Carceral Feminism - is this a thing now?

[AgileLass]

I keep seeing this phrase in some feminist Facebook groups, always in a tone of the deepest disapproval.

I just don’t get it... how can wanting men to be punished for violence against women and girls be unfeminist? Is it more feminist nowadays to be in favour of prison abolitionism? I can see how women suffer disproportionately from punitive sentencing for non-violent crimes, but surely violent criminals (overwhelmingly male) need to be punished and removed from society, perhaps forever.

Can anyone explain the logic? Am I missing something?

And plenty of good in preventing further offences esp with sex offenders by the time they are caught they are usually prolific / been escalating / at it for ages

From David Lisak's work, the average rapist in prison has 6 offences to their name. At least prison for 5 years is 5 years when they're out of circulation and can't rape any other women.

Usa is a whole different ball game.

I read really interesting article while back about the 'war on drugs' and why it was really started.

Essentially, v short version and likely not persuasive, feel free to Google though!
Slavery ended
Powers that be still racist and also wanting free labour to prop up economy
War on drugs born specificallt to target incarcerate Black population

And it worked
Massive terms for black people for possession for eg not for white
Huge % of black people incarcerated the numbers are mad
Put to work
Very large economic benefit

Essentially they moved slavery to prison and then tried to put as many black people in prison as poss

Don't argue with me I can try find article if anyone is interested. It was a few years back though!

I agree Fraggling - that's why I said way upthread that the origins of anti-carceralism come from a good set of intentions, namely pointing up the blatant racial inequality underlying the American system. I went to a screening of this
www.amazon.com/Juvies-Leslie-Neale/dp/B006HRVM02?tag=mumsnetforu03-21
in the US a few years back, with the director doing a Q&A session afterwards - it was absolutely eye-opening.

But accusing women of being "carceral feminists" is yet another instance of misogynists appropriating something then using it (utterly unjustifiably) as a stick to beat feminists with.

Yep agree.

Our system has issues we're not America though.

People like jb who get accused of wanking their cock at bus stops / desks in open plan offices being all for no prison seems a tad self serving.

Not that I think you go to prison for wanking at people, not sure.

There are really significant questions about to what extent prison works the way we would like it to, and whether there are other ways we could better accomplish social goals around crime and anti-social behaviour.

Goosefoot could you expand on this, particularly in relation to violent crime? I am interested in hearing your thoughts.

Goosefoot could you expand on this, particularly in relation to violent crime? I am interested in hearing your thoughts.

I suppose the main question people who are interested in reforms of this kind ask is, does the prison system really work to reduce crime, and what harms to society as a whole does it cause. The answer seems to be that it may not have nearly as much value as people tend to assume, and it may cause significant harms including increasing crime. They also tend to make the point that it doesn't do much to get at the roots of crime. There generally seems to be a strong commitment to looking at real outcomes and trying really different things.

Usually restorative justice approaches I've seen take the view that the goal is that the community is able to function in a good and safe way for everyone, and the goal of the justice system should be to facilitate that in as complete a way as possible. This needs to include an element of reparation by offenders, but not revenge which is really quite a different kettle of fish.

I don't know to what extent restorative justice proponents make a hard division between violent and non-violent crime. I'd think it's not really the most important question, rather the potential to become a productive member of the community would be. But you'd really be better off looking into restorative justice resources, I don't have any kind of deep knowledge of the topic.

Lots of sex offenders are productive members of the community.

I am interested specifically in the issues that the current criminal justice system struggles with. Dv. Grooming. Sex offences. Crimes against children relating to abuse and sexual abuse.

Goosefoot your answer seems to me to relate to property type crime (become useful members of society) and possibly addiction issues (which i really don't believe should be criminalised in and of themselves).

What are your views on interpersonal crime, rather than property crime?

The issue has to be recidivism rates by different crime types.

Remember the big scandal recently over the (IIRC) Home Office researcher who discovered that the much vaunted treatment programme for sex offenders in English prisons actually made no difference to reoffending rates - then when she blew the whistle, she was the one who lost her job.

Property crimes, even a drunken punch up as a young man and record for GBH - these things can be one-offs. But sex offenders are far more likely to reoffend. They are among the hardest to rehabilitate.

