Papers, chapters and books recently written by different members of our initiative.
Click on a piece to read an abstract or blurb.
[expand title=”Racial Inequality in the Prevalence, Degree, Extension, and Permeation of Incarceration in Family Life by Youngmin Yi ” elwraptag=”div” tag=”a” trigclass=”noarrow”]
The prevalence, consequences, and unequal distribution of parental and own incarceration in the United States are well documented. However, much of our knowledge of the reach of the carceral state into family life is focused on incarceration of a parent, romantic partner, or child, to the exclusion of other important relationships. This study introduces novel descriptive measures that provide a more comprehensive picture of the demography and racially unequal distribution of family incarceration: degree, generational extension, and permeation. Further, uses the results of the analysis to interrogate longstanding approaches to analysis of linkages between race, the criminal legal system, and family life, and investigation of racialized systems and social inequality more broadly.
Citation: Yi, Youngmin. 2023. “Racial Inequality in the Prevalence, Degree, Extension, and Permeation of Incarceration in Family Life.” Demography 60(1):15-40.
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[expand title=”What to Do with the Dangerous Few?
: Abolition-Feminism, Monstrosity and the Reimagination of Sexual Harm in Miguel Piñero’s Short Eyes
by Laura Ciolkowski” elwraptag=”div” tag=”a” trigclass=”noarrow”]
The problem of child sexual abuse (CSA) is a crucial point of entry into abolition-feminist conversations about justice and punishment, healing and repair. The popular belief that the “child sex offender” is uniquely irredeemable, eternally depraved and dangerous can trouble abolition-feminist efforts to address the devastating harm of CSA without reproducing the violence of prison and punishment. It also forces us to return to the question of “what to do with the dangerous few?” A familiar “tough on crime” refrain, this question mystifies the social, economic, and political conditions that nurture interpersonal violence. It also illustrates how centering our attention on “the monster in our midst” feeds an attachment to the mistaken belief that sexual harm is locatable in individual, bad people; that it is fixable by criminal law, and, in short, that justice and repair can be measured by the number of years one is sentenced to live behind bars. Miguel Piñero’s 1972 play “Short Eyes” exposes the failure of our attempts to incarcerate our way out of child sexual abuse and opens a literary-artistic space in which to explore the roots of violence and the abuse of power. The play dramatizes the particular ways in which the incarceration of those deemed the worst of the worst does not alleviate suffering or promote safety; rather, it prevents us from getting to the root of even the most horrific forms of abuse and from fully engaging, confronting and, finally, interrupting the daily, quotidian acts of sexual violence that are hiding in plain sight.
Citation: Ciolkowski, Laura.
Humanities 12.2 (2023) What to Do with the Dangerous Few?
: Abolition-Feminism, Monstrosity and the Reimagination of Sexual Harm in Miguel Piñero’s Short Eyes
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