse how men incarcerated in Helsinki Prison managed, through talk, their stigmatized identities as prisoners. Three strategies are identified: ‘appropriation’ of the label ‘prisoner’; claiming coveted social identities; and representing oneself as a ‘good’ person. The research contribution we make is to show how inmates dealt with their self-defined stigmatized identities through discourse, and how these strategies were effects of power. We argue that stigmatized identities are best theorized in relation to individuals’ repertoires of other (non-stigmatized) identities that they may draw on to make supportive self-claims. Prisoners, like other kinds of organizational participants, we argue, often have considerable scope for managing diverse, fragile, perhaps even contradictory, understandings of their selves.

Mental Health of Prisoners: Identifying Barriers to Mental Health Treatment and Medication Continuity

Abstract: Objectives. We assessed mental health screening and medication continuity in a nationally representative sample of US prisoners.Methods. We obtained data from 18 185 prisoners interviewed in the 2004 Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities. We conducted survey logistic regressions with Stata version 13.Results. About 26% of the inmates were diagnosed with a mental health condition at some point during their lifetime, and a very small proportion (18%) were taking medication for their condition(s) on admission to prison. In prison, more than 50% of those who were medicated for mental health conditions at admission did not receive pharmacotherapy in prison. Inmates with schizophrenia were most likely to receive pharmacotherapy compared with those presenting with less overt conditions (e.g., depression). This lack of treatment continuity is partially attributable to screening procedures that do not result in treatment by a medical professional in prison.Conclusions. A substantial portio...

The pains of freedom: Assessing the ambiguity of Scandinavian penal exceptionalism on Norway’s Prison Island

Abstract: Where is the pain in exceptional prisons? A new generation of prisons produces unusual ‘pains of imprisonment’ which scholars of punishment are only beginning to catalog. This article brings the reader inside the social milieu of Norway’s ‘Prison Island’, a large, minimum security (‘open’) prison. Here inmates live in self-organized cottages and enjoy relatively unrestricted freedom of movement. But even under exceptional conditions of Scandinavian incarceration, new vectors and modes of punishment arise that produce ‘pains of freedom’, a notion drawing on Crewe’s historicizing examination of Sykes’ concept. Serving as an addition to conventional sociological conceptualizations of prison pains, the ‘pains of freedom’ can be classified into five sub-categories: (1) confusion; (2) anxiety and boundlessness; (3) ambiguity; (4) relative deprivation; and (5) individual responsibility. Based on three months of ethnographic fieldwork and semi-structured interviews with 15 inmates, it is shown that freedom is occ...

Homelessness and Reentry: A Multisite Outcome Evaluation of Washington State’s Reentry Housing Program for High Risk Offenders

Abstract: Each year many offenders are released homeless putting them at great risk of being returned to prison. To reduce the likelihood of recidivism, Washington State implemented the Reentry Housing Pilot...

The Toughest Beat: Politics, Punishment, and the Prison Officers’ Union in California

