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Prisons and Protest in Canada

John Lowman and Brian MacLean report 69 major prison “disturbances” in the mid-1970s. In the 1980s alone in the United States, there were dozens of serious disturbances and, although many were not progressive, some showed prisoner unity and politicality. If the rationale for prison has changed over the past 150 years, the core practice ultimately has not. The problem is that no matter how the use of imprisonment has been rationalized as somehow benefitting prisoners, the message sent out is not the one the prisoner receives. That is because there is a fundamental and unresolvable antagonism between the keeper and the kept.

prison riots–United States–1970s, 1980s

Citation: Social Justice Vol. 18, No. 3 (1991): 130-155