Therefore while for many offending patterns, there is a chance of prison being used for rehabilitation (which is arguably its primary function in a civilized society), when it comes to sex offenders I think the primary aim is actually warehousing them out of harm's way.

I think there's also the issue of what works for what we have now, and what do we actually want that to look like in the future. A dual-pronged attack as it were.

So for people now, imprison rapists. For the women of the future, educate our children so the idea of raping someone is completely unthinkable.

Bad example, because we're clearly bad at both prongs of that attack at the moment.

Goosefoot your answer seems to me to relate to property type crime (become useful members of society) and possibly addiction issues (which i really don't believe should be criminalised in and of themselves). What are your views on interpersonal crime, rather than property crime?

I don't think it is meant only to relate to property type crime. Though I think bringing addictions into it is in a way to the point, I think that restorative justice tends to look at anti-social behaviours in general in a very similar way to addictions. So there are underlying causes, there are fractures in the community along a variety of lines, there are people who have been harmed, there is the willingness of the people directly involved to participate in the process, there are community supports and resources, there are community deficits. So, looking at all of those elements, what is the best way to restore people to being functional community members, and to restore the community itself? Why would we assume that incarceration would be an answer that will really help the situation?
I don't see that as being different in interpersonal crime, which can come from a lot of different situations and causes just as property crime can.

But loads of sex offenders, dv perpetrators, child rapists are deemed to be, in all other respects, functional community members.

A man who works for the council, volunteers his time in a variety of ways, is on the pta, but likes to rape his children on an evening. How does your community based approach tackle that? From a community perspective he already gives, and lots. He is upstanding. It's in his own home and with his own family that the offences are committed.

Can you explain some more?

As an aside I don't think classing addiction as an anti social behaviour issue is the right thing to do. Some behaviour of addicted people obv. But much of it is in the home.

Which ties in a bit. Do you wee the divide as public / private, vs violent/ non violent (which you say is not the point for you).

Why would we assume that incarceration would be an answer that will really help the situation?

There are some men (almost invariably men) for whom violent crime including sex crime is not some sort of mistake, addictive behaviour, sickness that can be cured, disequilibrium with society bla bla.

There are men who hit and rape and kill women and children because they enjoy it and because they can get away with it. They'll go through the charade of restorative justice because it means they've got away with it. Again. They will laugh up their sleeves! They love getting restored as functional community members because this restores all their opportunities for offending and nothing can quite meet the thrill of hitting and raping and killing women and children for some men.

In these situations incarceration is an answer that really helps. It helps women and children. For as long as these men are incarcerated they are unable to harm women and children (aside from those who are placed in women's prisons, obviously).

I do understand that there is a whole different thing going on with US prisons that is to do with getting black people's labour for free one way or another. There's a great documentary called 13th which is available on netflix about this:

www.netflix.com/title/80091741

Far too many people are locked up for non-violent crimes and I think incarceration is probably not effective on the whole for those sorts of crimes, but we still need incarceration for the sorts of offenders described above.

Any group's policy that just says abolish prisons, or release all prisoners with or without particular protected characteristics, also says by implication that women and children don't matter - we're just collateral damage to some grand woke idea that won't work because it hasn't been thought through.

Not that I think you go to prison for wanking at people, not sure.

Jess Bradley also stands accused of sexually abusive behaviour towards multiple members of they's community.

archive.li/wgU57

If you are being charged for assault, sexual or otherwise, you aren't a functioning member of the community (unless of course you aren't actually guilty.) I find that an odd argument. The reason we have laws against that kind of thing is because it's anti-social behaviour.

If you think it's not, then it shouldn't send you to prison, to say nothing about restorative justice.

As for answering "why would we assume incarceration with the answer" by essentially saying, some people are bad, that doesn't really answer the question. Does prison solve that problem? Does it solve it for some but not others? Are all people who commit crimes the same? Are there more effective methods to address the problems, sometimes, or always?

If we assume that incarceration is the answer we aren't really looking at evidence based approaches to crime or how to evaluate crimes, nor are we looking at the individual circumstances, we just have a preconceived idea about what should happen, or goals based more on punishment as an outcome to be valued in itself.

