Carceral Passages

Coming of Age in Prison America

Bibliographic Data

ID2229965
AuthorsDavid Jonathan Knight (0009-0006-2569-8419, Columbia University, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume129
Issue5
Pages1359-1408
Publication date2024-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Journal of Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-9602 • E-ISSN: 1537-5390
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/729769
OpenAlexW4391428458
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited60

Imprisonment is recognized as routine in the lives of disadvantaged young men. Scholars center the impact of relatively brief prison experiences on postprison early adulthood, but this approach overlooks the many who are imprisoned for long periods. This study addresses this concern by analyzing interviews with African American and Afro-Latino men who were sentenced as youth and early adults to long prison terms. Prison-like conditions pervaded men’s life histories in ways that shaped how they made sense of incarceration and early adulthood. While those who cycled in and out of penal institutions or who entered prison later in life saw imprisonment as an unsalvageable condition, those incarcerated throughout their early adult years drew on alternate frames of reference to make strategic use of their time and to construct a sense of incarcerated adulthood. The study conceptualizes these coming-of-age processes as carceral passages—repeated encounters with confinement, criminalization, and violence starting at very young ages

Criminology · Prison · Sociology · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Demography · Homelessness and Social Issues · Psychology

Tools

Open DOI