marx my words: i have many questions

While I’m confident that there are influences of Marx that could be found throughout Shelby’s work, there was one section on page 105 that was particularly interesting to me. 

Shelby describes how it “might be more promising to attribute a master function to prisons.” Some may be tempted to label a direct motivation to racial dominate, economic exploit, political repress, or obscure social problems to prisons. However, Shelby instead suggests that prisons perform a stabilizing function which by doing so causes the issues mentioned above. 

Shelby describes how this stabilizing function is necessary because the injustice our society is built upon is inherently unstable. I thought this was similar to Marx who argues that societal structure is constantly evolving in relationship to the means of production and is thus constantly unstable. In Shelby’s argument, the prison system is a byproduct of the ruling ideology, and prisons persists because the ruling ideology reinforces its existence. 

Shelby really sounds like Marx when he writes that “ideologies also function to secure hierarchical and inegalitarian social systems…by encouraging people not to question the system’s legitimacy” (106). 

Somewhere I found that Marx and Shelby differ in regards to egalitarianism and liberalism. While Marx found some merit in liberal democracy, overall, he found it to be just another ideology which worked to oppress. However, Shelby seems to have a much deeper appreciation for both egalitarianism and liberalism. While Shelby does critique modern liberalism, he seems to hold the tenants to a much higher level than Marx. 

I’d be interested in hearing what Shelby thinks of some of former President Biden’s executive orders regarding the U.S. prison system. Shelby suggests the use of moratoriums, and Biden had placed a moratorium on federal executions in 2021 and also attempted to phase out federal for-profit prisons. 

While I imagine Shelby would find these actions to be steps in the right direction, however limited they might be. I would, nevertheless, like to hear Shelby’s thoughts. Do these actions, even if reversed by Trump, display how prison reform movements have been successful in some capacity? 

I would also like to hear about Shelby’s thoughts about clemency either performed by presidents or governors. Biden granted more acts of clemency (4,245 acts, in specific) than any other president. He granted 29% of the clemency requests he received. He granted pardons to people convicted of certain federal marijuana offenses and to former military service members convicted of violating a since-repealed ban on consensual gay sex. Could clemency be used as an effective tool for reform or reparations given that reform by legislative bodies may be significantly slower? What are the limitations of clemency and does the relative speed of clemency potentially overweight these limitations given the fact that innocent people are being deprived of their liberty so extremely? 

I’m also interested in hearing Shelby’s thoughts on the wrongfully convicted in the U.S. prison system. Shelby refers to a threshold of tolerable injustice. How many wrongfully convicted people does it take to cross the threshold into intolerable?