Abstract: offered a chance to do something new. The second group wielded a ‘‘financial strategy’’ that evaluated firms ‘‘for their potential as lucrative investments’’ (p. 73). Most of these interviewees, the smallest group (25 percent), arrived in Silicon Alley after the stock market heated up. Their tone was rather macho. One, for example, dismissed ‘‘worker bees’’—people in conventional jobs who needed to be told what to do (pp. 77–8). Conversely, if one had stock options in a start-up, ‘‘the things that you did could affect the company and could affect the value of your holdings. So it gives you a sense of power’’ (p. 78). Another, in the manner of a venture capitalist, evaluated potential employers in terms of their business models. The third approach to risk was an ‘‘actuarial strategy’’ which entailed ‘‘calculating a degree of riskiness for each position, project, and company’’ with the aim of finding a ‘‘safe haven’’ (p. 88). This group (35 percent of interviewees) sought growing sectors of the industry and did not want to work for—or own— a firm that was dependent on venture capital. As one put it, ‘‘stock options were meaningless to me. That was Vegas roulette’’ (p. 90). Chapter Four confirms previous findings about the value of networks for accessing skills, jobs and credibility in Silicon Alley. More novel are insights gained from mapping social events. Neff found that the nature of networking changed over time. While earlier events had diverse mixes of participants from across sectors and occupations, later events became specialized to particular segments. This homogeneity reduced network access to new ideas and opportunities. Lastly, the centrality of networks in the industry heightened a particular form of inequality—social exclusion based on gender, age, and race. The penultimate chapter analyzes a last wave of interviews completed after the 2000 crash. They revealed that unemployed workers blamed their own choices. Neff’s interpretation is that the culture of risk which formed during the dot-com period survived its end. Her conception of this cultural process is that individual ‘‘justifications collectively functioned as an emergent social structure to support risk-taking’’ (p. 145). Neff advises that choices of these workers can be seen as rational, given these new cultural frameworks and job opportunities. The book’s great contribution is revealing how skilled workers associated good jobs with risk. Neff supplies rich data on their subcultures and networks, including their limitations. She usefully links Silicon Alley to long-standing templates in cultural industries (e.g., entertainment) where skilled workers exposed to risk rely on projects, portfolios and socializing. More problematically, Neff flirts with methodological individualism by claiming that individual values congeal into structure. In addition, the path that she illuminated so ably up to 2002 has taken turns she did not anticipate. Many Silicon Alley veterans eventually caught the Web 2.0 wave (especially if they were in technology which now overshadows content). Moreover, there are more supports for such workers given the creation of a Freelancers Union and the fact that city hall is seeking ways to spark New York’s innovative industries— reliance on finance does not seem a good bet anymore. Since the 2008 crash, most everybody is muddling through things.

The Effects of Prison-Based Educational Programming on Recidivism and Employment

Abstract: This study evaluated the effectiveness of prison-based educational programming by examining the effects of obtaining secondary and post-secondary degrees on recidivism and post-release employment o...

Narcissism and Empathy in Young Offenders and Non–Offenders:

Abstract: Understanding the individual factors that predispose persons to criminal behaviour is vital to reducing offending and rehabilitating those who have been sentenced to prison. This study examined the...

The Ethnography of Prisons and Penal Confinement

Abstract: Centered on the ethnography of prisons and field research on penal confinement, this review maps out current developments and characterizes them in relation to key themes that shaped earlier approaches. Further internationalizing the ethnographic discussion on prisons by broadening the predominant focus on the United States and the English-speaking world, the review is organized around a main line of discussion: the prison–society relation and the articulation between intramural and extramural worlds. More or less apparent in field research, this articulation is addressed from different perspectives—within and across different scales and analytic frames—whether centered more on the workings of the institution or on prisoners and their social worlds, both within and outside walls. The porosity of prison boundaries, increasingly acknowledged, has also been problematized and ethnographically documented in different ways: from prison-in-context to interface approaches, both more reflexive and attuned to broad...

(Un)seeing like a prison: Counter-visual ethnography of the carceral state

Abstract: While prisons proliferate in the rural landscape and sites of penal tourism expand, the carceral state structures the available visual and analytic vantages through which to perceive this growing visibility. Using examples from fieldwork in Kentucky, including Appalachian prison communities and a site of penal tourism, this article proposes ‘counter-visual’ ethnography to better perceive the ideological work that the carceral state performs in the spatial and cultural landscape. A counter-visual ethnography retrains our eyes to see that which is not ‘there’ but which structures the contemporary empirical realities we observe, record, and analyze: the ghosts of racialized regimes past, the sediment of dirty industry that seeps into and imbues the present, and the trans-historical and trans-local circulation of carceral logics and epistemologies. In addition, this article suggests the important role images play in shaping alternative vantages from which to better perceive the carceral state with historical,...

