Carceral protectionism and the perpetually (in)vulnerable

Abstract

The United States relies on carceralism—mass incarceration and institutionalization, surveillance and control—for its continued operation. The criminalization of difference, particularly in relation to race, disability and queerness, renders certain people as perpetually subject to state violence due to their perceived unruliness. This article relies on two case studies, in Toledo, Ohio and Brooklyn, New York to question the construction and co-optation of vulnerability by state agents and focus on interrelated instances of state violence done under the guise of protectionism of and from unruly subjects. We then discuss the response to these instances of violence- from the state in the form of carceral ableism and sanism, and from local activists trying to navigate the shifting contours of protectionist violence by enacting queer transformative justice.

Inaccessible Justice: Exploring the Barriers to Justice and Fairness for Disabled People Accused of a Crime

“…Likewise, the Law Society of Scotland (2019) has called for equivalence in the treatment of vulnerable accused people in response to recent legislative reforms 2 for vulnerable victims and witnesses. Similar concerns have been raised in England and Wales (Dehaghani 2020; Fairclough 2017, 2019), China (Mou 2020), North America (Ben‐Moshe 2013; Rodriguez, Ben‐Moshe and Rakes 2020) and Australia (Baldry 2014; Baldry et al . 2013, 2015; Spivakovsky 2014).…”

“…The Howard Journal Vol 60 No 4. December 2021ISSN 2059-1098 justice-involved disabled people (see Baldry et al 2013;Ben-Moshe 2013;Cadwallader et al 2018;Gormley 2017bGormley , 2019Kelly 2017;Rodriguez, Ben-Moshe and Rakes 2020;Rogers 2019;Spivakovsky 2014Spivakovsky , 2017 but little is known about the pretrial experiences of disabled defendants, or 'accused persons', either in Scotland or elsewhere. This article aims to address this gap by bringing a hidden population into view and presenting the accounts of justice-involved people with learning disabilities, autism, and mental health conditions.…”

The limits of limit cases: Sexual ethics and graduate student–staff relationships

“…A central concern with respect to diversity, regulation, and rule enforcement is that the punitive regulation of sex often results in racialized and LGBTQ+ individuals bearing the brunt of the law as evidenced in their over‐incarceration. It is these groups who are over‐surveilled, criminalized, and seen as Other and/or deviant in the context of the “criminal justice” system (Hinton & Cook, 2021; Rodriguez et al, 2020; Russell, 2019). This brings to the fore significant challenges around who is seen as the blameworthy party, whether it is the racialized, “sexually aggressive,” prenaturally criminal male supervisor or the racialized female student who, in the case of Black women, tend to be sexually objectified and seen as promiscuous wherein, as Collins puts it, their sexual appetites are described “at best [as] inappropriate, and at worse, insatiable” (Collins, 2002, p. 83; Anderson et al, 2018; Leath et al, 2021).…”

‘It is not about punishment, it’s about protection’: Policing ‘vulnerabilities’ and the securitisation of public health in the COVID-19 pandemic

“…For instance, in their analysis of Australia's federal COVID-19 policy response for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, Donohue and McDowall (2021) argue that the construction of First Nations people as vulnerable reinforces the colonial idea that they 'must be controlled for the sake of their own health ' (p. 656). By imputing a lack of agency and self-responsibility, projections of vulnerability can thus readily invite law and order or 'carceral protectionist' responses (Rodriguez et al, 2020). Instances of the authoritative mobilisation of vulnerability or protection as pretext for over-policing and detention orders thus require closer scrutiny.…”

“…Both complementing and reworking more traditional concerns surrounding ‘dangerous’ others, the mobilisation of the rhetoric of vulnerability allows decisions about criminalisation, detention and other coercive measures to ‘become framed in terms of protection from vulnerability to harm’ (Aliverti, 2020: 1121). Some critical scholars argue that the notion of vulnerability has been co-opted by state agents as a cover for instances of state violence, which can now be carried out ‘under the guise of protectionism of and from unruly subjects’ (Rodriguez et al, 2020: 537). The recourse to vulnerability makes the exercise of state power appear ‘benevolent’ (Barker, 2017) and justifies its expansion into ever more intimate realms, including the home.…”