Join us for our next Food for Thought this Friday, March 23rd from 12-1 PM in the Club Room. This month, we’ll be hearing from Prof. Buntman, one of this year’s Faculty Fellows visiting us from the sociology department. Make sure to RSVP to save your seat!
Repression, Resistance and the Rule of Law in Shaping Prisons
Both states and prisoners use different ideas of law and justice to shape prison orders. Too often, considerations of prison life are viewed through either/or analyses. Depending on one’s point of view, we may see governments as imposing law versus prisoners resisting state order. Or we may see prisoners as criminals needing to be contained, punished, or rehabilitated by a legitimate state, versus prisoners as heroes rebelling against abusive authorities. Using diverse theories and cases, this talk looks at the way prisons are shaped not just by state rule but by prisoner response, including in ways law is used and changed by inmates and governments alike, underscoring the need for universal rules to protect all prisoners. The fact that the United Nations’ ‘Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners’ were revised in 2015 as the‘Nelson Mandela Rules’ underscores the role of resistance, including resistance through law and against law, to achieve at least minimum standards of treatment of all incarcerated people.
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