ANTH106 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Human Bonding, Private Prison, Mass Murder
31 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Week 9 ANTH106
Drugs and Incarceration
- Contextualise the war on drugs, law enforcement – Australian and US – plays out on
a racial terrain
Foucault – Power
Deviance – Making Cirmials
Militarisation of Police
History of US – Race
Prison industrial complex
Trauma and addiction
Disease or desire
Themes
- Human rights, race, perverse
Foucault: Discipline and Punish
- The social construction of deviance
- Different societies, cultures people have different ideas of what truth is – drug is
socially and culturally constrigent – depending on what is going on in history at that
time
- Construct deviants – when we define laws we define deviant
Pushiment before Imprisonment
- Punsihsment of body to punishment of soul trhough body through micromangent,
training, servaillence
- How is power excised = power between powerless and power relations
- Foualt Did’t see this as ol happeig though piso ut also istitutios
Modern Prison System in US
- After civial war – 4 million free black men and women
- Great economic cost after war
- Gov afraid of these free people – push back on human rights – from fear and
repression
- Slavery economic system for free labour – first prsion boom after civial war – black
men incarcernate for vagrancy, things not that deviant – increased funding for the
prison and increased civallience for black people
- Himmelstein – vengernnce towards minorities – criminialise Hemp and associated
with Mexicans – focus rage on black community and jazz muscians such as billy
holiday and louis Armstrong – lure with jazz and sex and marijuana
- Lynchings that happened following cival war – mass migration into northern staTES –
CHICAGO, boston, new York black people escaping lynching in south – no justice
- Billy holiday scapegoat – amslinger – she blamed the war on drugs
find more resources at oneclass.com
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- Response was segration – blacks moving into urban areas, then push back –
increasing police brutality – civial rights movement
- Martin Luther King – considered most dangerous man by FBI – social deviant – used
being imrpsioned as their fight and resistence – how he was constructed at the time
Escalation of the War on Drugs
- Nixon 1971 controlled substance act
- Reagan 1982 – declared official war on drugs - raiding – increased spending to
billions – happening in midst of economic crisis
- Crack cocaine – admist econimoic crisis low job – crack conaine associated with
young, balck, unemployed, living in urban ghettoes – gov pushing against counter-
culture – hippies, black poqer, civial rights – ould’t’ ake oute-culutre illegal so
made drugs crack cocaine arrested – sentence 100 times worse than caught with
regular cociaine – prison for life with tiny amount – laws get even more harsh
- 1970s continuation of framing black people as born criminials – young black men
arrested on TV overrepresented black community to make people afraid of them
- 1994 Crime Bill – Clinton – removed any power judges had to make crime hearings
easier or change the rules – mandatory minimal sentence, no negotiation – 97% of
people do not actually see a cout 80% a’t affod a lae – never see a trial,
talked into accepting minial sentence b/c trail might be maximum – see why prisons
filling up sustainlly at this point
- Clinton has since acknowledged three strike and mandatory actually detrimental to
society
-
Militarisation of Police
- Institutualised racism – black people targeted but b/c racists cops but inverse
incentives – police stations get kick backs for drug arrests and access to miliarty
equipment – Clinton more cops on streets with guns to surveillance deviant people
and picking the low hanging fruit – quota and funding you go to places where you
can bust people – people who are poor so marginalised less bargaining power to get
out of situatios as ajoit a’t affod laes
- Resistance
- 2012 Ferguson, shot by white police – peaceful protest but anticipation of violence
legitimases heavy force by police b/c imagined idea that they wpuld be violent b/c of
idea that they are deviant
- “TAND YOUR GROUND la – if they look threatening, you can shoot them b/c they
might be endangering you – you look like a drug dealer – really important with
stertypes and how they work with the law to perpertuate racial disparaties – usually
unconscious and systemic – black lives matter Treyvon martin shooter aquited –
human rights problem
Radley Balko – scare the people – police to protect community but this is forgotten – police
believe this to protect are the enemy with miliartisiation of police
- Since 9/11 – huge spending – growth instruy since 1970s for militarisation of police –
- SWAT teams deployed unnecessarily – debt collectors, increasing power and fear
fo uifos ad isual authoit to eifoe polie’s iage of theseles –
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
miliarty trying to distance from police – military to kill enemy, not what the police
are for
- 8% more likely to be killed by police than terrorist in the US
Social Consequences of Militarisiaon of Police
- Reverse incentives with drugs
- Race
- Power
- Human rights-war on drugs
- Surveillance of mioritnies and social deivants
- Communities treated as enemies – undermines police integrity and community trust
- Collateral damage
Prison Industrial Complex
- Prison overpopulated – population is over prisoned, not problem with criminals
- US 25% world prison population
- 70 billion tax payers money for prison privatisation and expansion
- 1 in 15 black men behind bars at any given day
- WA 1 in 12 indigenous aussie at any given day
Human rights – havnt ended racial cast, just redinfed it – prisons absorbing black
65 million Americans have a criminal record – a’t ote if hae a iial eod
3 quarters spend time behind bars
Most for small time drug offences
Legalisation of marijuana – while lots of money made, still lots of people still serving life
sentences – not a just system
The US state and federal prison population has increased over 800% in just 40 years
More black men sent to prison than going to university in US
1 in 3 black men will spend time behind bars
1 in 6 latina
1 in 9 all men
Prison Industrial Complex
- Whole community effected – atmosphere for intergeneration trauma not quite –
children, mothers – huge movements of resistence b/c acting on whole community
- Economic view – earning after prison very low
- Southern stratedy – keeping blacks poor – 1970s Reublic party to disempower the
black population to keep them away from money
- The Thirteenth Amendement to the constitutuion prohibits slavery and indentured
servitiude – except as a punishment for crime = prsion labour sold to large
incorporations, work for free on 9c an hour – new form of slavery – post civil war –
more free labour to rebuild the economy
- California 3 million in revenue – going on in Australia as well – has started in Aus
from American companies moving into Australia
- Most work is factory work – matresses, Victoria Secret recently hiring immates – buy
something in US prision labour was involved
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Contextualise the war on drugs, law enforcement australian and us plays out on a racial terrain. Different societies, cultures people have different ideas of what truth is drug is socially and culturally constrigent depending on what is going on in history at that time. Construct deviants when we define laws we define deviant. Punsihsment of body to punishment of soul trhough body through micromangent, training, servaillence. How is power excised = power between powerless and power relations. Fo(cid:272)ualt did(cid:374)"t see this as o(cid:374)l(cid:455) happe(cid:374)i(cid:374)g tho(cid:396)ugh p(cid:396)iso(cid:374) (cid:271)ut also i(cid:374)stitutio(cid:374)s. After civial war 4 million free black men and women. Gov afraid of these free people push back on human rights from fear and repression. Slavery economic system for free labour first prsion boom after civial war black men incarcernate for vagrancy, things not that deviant increased funding for the prison and increased civallience for black people.