Multilevel challenges to engagement in HIV care after prison release: a theory-informed qualitative study comparing prisoners’ perspectives before and after community reentry

Abstract: Although prison provides the opportunity for HIV diagnosis and access to in-prison care, following release, many HIV-infected inmates experience clinical setbacks, including nonadherence to antiretrovirals, elevations in viral load, and HIV disease progression. HIV-infected former inmates face numerous barriers to successful community reentry and to accessing healthcare. However, little is known about the outcome expectations of HIV-infected inmates for release, how their post-release lives align with pre-release expectations, and how these processes influence engagement in HIV care following release from prison. We conducted semi-structured interviews (24 pre- and 13 post-release) with HIV-infected inmates enrolled in a randomized controlled trial of a case management intervention to enhance post-release linkage to care. Two researchers independently coded data using a common codebook. Intercoder reliability was strong (kappa = 0.86). We analyzed data using Grounded Theory methodology and Applied Thematic Analysis. We collected and compared baseline sociodemographic and behavioral characteristics of all cohort participants who did and did not participate in the qualitative interviews using Fisher’s Exact Tests for categorical measures and Wilcoxon rank-sum tests for continuous measures. Most participants were heterosexual, middle-aged, single, African American men and women with histories of substance use. Substudy participants were more likely to anticipate living with family/friends and needing income assistance post-release. Most were taking antiretrovirals prior to release and anticipated needing help securing health benefits and medications post-release. Before release, most participants felt confident they would be able to manage their HIV. However, upon release, many experienced intermittent or prolonged periods of antiretroviral nonadherence, largely due to substance use relapse or delays in care initiation. Substance use was precipitated by stressful life experiences, including stigma, and contact with drug-using social networks. As informed by the Social Cognitive Theory and HIV Stigma Framework, findings illustrate the reciprocal relationships among substance use, experiences of stigma, pre- and post-release environments, and skills needed to engage in HIV care. These findings underscore the need for comprehensive evidence-based interventions to prepare inmates to transition from incarceration to freedom, particularly those that strengthen linkage to HIV care and focus on realities of reentry, including stigma, meeting basic needs, preventing substance abuse, and identifying community resources.

Agnes Goes to Prison Gender Authenticity, Transgender Inmates in Prisons for Men, and Pursuit of “The Real Deal”

Abstract: Historically developed along gender lines and arguably the most sex segregated of institutions, U.S. prisons are organized around the assumption of a gender binary. In this context, the existence and increasing visibility of transgender prisoners raise questions about how gender is accomplished by transgender prisoners in prisons for men. This analysis draws on official data and original interview data from 315 transgender inmates in 27 California prisons for men to focus analytic attention on the pursuit of “the real deal”—a concept we develop to reference a dynamic related to how gender is accomplished by transgender inmates. Specifically, among transgender inmates in prisons for men, there is competition for the attention and affection of “real men” in prisons: the demonstrable and well-articulated desire to secure standing as “the best girl” in sex segregated institutional environments. Our empirical examination sheds light on the gender order that underpins prison life, the lived experience of gender...

Prisons and health.

Abstract: This book outlines important suggestions by international experts to improve the health of people in prison and to reduce the risks posed by imprisonment to both health and society. In particular, it aims to facilitate better prison health practices in the fields of: •human rights and medical ethics; •communicable diseases; •noncommunicable diseases; •oral health; •risk factors; •vulnerable groups; and •prison health management. It is aimed at professional staff at all levels of responsibility for the health and well-being of detainees and at people with political responsibility. The term “prison” covers all institutions in which a state holds people deprived of their liberty.

Prison Architecture and Inmate Misconduct: A Multilevel Assessment

Abstract: Researchers have not yet devoted sufficient attention to the effect of prison architecture on inmate misconduct. Using data from the population of male prisoners in Texas, the authors explored the association between two prison architectural design types (as determined by satellite imagery) and inmate misconduct. The results from multilevel statistical analyses suggest that architectural design is associated with nonviolent misconduct but not violent misconduct. Policy implications and directions for future research are discussed.

