Doing Time on the Outside: Incarceration and Family Life in Urban America - Hardcover

Braman, Donald

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 047211381X ISBN 13: 9780472113811

Verlag: The University of Michigan Press, 2004

Inhaltsangabe

"Stigma, shame and hardship---this is the lot shared by families whose young men have been swept into prison. Braman reveals the devastating toll mass incarceration takes on the parents, partners, and children left behind."
-Katherine S. Newman

"Doing Time on the Outside brings to life in a compelling way the human drama, and tragedy, of our incarceration policies. Donald Braman documents the profound economic and social consequences of the American policy of massive imprisonment of young African American males. He shows us the link between the broad-scale policy changes of recent decades and the isolation and stigma that these bring to family members who have a loved one in prison. If we want to understand fully the impact of current criminal justice policies, this book should be required reading."
-Mark Mauer, Assistant Director, The Sentencing Project

"Through compelling stories and thoughtful analysis, this book describes how our nation's punishment policies have caused incalculable damage to the fabric of family and community life. Anyone concerned about the future of urban America should read this book."
-Jeremy Travis, The Urban Institute


In the tradition of Elijah Anderson's Code of the Street and Katherine Newman's No Shame in My Game, this startling new ethnography by Donald Braman uncovers the other side of the incarceration saga: the little-told story of the effects of imprisonment on the prisoners' families.

Since 1970 the incarceration rate in the United States has more than tripled, and in many cities-urban centers such as Washington, D.C.-it has increased over five-fold. Today, one out of every ten adult black men in the District is in prison and three out of every four can expect to spend some time behind bars. But the numbers don't reveal what it's like for the children, wives, and parents of prisoners, or the subtle and not-so-subtle effects mass incarceration is having on life in the inner city.

Author Donald Braman shows that those doing time on the inside are having a ripple effect on the outside-reaching deep into the family and community life of urban America. Braman gives us the personal stories of what happens to the families and communities that prisoners are taken from and return to. Carefully documenting the effects of incarceration on the material and emotional lives of families, this groundbreaking ethnography reveals how criminal justice policies are furthering rather than abating the problem of social disorder. Braman also delivers a number of genuinely new arguments.

Among these is the compelling assertion that incarceration is holding offenders unaccountable to victims, communities, and families. The author gives the first detailed account of incarceration's corrosive effect on social capital in the inner city and describes in poignant detail how the stigma of prison pits family and community members against one another. Drawing on a series of powerful family portraits supported by extensive empirical data, Braman shines a light on the darker side of a system that is failing the very families and communities it seeks to protect.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Donald Braman holds a Ph.D. in anthropology and is currently in law school at Yale. This is his first book.

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Doing Time on the OUTSIDE

Incarceration and Family Life in Urban AmericaBy DONALD BRAMAN

University of Michigan Press

Copyright © 2004University of Michigan
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-472-11381-1

Contents

Introduction..................................................................1PART I. WHAT WENT WRONG?......................................................13Chapter 1. A Public Debate....................................................15Chapter 2. "It's a Mess What's Happened"......................................20Chapter 3. The Creation of the Ghetto.........................................23Chapter 4. Incarceration as a Response to Public Disorder.....................30PART II. KINSHIP..............................................................37Chapter 5. On the Ropes: Londa & Derek........................................41Chapter 6. Falling Apart: Thelma & David......................................65Chapter 7. Pulling Families Apart.............................................89PART III. EXCHANGE............................................................97Chapter 8. Arrested: Edwina & Kenny...........................................99Chapter 9. Doing Time: Lilly & Arthur.........................................113Chapter 10. Cycling through the System: Zelda & Clinton.......................135Chapter 11. Material and Social Consequences..................................154PART IV. SILENCE..............................................................165Chapter 12. Missing the Mark: Louisa & Robert.................................169Chapter 13. Problems at Home: Constance & Jonathan............................177Chapter 14. Work Worries: Tina & Dante........................................188Chapter 15. Depression and Isolation: Robin & Aaron...........................195Chapter 16. Coping: Murielle & Dale...........................................200Chapter 17. Faith and Church: Dolores & Lawrence..............................210Chapter 18. Social Silence....................................................219CONCLUSION: LOOKING AHEAD.....................................................221Postscript....................................................................225Appendix: Methodology and Data Sources........................................227Acknowledgments...............................................................231Notes.........................................................................235Index.........................................................................267

