Abstract
In Prison by Any Other Name, long-time journalists and activists, Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law, invite readers on a remarkable journey that is both illuminating and unsettling. With the use of powerful examples and impeccable research, the authors show how, time and again, well-meaning “alternatives” to incarceration, such as electronic monitoring, community supervision, and mandated psychiatric treatment, serve to expand rather than displace the power and control of carceral systems. Though to many, such “alternatives” may seem like reasonable approaches that offer a “kinder gentler” way to manage social problems, Schenwar and Law show us that they are very much akin to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Although reducing prison populations is an important goal, the authors of this book adeptly expand the conversation around “reform” and argue that rather than engaging in “reformist” strategies, which serve to simply decrease prison populations, we must engage transformative strategies that involve completely releasing people from state control.
Astutely, the authors show how the logic that legitimizes many popular “reformist reforms” (that is the logic of punishment, white supremacy, capitalism, and colonialism) is the same logic upon which the criminal legal system has been built and sustained. Further, they illuminate how modern approaches to dealing with violence, such as sex offender registries, community policing, and policing in schools, not only fail to keep us safe but also serve to punish and control those always already deemed “undesirable.” They challenge us to abandon our unquestioned reliance on such approaches and to instead envision and invest in strategies aimed at building community health and well-being.
Perhaps for social workers, the most important lesson offered is when the authors bring into stark relief the methods by which various systems of “helping,” such as drug treatment facilities, psychiatric treatment centers, sex worker “rescue” programs, and the child welfare system, often overlap with and bolster the reach of the criminal legal system by ensnaring our clients in endless cycles of surveillance and criminalization. Through each chapter they teach us that, “when the lines between helpful and harmful institutions are blurred. There are no limits to the ways in which people can be pulled into their clutches” (p. 123). In so doing, the book brings to light a cast of characters not typically implicated in mass incarceration including doctors, preachers, teachers, psychiatrists, and social workers. Chillingly, the authors state, “not all prisons have steel bars, not all police carry guns, and not all punishments are called punishments. Sometimes the police are called ‘social workers’ and punishment is called ‘care’” (p. 140). The book is rife with such penetrating analyses and has the potential to breath fresh air into social work. It offers the kind of thinking that, in my opinion, is urgently needed in the profession; thinking that requires us to truly grapple with the ways in which some of our most well-intended interventions implicate us in furthering systems of domination and control.
As communities across the United States engage in activism to rethink the criminal legal system, Prison by Any Other Name comes as a stark warning that we cannot achieve true transformation if we simply reallocate funds to programs and initiatives that serve to create a “somewhere else.” As such, the book ends by providing a plethora of examples of projects and organizations around the United States that are engaging in transformative action rooted in the politics of abolition. These examples are inspiring and uplifting and remind us that it is possible to move beyond systems of punishment and control toward movements for accountability and healing.
Labeling a book as timely seems clichéd and overdone, yet in the wake of massive uprisings against police brutality and systemic racism, scholarship that raises questions regarding the logic and utility of carceral systems is more relevant than ever. As such, this work emerges at an especially opportune time and is urgent reading for social workers and anyone invested in building a future with thriving communities and sustainable solutions to some of our most pressing social problems.
