Banking in the shadows of the carceral state: Prisons,paternalism,and the regulation of money in prison trust accounts

Abstract

This article builds on the theory of the shadow carceral state and identifies prison trust accounts as a site of legal hybridity. Specifically, it examines in-prison banking systems to show how governments and prison administrators co-opt civil authority under state statutes, administrative regulations, and prison policies that allow carceral systems to oversee what would normally be a distinctly civil function. Moreover, prison systems co-opt this civil authority through paternalistic rationales that suggest that the goal of prison banking is rehabilitation and that controlling and seizing the money of incarcerated people inures to their benefit.