An Introduction to “Doing Prison Research Differently”

Abstract: This special section of this issue emerged from responses to an article I wrote, “Autoethnography and Emotion as Intellectual Resources: Doing Prison Research Differently,” published in Qualitative Inquiry (18:1) in 2012. The article was, in essence, a plea for researchers who conduct ethnographic studies in prisons to disclose in their published work the many and complex emotional feelings and experiences they go through prior to, during, and after their fieldwork. My argument was that prison ethnographers are highly attuned to analyzing the fine nuances of their respondents’ agency, identity management, and socialization and survival strategies, but are often silent on their own agency, identity management, and socialization and survival strategies. If such reflections are present at all, they make a slightly apologetic appearance in an appendix. The intention was not to encourage pointless emoting or to step over that fine line that demarcates honest disclosure and showy exposure. I attempted to caution that selfawareness can all too easily slip into self-absorption and that thoughtful contemplation may be read as uncomfortably confessional or narcissistic. To be clear, then, and to highlight a unifying theme of this special section (and I have for the most part organized what follows along thematic lines, rather than introducing the articles in conventional, chronological order), my objective was to explore how acknowledgment of the ethnographer’s biography, motivations, and emotions can uniquely enrich data, analysis, and writing up (Jewkes, 2012a). As Abigail Rowe puts it in her contribution to this issue, “ethnography proper” has the capacity to examine what can be learned from reflecting on our presence in the field that “we could not otherwise have access to.” My purpose was also to highlight that emotions, feelings, and subjective experiences perform several important functions in qualitative inquiry. Ben Crewe neatly sums up these multifarious roles in his contribution to this issue:

Not Looking Hard Enough Masculinity, Emotion, and Prison Research

Abstract: In her recent article on autoethnography and emotion in prison research, Jewkes suggests that “most prison studies remain surprisingly ungendered texts,” and that—on the whole—the scholars who have...

Prison tobacco control policies and deaths from smoking in United States prisons: population based retrospective analysis

Abstract: Objective To determine the mortality attributable to smoking and years of potential life lost from smoking among people in prison and whether bans on smoking in prison are associated with reductions in smoking related deaths. Design Analysis of cross sectional survey data with the smoking attributable mortality, morbidity, and economic costs system; population based time series analysis. Setting All state prisons in the United States. Main outcome measures Prevalence of smoking from cross sectional survey of inmates in state correctional facilities. Data on state prison tobacco policies from web based searches of state policies and legislation. Deaths and causes of death in US state prisons from the deaths in custody reporting program of the Bureau of Justice Statistics for 2001-11. Smoking attributable mortality and years of potential life lost was assessed from the smoking attributable mortality, morbidity, and economic costs system of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Multivariate Poisson models quantified the association between bans and smoking related cancer, cardiovascular and pulmonary deaths. Results The most common causes of deaths related to smoking among people in prison were lung cancer, ischemic heart disease, other heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, and chronic airways obstruction. The age adjusted smoking attributable mortality and years of potential life lost rates were 360 and 5149 per 100 000, respectively; these figures are higher than rates in the general US population (248 and 3501, respectively). The number of states with any smoking ban increased from 25 in 2001 to 48 by 2011. In prisons the mortality rate from smoking related causes was lower during years with a ban than during years without a ban (110.4/100 000 v 128.9/100 000). Prisons that implemented smoking bans had a 9% reduction (adjusted incidence rate ratio 0.91, 95% confidence interval 0.88 to 0.95) in smoking related deaths. Bans in place for longer than nine years were associated with reductions in cancer mortality (adjusted incidence rate ratio 0.81, 95% confidence interval 0.74 to 0.90). Conclusions Smoking contributes to substantial mortality in prison, and prison tobacco control policies are associated with reduced mortality. These findings suggest that smoking bans have health benefits for people in prison, despite the limits they impose on individual autonomy and the risks of relapse after release.

