Transcript midterm review ppt

Money, Politics, and the
Prison System
Midterm Review
February 17, 2016
Nikhita Jain and Marius Young
Are Prisons Obsolete?
By Angela Davis
• Davis’s main argument:
• Privatized prisons are working as a catalyst to continue
the ideologies that closely relate to slavery
• Davis’s research and data:
• Sentencing Project’s study in 1995 found that 1 in 3
black men between ages 20-29 are in prison or jail (over
800,000 black men)
Are Prisons Obsolete?
By Angela Davis
• How did the United States choose incarceration?
• (Hint: consider the history, other types of punishment,
rise of capitalism) 43
• Why does Angela Davis call herself and people who
share her ideology abolitionists?107
• (Hint: Prison systems connections to slavery, )
Serving Life
Directed by Lisa Cohen
• Where is Angola and what is the significance of this
location?
• Louisiana
• Reputation as the most violent prison
• What are the Warden’s Goals?
• Humanize prisoners
• What motivates the inmates?
• What is good about the hospice program and what is not
good (if anything)?
Race to Incarcerate
by Marc Mauer
•
Three Strikes Laws
• Three felony sentences and life without parole
•
Role of War on Drugs
• Reagan (1981-1989)
• Blame the individual, not society
• Mandatory sentencing for drug crimes was a way to bring crime under
federal jurisdiction
•
Why did the US get in to the “race to incarcerate”
• (Hint: media sensationalism of crime, mandatory sentencing, response
to baby boomer generation, privatization of prisons)
•
What drove the need to put bodies behind bars?
• ( Hint: Prison Industrial Complex, Commoditization of bodies)
Into the Abyss
Directed by Werner Herzog
•
What was revealed about the execution process in Texas?
• Executions take 9 minutes of suffering to complete. They can
take up to 10 years to be processed for execution*
•
What crimes had been committed?
• (hint: murder and theft explain…)
•
How old was the inmate who was getting executed?
• (hint: he was 18 at the time of the crime.)
•
What do you think Herzog was trying to say?
• Herzog is trying to explain how inhumane it is to sentence
people to the death penalty
Money, Politics, and the
Prison System
Midterm Review
February 17, 2016
Nikhita Jain and Marius Young