“I’m not allowed to express anything”: (Re)entry and ethical confinement in the shadow of California prisons

Abstract

In desistance literature, the problematics of confinement and carceral control are often situated in terms of material concerns and challenges. An attention to first-person experiences of morality, however, reveals insights into the less tangible and nuanced forms of penal power, even in life after imprisonment. In this article, I examine how a moral value—the expectation to demonstrate gratitude for freedom from prison—is transformed from a virtuous disposition into an oppressive moral expectation symbolic of carceral power. By offering a close description of one man's experience with (re)entry, I demonstrate how the prison echoes in the post-release context through the moral demands made in relational contexts. In its association with penal power dynamics, gratitude inevitably produces feelings of extended confinement and moral liminality. An attention to moral experience, then, offers a means to understand the sometimes fraught, alienating, and conflicting nature of life in the wake of confinement.