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Cultural Prison: Discourse, Prisoners, and Punishment

NCJ Number
163594
Author(s)
J M Sloop
Date Published
1996
Length
252 pages
Annotation
This book presents a critical study of popular cultural representations of prisoners from 1950 to the present; rather than explaining crime causes or actual prison conditions, the author describes how prisoners and punishment have been represented in popular discourse, most notably along the lines of race and gender.
Abstract
Roles that race and gender play in how discipline and punishment are understood in contemporary American culture are addressed, and the author assumes that rhetoric acts as a powerful and historical basis through which cultures and individuals are constituted. Discipline operates at two levels, institutional and cultural, and refers to how institutions literally and physically discipline individuals and how discipline takes place on a cultural level. In focusing on the public construction of prisoners and punishment, the author contends that mass media outlets produce the dominant culture's ideology and its perspective on a given topic. The disciplinary nature of culture is experienced as an accumulation of actions and discourses that emerge through institutions and individuals. Law enforcement parallels definitions of culture and community, and the representation of law enforcement in mass media outlets allows the law and its links with morality to become an integral part of the relationship between individuals and culture. Cultural representations of prisoners and punishment are reviewed, and historical perspectives on prisoners and punishment since the colonial period are presented. The transition from rehabilitation to punishment during the 1960's and the emphasis on just deserts between 1973 and 1993 are examined. Appendixes contain theoretical perspectives on punishment and additional information on differenating eras of discourse related to prisoners and punishment. References and tables