Research Project

After looking into the sources I included in my original research proposal, I have found a number of categories under which my information falls: the presence of transgender individuals in prison (this would include their disproportionate representation in prisons as well as numbers related to incarceration in single-sex prisons; are they in the prison that corresponds to their gender identity, and if not, what physical change would lead to their transfer), the availability of medical resources to transgender prisoners related to transition (i.e. hormones and gender affirmation surgery), and the history of court proceedings that make this treatment possible (including the cases of Michelle Kosilek and Michelle-Lael Norsworthy).

I am still interested in pursuing "criminal" as an identity and the effects of that identity (whether claimed or imposed... often both) on incarcerated individuals. Art that complicates and combats this identity is what I've found is driving my research... I haven't had the opportunity just yet to explore where I can find more websites like :

http://www.performingstatistics.com/ (Combatting the stereotypes of "criminal", especially powerful since teens who are labelled as such are the ones who are working against it)

A recently released book, Black Silent Majority, by Michael Javen Fortner, offers a new and controversial explanation for the rapid increases in incarceration rates in the United States in the last few decades. Whereas Michelle Alexander argues (in The New Jim Crow) that drug laws simply took up the function of Jim Crow laws made illegal in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement, Fortner argues that the crucial laws of the 1970s as well as the policing practices that they prompted were strongly supported, in fact instigated by, African-Americans who wanted to "get tough on crime." As Fortner puts it in an op-ed published in the New York Times yesterday (Monday Sept. 28):

Dear 360’ers--

I’ve been @ work this weekend (among other things!) creating a rich archive of thinking-and-researching @
/oneworld/arts-resistance-tags/research-project

http://portside.org/2015-09-28/american-slavery-reinvented

http://www.yesmagazine.org/seattle-organizers-win-city-council-votes-end-youth-incarceration-20150922

I currently have a three-pronged approach toward my research project. My interest lies in the education and incarceration of the indigenous peoples of America, more specifically those entrenched in the systems of the US government. For the purposes of this reflection, I will be referring to them as Indians. The three-pronged approach begins chronologically, with the founding of the Carlisle boarding schools for the forced assimilation of Indians. I would like to paint an accurate picture of what happened within these boarding schools, comparing and contrasting them with the current prison system, and reflecting on whether these schools were meant to be for reform or rehabilitation, or perhaps even punishment.

Everyone I know has been sending me a link to the October edition of The Atlantic,
which focuses on ""The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration":
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/10/the-black-family-in-the-age-of-mass-incarceration/403246/
I haven't had a chance, yet, to read all the essays included here, but wanted to call your attention now, and especially, to

See link below, and attached file, to access a new report (forwarded to us by Sheila) from The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Forward Together, and Research Action Design, in collaboration with Essie Justice Group and other community organizations.

Bottom line: women bear the brunt of the costs of their incarcerated loved ones.

http://whopaysreport.org/