Beyond School-to-Prison Pipeline and toward an Educational and Penal Realism.

Abstract: Much scholarly attention has been paid to the school-to-prison pipeline and the sanitized discourse of “death by education,” called the achievement gap. Additionally, there exists a longstanding discourse surrounding the alleged crisis of educational failure. This article offers no solutions to the crisis and suggests instead that the system is functioning as it was intended—to disenfranchise many (predominately people of color) for the benefit of some (mostly white), based on economic principals of the free market. We begin by tracing the economic interests of prisons and the prison industrial complex, juxtaposing considerations of what we call the “educational reform industrial complex.” With a baseline in the economic interests of school failure and prison proliferation, we draw on the critical race theory concept of racial realism, to work toward a theory of educational and penal realism. Specifically, we outline seven working tenets of educational and penal realism that provide promise in redirecting...

(Un)Doing Hegemony in Education: Disrupting School-to-Prison Pipelines for Black Males

Abstract: The school-to-prison pipeline refers to the disturbing national trend in which children are funneled out of public schools and into juvenile and criminal justice systems. The purpose of this article is to theorize how this pipeline fulfills societal commitments to black male over-incarceration. First, the author reviews the troublesome perceptions of black boys and men in educational settings throughout the educational pipeline. Next, the ways in which black American boys are scripted out of childhood humanity are discussed, drawing upon tenets of discipline and punishment theory. Second, drawing from additional theories of power, the article re-interprets school discipline and achievement data in the educational pipeline as tools of containment that support school-to-prison pipelines for black males. The third section synthesizes the literature on black male behavioral responses in disempowering educational settings. The article closes with discussion and implications for schools and society.

Making Windows in Walls: Strategies for Prison Research

Abstract: This article examines the relationships between prison structure, researcher access to prisons, and scholarship about prisons. Drawing on the author’s own work over more than 10 years as a prison educator, legal advocate, and prison researcher, as well as on the scholarship of other prison researchers throughout the social sciences, the article argues that prisons resist scrutiny at two stages. First, prisons are structurally and bureaucratically closed off from research; second, prison researchers are emotionally disconnected from their work. These two layers of obfuscation maintain the prison as a social “black site”: physically located outside of our communities, invisible to the public and the researcher alike. In an effort to overcome these barriers, this article outlines a mixed method, collaborative approach to prison research and discusses the ethical and emotional challenges of this approach. By identifying the major obstacles to meaningful prison research, as well as some possible strategies to ...

The Impact of a Sports Initiative for Young Men in Prison: Staff and Participant Perspectives

Abstract: This study presents the prisoner and prison staff ideographic experiences of an English initiative which aimed to use sport as a way of engaging young men in identifying and meeting their reentry (or “resettlement”) needs in the transition from prison custody to the community. Young men aged between 18 to 21 years old (N = 79) participated in the prison-based sporting “academies” and the qualitative findings demonstrated how the initiative led to perceived benefits in terms of a positive impact on prison life and culture, preparation for release, improved attitudes, thinking and behavior, and in promoting desistance from crime. The results help to delineate how and why sports based interventions can motivate imprisoned young offenders in reentry programs, with the ultimate aim of reducing reoffending.

Child protection as surveillance of African American families

Abstract: The over-representation of black children in US out of home care results from racial bias in placement decisions and a political choice to address startling rates of child poverty by investigating parents instead of tackling poverty's societal roots. The impact of state disruption and supervision of African American families is intensified when it is concentrated in inner-city neighbourhoods – the system's ‘racial geography.’ A small case study of a black neighbourhood in Chicago with high rates of out of home placement found profound effects on both family and community social relationships, as well as reliance on child protective services for financial assistance, linking surveillance of black families to the neoliberal shrinking of public programmes. The surveillance of African American women by the child welfare system is also intensified by these women's disproportionate involvement in the prison system. Acknowledging racial bias in child welfare reveals the need to radically transform the system fro...