In 1966, the American “war on crime” began with Lyndon B. Johnson’s Special Message to the Congress on Crime and Law Enforcement. In this speech, he emphasized community wellbeing as justification for a massive federal investment in the criminal legal system. In the final words of this address, he stated that “the ways we deal… Read more →
Tag: prison
To “Serve this Long Term at Home”: Robert Buffum, Mental Illness, and the Prison Trap
Just over a year after having the third-ever Medal of Honor pinned on his uniform for surviving months of retributive torture, Lieutenant Robert Buffum languished as a convicted criminal in the state penitentiary in Frankfort, Kentucky. Once a daring soldier trusted by his commanders to carry out behind-the-lines missions, Buffum had fallen prey to a… Read more →
The Second Sentence: AIDS in Dublin’s Mountjoy Prison
In January 1986, Irish current affairs program Today Tonight reported on a spate of deaths and attempted suicides in Dublin’s Mountjoy prison. These, the reporter intoned, “reveal something seriously wrong in the Irish prison system. A system long-known to be overstretched, antiquated and inadequate has been pushed into the front line of modern Irish society’s… Read more →
Whose Body Is it Anyway? Decolonizing Narratives of Aboriginal Prisoners’ Health
When the British colonized Western Australia in 1829, they did so under the legal doctrine of “terra nullius,” or empty land. Of course, the area was inhabited – owned by the Indigenous Nyoongar people who were dispossessed from their land through frontier conflict, disease, physical dependency on European goods, and punishment under British law. By… Read more →