Way down in the hole : race, intimacy, and the reproduction of racial ideologies in solitary confinement / Angela J. Hattery and Earl Smith.

  • Hattery, Angela
Date:
[2023]
  • Books

About this work

Description

"Based on ethnographic observations and interviews with inmates, correctional officers, and civilian staff conducted in solitary confinement units, Way Down in the Hole explores the myriad ways in which daily, intimate interactions between those locked up twenty-four hours a day and the correctional officers charged with their care, custody, and control produce and reproduce hegemonic racial ideologies. Smith and Hattery explore the outcome of building prisons in rural, economically depressed communities, staffing them with white people who live in and around these communities, filling them with Black and brown bodies from urban areas and then designing the structure of solitary confinement units such that the most private, intimate daily bodily functions take place in very public ways. Under these conditions, it shouldn't be surprising, but is rarely considered, that such daily interactions produce and reproduce white racial resentment among many correctional officers and fuel the racialized tensions that inmates often describe as the worst forms of dehumanization. Way Down in the Hole concludes with recommendations for reducing the use of solitary confinement, reforming its use in a limited context, and most importantly, creating an environment in which inmates and staff co-exist in ways that recognize their individual humanity and reduce rather than reproduce racial antagonisms and racial resentment"-- Provided by publisher.

Publication/Creation

New Brunswick : Rutgers University Press, [2023]

Physical description

xii, 278 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Series

Contributors

Bibliographic information

Includes bibliographical references (pages 265-274) and index.

Contents

Introduction -- Part 1: The hole. A day in the hole ; Solitary confinement in context ; Ideal types -- Part 2: Scholar's story. Recruiting people incarcerated in solitary confinement ; Fox News or CNN? ; Racism in solitary confinement ; The cell assignment: race is the first consideration ; It's "culture" not "race' -- Part 3: CO Porter and Dr. Emma. Locating prisons in rural settings ; Prison town--Larrabee ; Dr. Emma and the professional staff ; The hotel ; It's either this or the coal mine ; CO Porter: "Sometimes I sleep in my car" -- Part 4: Fifty's story. Dehumanization ; Language ; Studies with monkeys ; Hygiene products ; The mirror ; Food ; Time ; Mail ; Choosing the hole ; Freelimo: the silencing of the political prisoner ; Extreme violence -- Part 5: Marina's story. Welcome to SCI-Women ; The women's hole ; Meeting the mass killer: solitary confinement is her "home" ; The BMU ; Sally ; CO Lisa ; Wendi ; "Do you think I'll die here?"---Marina -- Part 6: CO Travis. We are the essential workers ; Solitary confinement isn't a daycare! ; Correctional PTSD ; "Therapy" with Dr. Emma ; The grift: faking mental illness to get a candy bar ; The flipped script: TVs, trays and [flush] toilets ; Not always in sync: the job of the CO and work of the CO ; Intimate interracial contact and intimate surveillance -- Part 7: White supremacy and the lies white people tell themselves. The "origin" lie: the Negro is the problem ; Emancipated slaves and the white sharecropper ; Strangers in their own land ; Dying by whiteness ; Bending the rules: creating humanity in inhumane spaces ; The lies the COs tell themselves ; "Anything but race" theories ; January 6, 2021: the big lie -- Epilogue.

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Where to find it

  • LocationStatus
    History of Medicine
    JQP.U
    		Open shelves

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Identifiers

ISBN

  • 9781978823792
  • 1978823797