Visual criminology and carceral studies: Counter-images in the carceral age

TLDR

Mass incarceration is framed as a global neoliberal carceral system that produces a visual iconography of social suffering, with daily life in detention, forced migration, and displacement shaping the lived experience of many. The essay seeks to understand visual struggles within carceral scenes by analyzing how images and new media used by prisoners, community members, artists, and scholars counter mass incarceration. It does so through an analysis of the use of images and new media by these actors to challenge and contest the project of mass incarceration.

Abstract

Mass incarceration maps onto global neoliberal carceral formations that, in turn, look very much like a visual iconography of social suffering. Camp or prison-like conditions define the daily life of many of the world’s inhabitants caught in contexts of detention, incarceration, forced migration, and population displacement. Often depicted as abject subjects, actors in carceral contexts and the people who organize with them seek to find strategies of representation that humanize and politicize their existence. This essay attempts to gain a sense of the visual struggles at the heart of these carceral scenes by way of an analysis of the use of images and new media by current and former prisoners, community members, artists, and scholars to counter mass incarceration in the United States. Such scenes are significant sites for examining how a visual criminology might reveal and participate in the contestations and interventions that increasingly challenge the project of mass incarceration.