Prison fixes and flows

Carceral mobilities and their critical logistics

Bibliographic Data

ID4476725
AuthorsIolanthe Brooks (0000-0001-5351-0109, Clark University, corresponding author), Asha Best (Clark University)
Year2021
Volume39
Issue3
Pages459-476
Publication date2021-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironment and Planning D Society and Space (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0263-7758 • E-ISSN: 1472-3433
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0263775820984791
OpenAlexW3118768014
LanguageEN
Citations received16
References cited37

This paper asks how the logics of globalized supply chains-particularly through fixes, risk, speed and stoppages, and motility-are articulated in carceral space. We employ critical logistics in conversation with carceral geographies and critical mobilities to examine prison transfers, the routine movement of incarcerated people between carceral sites, as a logistical system designed to fix carceral crises; which is to say, to make prisons viable. This work emerges from preliminary research on prison transfers, conducted from 2018 to 2019, including interviews with advocates and formerly incarcerated people and analysis of data and administrative documents obtained from the New York Department of Corrections, among others. First, we locate the emergence of contemporary practices of logistical transfer management ("transfer logistics") in the prison boom of the 1980s-1990s. We then examine the present-day transfer system to consider how risk calculation and carceral fixes inform movement throughout prison constellations as well as how transfers disrupt the fragile worlding that happens in prisons. Finally, we turn to how these logics are being reshaped and reiterated in the era of neoliberal urban planning through "justice hubs

Boom · Conversation · Criminology · Mobilities · Prison · Social science · Sociology · Work (physics · Computer Science · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Engineering · Homelessness and Social Issues · Sex work and related issues

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