Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T16:21:43.157Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Profane Illuminations: The Gendered Problematics of Critical Carceral Visualities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Extract

Since 1978, the population of women prisoners in the united states has increased by four hundred percent. The number of women now living and dying in cells exceeds 200,000 (United States Dept. of Justice). They are without access to proper health care, without the children that many of them will lose permanently: they are without. These are stark details, obscene in their materiality. They are facts, but they are not the picture. The picture is impossible. Indeed, the picture is the problem.

Type
Theories and Methodologies
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 by The Modern Language Association of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Amnesty International USA. “Stop Violence against Women: Women in Prison: A Fact Sheet.” 1 Apr. 2008 <http://www.amnestyusa.org/Abuse-of-Women-in-Custody/Fact-Sheet-Women-in-Prison/page.do?id=1108246&n1=3&n2=39&n3=720>..>Google Scholar
Walter, Benjamin. “Surrealism.” Reflections. New York: Schocken, 1996. 177–92.Google Scholar
Frost, Natasha A., Judith Greene, and Pranis, Kevin. Institute on Women and Criminal Justice: The Punitiveness Report: Hard Hit: The Growth in the Imprisonment of Women, 1977–2004. Women's Prison Assn., 2006. 12 Apr. 2008 <www.wpaonline.org/institute/hardhit/HardHitReport4.pdf>..' href=https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Frost,+Natasha+A.,+Judith+Greene,+and+Pranis,+Kevin.+Institute+on+Women+and+Criminal+Justice:+The+Punitiveness+Report:+Hard+Hit:+The+Growth+in+the+Imprisonment+of+Women,+1977–2004.+Women's+Prison+Assn.,+2006.+12+Apr.+2008+.>Google Scholar
Jackson, Bruce, and Christian, Diane. Death Row. Boston: Beacon, 1980.Google Scholar
Danny, Lyon. Conversations with the Dead: Photos, of Prison Life, with the Letters and Drawings of Billy McCune. New York: Holt, Rinehart, 1971.Google Scholar
Solinger, Rickie, Reynolds, Tina, Johnson, Paula, Raimon, Martha, and Tapia, Ruby, eds. Interrupted Life: The Experiences of Incarcerated Women in the U.S. U of California P, forthcoming.Google Scholar
United States. Dept. of Justice. Bureau of Justice Statistics. “Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2006.” 30 Jun. 2006. <http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/pjim06.htm>..>Google Scholar