Chapter One

A Public Debate

This strange public demonstration took place early in my fieldwork and provided a striking introduction to both local city politics and the increasingly complex politics of incarceration. It was followed by five public hearings, the last two of which were open for comments from the general public. But even at the first hearing, the divergent perspectives within the community were quite clear.

The proposal that the CCA was presenting seemed, at least on the surface, to be an easy sell. Ward Eight is a community with the highest unemployment rate in the District, one where many families of prisoners lived. A large new correctional facility not only would provide hundreds of well-paying, recession-proof jobs to local residents but would keep prisoners closer to home, where family, counselors, and clergy could help with their rehabilitation. The proposed prison would be state-of-the-art, including a host of educational and job-training programs for inmates-in fact, the proposed programs were so extensive that some residents complained that they were "better than what we get out here," and CCA promptly added community scholarships and neighborhood job-training programs to the proposed package. To top it off, CCA noted, there were plenty of other communities around the country that would be happy to have the facility if the residents of Ward Eight refused it.

Marion Barry, the former mayor, who prided himself on having a broad constituency in Ward Eight, made all these points in his testimony on the first day of the hearings:

Other states are trying to get the District to send their prisoners to their states so that jobs can be maintained in those states. In fact, in Youngstown, the Congressman there wants an addition of 2,500 beds built because of the economics of 450 jobs. And Ward Eight has the highest unemployment rate of any in the city: some thirteen percent among adults, and some sixty percent among teenagers. We need these jobs in Ward Eight.

Despite the chanting and cat calls from the first meeting, a few family members returned to testify for the proposal when public comment was finally allowed six months later. One mother spoke, generalizing from her concern about her own child to that of all the "wayward children" in prison:

I am here today to pledge my strong support for the proposed correctional rehabilitation facility in Ward Eight. I was brought up to believe that we are responsible for every child, and that we are mothers and fathers to every one of them. We cannot toss our children aside when they are sick and in need of help. If we do not help them, then who will? Are we so insensitive as a society that we do not care about our children and their cries for help? Let us work together and make a productive people of our children and help those who need help the most. God said, "When you help the least of my people, you help me." Let me leave you with this final thought. What if it was your child? What type of help would you want to offer your child? I happen to know first hand. And I earnestly believe, that I would want to have available the assistance that this proposed correctional facility has to offer. What about you?

Her comments touched not only on the feelings that many families of prisoners have about the lack of rehabilitation programs in most correctional settings but also on the responsibility of the community to take care of its own.

Over the course of the five hearings, however, it became clear that the opposition to the prison was overwhelming. The current mayor, Anthony Williams, the city council, and the local area neighborhood commissions all voiced strong opposition to the project, as did the major and minor newspapers and nearly all the citizens' organizations in the District. If the proposed prison would provide Ward Eight with valuable economic opportunity and an increased chance of rehabilitation for local residents involved in the criminal justice system, why were so many in Ward Eight opposed to it?

Opponents cited a variety of complaints, but a central theme that ran through the most poignant and persuasive arguments was that the prison was, for this community in particular, an indignity. As the Reverend Dennis Wiley argued at the final hearing, "Even the thought of placing such a complex in our community is but another indication of the low regard in which the citizens of this Ward are held."

Building this facility in Ward Eight is not only unwise, it is wrong. In fact, Ward Eight ought to be the last place that anyone would think of building a prison. Why? Because the people of Ward Eight and especially the young people have for too long been stereotyped as residents of the most dysfunctional, pathological, and undesirable section of the city. Already this Ward has more than its share of programs, projects, institutions and facilities that no other Ward wants. Already the negative image that is constantly...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: The University of Michigan Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2004
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 047211381X
• ISBN 13: 9780472113811
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 272
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar