Psychic investment in cruelty: three parables on race and imprisoning the mentally ill

Abstract

Drawing on ethnographic and activist work in New York, I analyze three contemporary cases of mentally ill people charged violent crimes. State violence against them can be characterized as a differential and differentiated set of racial and gendered practices. The case studies offer something between a parable, a field report, and a cautionary tale of the dystopian tendencies already embedded within the criminal justice system in the United States. Based on these cases, I will argue that despite recent liberal reform, scant evidence suggests any deep shift in the web of agencies that pipe people, especially the mentally ill, into prison and jail, or a shift in the cruel and humiliating practices these agencies embody. For the society to achieve what Du Bois called an abolition democracy, the affective infrastructure and psychic investment in debasing subordinated others would have to be abolished.

Keywords:

• Mental illness
• prison
• jail
• abolition democracy
• ethnography
• activism

Notes

1. ‘Mental illness’ as a social distinction should have a question mark over it. I subscribe to the idea of Thomas Szasz, Michel Foucault, and others that the scripting of the category is more a privilege of power than objective fact. Thus, there is something spurious about these statistics. Moreover, what counts as mental health in the extreme conditions of a prison or a jail (or anywhere, for that matter) can be a question of reasoned debate. On the other hand, some people’s mental chaos or condition – call it what you will – leads to their criminal entanglements as well as makes them more vulnerable to abuse or further deterioration if they are incarcerated. (See Haney, 2006, 2008).

2. Not to mention the vested material interests. The economic and politic interests in mass incarceration – and now massive reform – have been thoroughly explored elsewhere (Davis, 2003; INCITE!, 2007). Scholars have explored the political economy of growth (Gilmore, 2007), as well as new methods of surveillance and policing (Haggerty & Ericson, 2006; McQuade, 2016).

3. Versions of this parable can be found in William James (2010[1912]), Ursula Le Guin (1975), Derrick Bell (1992), and Elizabeth Povinelli (2011).

5. Due to subsequent press reports, the contents of my discussions with graduate students on this matter is now a matter of published record and so I do not feel I am revealing any confidences or violating confidentiality.