Penal optimism and second chances: The legacies of American Protestantism and the prospects for penal reform (original) (raw)
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Redeeming Imprisonment: Religion and the Development of Mass Incarceration in Florida
2018
I have benefited from a wealth of institutional support. This research would not have been possible without generous funding from the National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship Program, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Charlotte Newcombe Foundation, and the Rackham Graduate School at the University of Michigan. A summer grant from the Anti-Discrimination Center in 2012 significantly influenced my research trajectory and I owe the ADC a special thanks. I am also indebted to the Graduate Employees' Organization at the University of Michigan for ensuring my access to health care and a living wage. Thanks also to the leadership and members of the Teamsters and the Greater Detroit Building and Construction Trades Council and many members of the Lecturers' Employee Organization; American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; and the University of Michigan Skilled Trades Union who supported GEO during contract negotiations: We owe you one. Rosanne Crompton and Marcy Boughton literally kept me running through the whole process. Kathleen King and Diana Denny provided instrumental help and guidance as I learned to navigate the University; the external funding in my first year would never have materialized if not for a chance encounter with Diana in the kitchen and her knowledge of the existence of a letter in a file. I am indebted to Steve Volk, who, at Oberlin College, taught me the historian's craft with incredible generosity and with a love for teaching and learning. Much of this dissertation is based on research in archives and in physical settings where access can be a significant challenge. I am extraordinarily grateful to the people who opened doors to me at the Florida Department of Corrections, the Florida Commission on Offender
Punishment and Society, 2022
Written by two religion scholars, Break Every Yoke is a wide-ranging profile of religion's significance to prison abolitionism. Focused on American mass incarceration, and critical of the secular state's options as well as ongoing calls for prison reform, the book argues that religion is not only helpful in the abolitionist effort, but essential-carrying with it more radical visions capable of leveling the current prison system. Beyond a utilitarian vision, Dubler and Lloyd understand that mass incarceration emerged in the same cultural moment as the big box store and megachurch. Thus they seek to present not only how religion can assist abolitionism, but also how religiously-inclined prison reformers ought to embrace abolitionism as the only way to meaningfully address the prison problem. Committed unequivocally to prison abolitionism (emphatically: not reform), the authors illustrate visions of how the modern world might be remade if deeper, more radical religious roots are drawn from and appropriated. These roots hail not from the litany of secular approaches to mass incarceration, they argue, nor from carefully curated and often repressed domesticated forms of religion, but from the fervor of genuine religious faith; or, they curiously suggest: at least 'something closely related to religious faith' (p. 10). The book's passionate argument and plea is that 'without getting religion-and igniting whole religious communities with abolitionist fire-prison abolition will never acquire its necessary force' (p. 11). The first chapter opens with this argument, accepting nothing less than full-blown prison abolitionism as the only possible way to rethink the prison, with the assumed necessity of incarceration being so deeply ingrained into today's understandings of justice. Lest the argument for abolitionism-shutting down every jail and prison-seem superficial or mere posture, the book's core (chs. 2-4) provides historical exposition fleshing-out what the authors call 'the spirit of abolition.' The exposition carries insights into rationale from normative theological views and material expressions of religion, with the authors claiming to be working not as historians proper, but as scholars of culture, of religion, and as genealogists. This shapes the book's argument, charting how the Civil Rights Era's political pressures once required religious fervor supported by theological arguments. But these vanished after the Civil Rights Era, giving rise to the 'political theology' that built mass incarceration.
2010
This paper examined the usefulness of jail reentry programs as an alternative towards increased jail and prison costs. Policy issues for returning inmates could and often did include future employment prospects, housing and public safety. Prisoner reentry programs generally fell into two broad categories; faith and non-faith based. Generally, non-faith programs were conducted in jail or prison while the individual was incarcerated for an extended period of time.Non-faith type programs involved classes on anger management, G.E.D. attainment, college credits, or alcohol or drug abuse therapy. Faith based programs were generally Christian based, although they usually did not discriminate against other individuals of different religions joining their program. Faith based programs were usually conducted outside of the jail/prison environment. However, a few jails and prisons did keep Bible or religious wings