FermatsTheorem

At least prison for 5 years is 5 years when they're out of circulation and can't rape any other women.

Well, except, sadly, when it means now that they can have a good chance of a transfer into a female prison & have at a new victim pool...

But yeah, what I've seen of 'anti carceral feminism' seems mostly to be excuses not to lock up abusers at all. Without much clarity as to what alternatives would look like or research into how they might work.

(& I fully accept that jail is a crap solution to many offenders. I'd be delighted to see a more effective one - but until then, yep, I'm for locking offenders up in sex segregated prisons, thanks...)

Seems some anti carceral advocates really don't see protection of the public as a thing,

Which isn't a surprise really tbh.

Loads of men who abuse their families get shortened /less punishment as they are otherwise 'upstanding' 'well respected' etc members of the community.

This is another thing where words have meanings and a person can't change them unilaterally.

'If you are being charged for assault, sexual or otherwise, you aren't a functioning member of the community (unless of course you aren't actually guilty.) I find that an odd argument. The reason we have laws against that kind of thing is because it's anti-social behaviour. '

The reason we have laws against abusing your family is because it is wrong to do so and society accepts this.

It didn't used to be a crime to eg rape your wife or hit your kids precisely because it was limited to those close to you and often behind closed doors, and combined with ideas about ownership.

In our current system the term anti social means impacting on the public at large. That's what most people take it to mean.

The idea that a 'A man who works for the council, volunteers his time in a variety of ways, is on the pta' is not a productive member is society means rewriting what that phrase commonly means.

You suggest that a man who rapes his kids is by definition not a productive member of society and you want to see a community based approach to make him a productive member of society.

I don't agree. His crime is against his children, he is otherwise productive, unless you are changing v what words mean.

I think community / restorative justice is a shit idea for sex offenders personally. I would prefer to see them put away out of harms way until a panel of super careful experts are as sure as humanly possible that they will never commit another offence. If that means they are never released then do be it. Sex offenders are notoriously hard to rehabilitate, often highly manipulative, they escalate etc and the nature of their crimes mean its just not worth the risk imo

There are (supposedly, in a functioning system) three strands to imprisonment:

1. retribution - society's punishment for a crime

2. rehabilitation - to get a person back to upstanding citizen status

3. public protection - keeping immediate risk away from the public

Generally speaking, for lesser crimes, I don't think (1) serves that much of a purpose and there are usually better punishments than imprisonment (money fines, community service, etc).

I think rehabilitation (2) can be helpful but often isn't because society is not prepared to invest sufficiently in good quality programmes during imprisonment - education, addiction services, gaining occupational skills, etc. And we have yet to find any programme to treat sex offenders that has anything more than marginal success and what's been done often makes things work, so I'm sceptical there.

And then we have (3) - it doesn't matter how marginalised and oppressed an individual is, if they present a likely and immediate risk of further criminal offending that will impact on others, imprisonment is appropriate. For many (2) may reduce this risk.

Anti-carceral thought generally has none of this nuance. And when touted by the Woke - it's little more than the usual dick pandering.

(worse, not work - fucking autocucumber)

I'd agree with all that and add that that there is little public appetite for rehabilitation as its seen as cushy or something. A lot of public begrudge spending any money on prisoners.

We have situation now where conditions are dire in a lot of prisons and bullying, rampant drug misuse, sexual abuse etc is all over the place, and high levels of suicide.

I read a great breaking piece about a young man who had a host of issues - mental health, addiction etc. As a repeat theif he was put in prison, drugs issues worsened, he was bullied and sexually abused, ultimatelh he ended his own life.

This is a clear situation where to me criminal justice system is wholly inappropriate. Treat the mental health and addiction issues then the crime will sort itself out. This is where the usa championed 'war on drugs' gets us out should be seen as medical social issue and treated. Massively disproportionate levels of mhps in prisoners male and female.

So change to approach needed but imo certain type of violent criminal, sex offender gets off on it its how they are wired, yes try to treat but ultimately people need to be protected and if that means locking someone up in a prison or secure mental health facility then I'm aok with that.

