Description

Imprisoned Bodies: The Life-World of the Incarcerated

This article addresses the experience of the imprisoned, since two million men and women are now incarcerated in the United States, a six-fold increase in the last three decades due to war on drugs with its focus on criminalization and punishment, and an overall trend toward longer sentences and reduced use of parole. The essay offers a phenomenological account of what happens to convicts in terms of time, space, and corporeality. It offers an applied philosophical investigation of criminal confinement and contributes to and extends the recent post-Foucault literature on resistance in prison life. Utilizing the narratives of various convicts to demonstrate how escape, reclamation and integration occur makes sense and coheres quite nicely.

phenomenology, penology, social justice, reform, Foucault

Citation: Social Justice Vol. 31, Nos. 1-2 (2004): 51-66