Still not sure what we should do...
I feel as though Shelby's perspective on the question of the prison can be generally summed up in this: "The root of the problem is not the existence of prisons but pervasive and deeply unjust socioeconomic disadvantage more broadly" (82 IPA). He acknowledges that the prisons we have today are morally apprehensible and are a failure on so many different levels, but he maintains that their existence, or at least incarceration, is entirely necessary for society. In order to make this claim while simultaneously recognizing the intense injustice that the prison system facilitates must have an extraordinary faith in reform. Considering his use of nonideal theory and egalitarian pluralism in Dark Ghettos I take that his reform ultimately comes in the form of radical changes in the basic structure of society which, I imagine, would include reform to the prisons themselves. I completely agree with Shelby on the notion that prisons themselves are a manifestation of a deeply unjust basic structure, but I guess my confusion stems from what the expectation is in enacting change in that same structure. Something I felt was lacking throughout the reading we were assigned for tutorial was what exactly we could do with the nonideal framework he provided us with.
Something else that kept coming up for me was that it felt like Davis's call for prison abolition was compatible with the radical reforms that Shelby was suggesting. Davis famously says that "we need to reimagine security, which will involve the abolition of policing and imprisonment as we know them" (7 IPA). Shelby mentions this but the use of as we know them in describing the change that needs to occur with prisons leaves a lot to the imagination. Today's basic structure of society has preserved and transformed social inequality in a myriad of ways so I would argue that to change the basic structure in the way that Shelby suggests (i.e. significant redistributions of wealth on the basis of principles of justice) would be to change the basic structure we currently have as we know it in a way that would be reminiscent to Davis's remarks.
Ultimately, one of the conclusions I came to in my tutorial paper was that without consciousness-raising nonideal theory would "merely be a model for utopic action as opposed to garnering actual change" (me citing myself, yes). I feel like the structural change that Shelby, and so many others, are calling for is in need of a fundamental shift in the way we think about our relationship to other individuals, communities, and institutions. I want to know more about what Shelby thinks is a viable course of action , or what we can do as members of different social classes in channeling nonideal theory to transform "the system."
Lastly, something I found particularly troubling was the distinction between the state's authority to punish criminals and to morally condemn them. My understanding is that Shelby makes the argument that the state cannot morally condemn the criminals while it is built on an unjust basic structure, but reserves the right to punish in order to protect the people that could otherwise be harmed by those criminals. I am really struggling to understand how putting people in prison is NOT a moral condemnation. Incarceration in itself is literally confining to an isolated space--one that are in conditions that are dehumanizing--because they committed transgressive actions that the state, and often its citizenry, feels has rendered them unable to live amongst other people (I am not arguing that criminals should be absolved of any moral condemnation--though there is a conversation to be had about our right to judge). I must be missing some piece of the argument so I look forward to the clarity.
Shiraz
Hey Shiraz, a couple points about your last paragraph. I think the key distinction between punishment (such as incarceration) and moral condemnation is that the moral judgment comes from the social stigma attached to imprisonment, not from the function of incarceration itself. If we take Shelby's approach to crime control, which is strictly non-corrective and purely about deterrence, then incarceration has no moral linkage, aside from judgements passed by society. If we were to institutionalize Shelby's theory of punishment (i.e., restructure our punishments to solely be preventative in nature, and not retributive) then I'm guessing the hope would be that our moral judgements about these punishments would eventually cease. These judgements exist now because punishments are partly corrective in nature, which means they are intrinsically tied to social morality. I also think Shelby addresses your point on dehumanization on pages 60-61; the incarceration facilities operating in the United States right now are undeniably unjust and dehumanizing, but incarceration facilities are not inherently so. On page 47, he says that "to incarcerate is to subject a person to institutional confinement", which is only characterized by it being involuntarily imposed, within an enclosed space, subject to a hierarchical institutional practice, isolated from the public, and in the custody of carceral authorities. None of these factors are inherently dehumanizing (I can see an argument against the involuntary or enclosed characteristics, but we are subject to constraints like that all the time in a more diluted form, even when not incarcerated - this might infringe on agency, but that doesn't make it dehumanizing). Thus, just because our prison facilities now are dehumanizing, doesn't mean that the practice itself is, and therefore it doesn't HAVE to be in tension with the 'no moral judgement' claim.
ReplyDelete