Carceral Geographies from Inside Prison Gates: The Micro‐Politics of Everyday Racialisation

Abstract

Addressing a need for carceral geographical research conducted from inside prison gates, we discuss the spatial context in which racialisation occurs, including its relationship to the performance of prison "politics". We argue that the convoluted and contentious racial categorisation of prison inmates that begins with "racial priming" and results in "racial sorting" possesses a spatial logic derived from institutional partitioning and street-level cordoning of individual and group identities. We reveal how racialisation is relied upon through both a self-segregation and institutional classification system at the micro scale. Based on autoethnographic reflection as formerly jailed and incarcerated individuals, and through a reading of sociological, criminological, and geographical literatures, we argue that the logic of everyday micro-scale racial identity formation has more to do with location, gang alliances, antagonisms, and the necessary navigating of prison "politics" and protocol than with conceptualisations of "race" engendered by racial capitalism and enforced by the racial state.

Gangs, gang members, and geography

“…Similarly, to attribute gang formation to the abstract forces of, say, racial capitalism and the state does not jibe with how many gang members see themselves, including through a reactionary lens, and draws attention away from the role some gang members are known to play in extorting immigrant street vendors (Muñoz, 2016), disproportionately engaging in violent crime (Sanchez et al., 2022), as well as controlling whole neighborhoods as well as prison complexes through highly organized social networks of discipline and control in the interest of producing environments more amenable to illicit business transactions and racialization that is spatially contingent (Bloch & Olivares‐Pelayo, 2021; Lopez‐Aguado, 2018; Weide, 2022b). Gangs also consist of a diverse membership of actors for whom outward violence and intimidation are far less important than other, more mainstream methods of earning pride, prestige, and notoriety.…”

“…One of the possible reasons for this is the degree to which the discipline has accepted autoethnography as a method, and therefore has made room for contextualized reflections on gangs and gang spaces from an experiential perspective by former gang members and gang affiliates. Like formerly jailed and incarcerated “convict criminologists” and scholars of graffiti who have entered academia in recent years and remain “in search of academic legitimacy” (Ross et al., 2017; Tietjen, 2019; see also Bloch, 2019; Bloch & Olivares‐Pelayo, 2021; Ferrell & Weide, 2010; Walker, 2022; Weide, 2022a), former gang members have carved out a space in the sociological literature that has hitherto consisted of research on crime, criminalization, and criminality conducted from a bird's eye view or based on official data stored on an Excel spread sheet (Bolden, 2020; Contreras, 2013, 2018; Durán, 2009, 2013; Huerta, 2016; Rios, 2011b). What remains lacking in geographical research is the “elegant knowledge” (Ferrell, 2018) on gangs and gang geographies produced by insiders and complete member researchers engaged in autoethnographic reflection and writing (Adler & Adler, 1987).…”

Carceral and military geographies: Prisons, the military and war

“…Under this remit, scholars have investigated diverse aspects of carceral life; focussing upon change and difference for various groups of individuals – for adults, children, young people, those convicted of crimes, migrant detainees, asylum-seekers, etc. – across space and time, and between cultures and jurisdictions (see Bloch and Olivares-Pelayo, 2021; Martin, 2021; McGeachan, 2019; Repo, 2019; Schliehe, 2021, among other numerous recent examples). The breadth of empirical work is vast, often attending to emotional and embodied geographies of carceral life.…”

Reassessing the camp/prison dichotomy: New directions in geographic research on confinement

“…The history of this approach to the study of incarceration can be traced back to the seminal work of Michel Foucault (1977), and more broadly to the growth of similar perspectives in critical criminology, with scholars focusing on how prisons maintain, produce, and mold social equilibriums beyond prison walls (see especially Melossi and Pavarini, 1981). For this reason, carceral geographers are entangled in productive dialogues with scholars working in criminology and criminal justice, which are not disciplines that camp scholars usually intersect (Bloch and Olivares-Pelayo, 2021; Moran and Schliehe, 2017; Sylvestre et al, 2020; also Crewe et al, 2014).…”