Prison reform Trust seem like good org

www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/

The reason we have laws against abusing your family is because it is wrong to do so and society accepts this. It didn't used to be a crime to eg rape your wife or hit your kids precisely because it was limited to those close to you and often behind closed doors, and combined with ideas about ownership. In our current system the term anti social means impacting on the public at large. That's what most people take it to mean.

Well, I wouldn't say that most people do think it means that, they consider that members of your own family are also members of the public. And it's also widely accepted that behaviours inside the family will impact those outside, if you abuse your kids that doesn't stay inside, they grow up and act in ways that impact everyone. So I would maintain that family violence is in fact anti-social in every sense and I don't don't know anyone who would not include domestic violence or abuse.

There is always in every society a question of where the public realm, or the realm of the state, ends, and the private one begins. It's not a simple question because they are so interconnected, and yet it does seem that going to far in either direction tends to create problems. There are a variety of reasons that a particular society chooses to draw the line in one place or another, some of which are irrelevant in other societies or times.

But I would say that in our society, we don't take the view that domestic violence of various kinds is not the business of the state.

I would agree that people who simply want to abolish all prisons are rather unrealistic. I also think that tends to be an extreme view, even many people who think prisons are mostly counter-productive tend to think they serve some function. One thing they tend to have in common is not drawing a line around certain kinds of offences as always requiring the same approach, even violent ones.

No, I think of antisocial behaviour as low level crime (e.g. grafitti, vandalism) and non-criminal nuisance behaviour (e.g. regular all night parties, pet hoarding).

We had ASBOs (antisocial behaviour orders) which could be served on people whose behaviour didn't meet the threshold of criminality but was nevertheless distressing to others. The ASBO forbid specific non-criminal antisocial behaviours and breaking the ASBO was a crime.

I don't know if we still have those. They were contoversial because they criminalised non-criminal, antisocial behaviour.

Interesting but not sure i feel where you want to go on specifics.

So your point about 'I don't know to what extent restorative justice proponents make a hard division between violent and non-violent crime. I'd think it's not really the most important question, rather the potential to become a productive member of the community would be'.

My ansaer was that 'loads of sex offenders, dv perpetrators, child rapists are deemed to be, in all other respects, functional community members.

A man who works for the council, volunteers his time in a variety of ways, is on the pta, but likes to rape his children on an evening. How does your community based approach tackle that? From a community perspective he already gives, and lots. He is upstanding. It's in his own home and with his own family that the offences are committed.

Can you explain some more?'

I don't feel that you've explained more about how you see this working in practice but gone off into a conversation more around the meaning of words are phrases.

I'm not really interested in that. I'm way more interested in the practical application of these ideas. Conversations about whether or not a man with a stable job, who volunteers a lot etc but is a total bastard at home is a 'productive member of society'or not, are off course.

Maybe I can go in a slightly different direction and that will be clearer.

I think that generally over the last number of years there has been something of a push to become less flexible about how we approach crime. It's not total, there have also been some moves in the other direction at times, but things like asking for more minimum sentences attached to particular crimes, for example, or demanding jail time rather than other approaches for particular crimes. (I'm inclined really to think that some of the extreme push to the other direction comes out of this hard-on-crime approach. These kinds of tensions often produce more extremism on both sides.)

I suppose it comes out of a few things, one being just a greater tendency to black and white thinking in general, and it also seems to be a vote winning political strategy. I also have had the sense that developed something of a tendency to demonise people involved in crimes, or at least certain crimes. And prison is also a simple solution and doesn't involve much creativity.

I think most crimes, even violent ones, can come out of a lot of different kinds of situations and involve different kinds of thinking, and ideally we should look at those things and consider what might really work to improve things for all the people involved. Assuming prison is the answer just shuts down that process.

Maybe also relevant, particularly with regard o domestic abuse - I read a very interesting article the other day, part of it was an interview with a lawyer who had accepted a job that involved with prosecuting domestic violence cases. She assumed starting that a nice thing about the job would be that she would always feel like she was helping, that the laws that had been designed to make sure the offenders went to court would be very positive. What she found was that wasn't the case at all, that the rules were not only not appreciated by the women making the complaints, but they often made the situations worse. Which is to say, I think there are enough complications even in cases of domestic violence that I would not want to see only one pathway for dealing with those cases.