Hard labour, the concept of a prison sentence involving brutal work for no compensation, is often treated as a thing of the past. A relic of Soviet gulags, perhaps, or Southern chain gangs. People are sometimes surprised to learn that today, most prison sentences include labour, a lot of that labour is hard, and many […]
Tag: social justice
Psychiatrisation: A Great Way To Silence Troublesome Women
Were you aware that there are tremendous disparities in mental health diagnoses? Well, there are. There’s a long history of using psychiatrisation as a weapon against ‘undesirables,’ as demonstrated in the use of diagnoses of schizophrenia to institutionalise Black men and the use of a broad array of psychiatric diagnoses to pathologise women. Long before […]
Social Justice Matters: Prison Visitation
How many of us have seen a movie or a television show with a prison visit scene? It’s kind of a staple whenever a character goes to prison. At some point, we will see family members or friends visiting in prison. They are ushered through a series of doors and bars, they sit in a […]
The Politics of Revulsion
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the politics of revulsion, because I think that they lie at the root of a lot of problems we experience as a society, especially problems related to inclusion and acceptance. The very idea that inclusion is often called ‘tolerance’ speaks to the way social attitudes entangle the mind […]
But The Nice Officer Is Just Here To Help
Let me tell you about the time that I was presenting as male, was arrested, and was jailed with male prisoners. Actually, let me not. Let me talk, instead, about the widespread and rather touching belief that law enforcement officers are ‘here to help,’ and why it is that so many of us do not […]
Sundown Towns and Denial
Apropos of my discussion about historical contexts and the feminist movement, I’ve been thinking a lot more lately about history, particularly hidden and denied history. History shapes the way we think and act, even if we aren’t conscious of the ways it shapes us, the power it has to mold us and dictate our beliefs. […]
Water, Water, Everywhere
Almost one billion people in the world lack access to safe drinking water, and around 39% of the global population does not have access to ‘improved sanitation.’ By ‘safe drinking water,’ I mean ‘water which, under optimal conditions, is unlikely to make you sick.’ Water, lack of it, and control over it have been issues […]
Social Justice Matters: Mental Health and the Prison System
Last month at FWD, I discussed the imprisonment of mentally ill youth in the United States. The issue of mental illness and the prison system goes far beyond juvenile detainees, however. Mental illness is also seen in adult detainees, and it’s just as poorly handled. It’s a symptom of a much larger problem: A system […]
Social Justice Matters: Justice On Parole
Parole is a concept with which many people are undoubtedly familiar. In the justice system in this country, people sent to prison are often eligible for parole after fulfilling at least a percentage of their sentences. Under parole, prisoners are released back into society, subject to certain restrictions, and they are monitored after release. There are […]
Bootstrapping Priorities
One of the most pervasive and bizarre myths in the United States is that of pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps. The origins of this term lie in the idea that pulling on your own bootstraps to lift yourself up would actually be extremely challenging, since you would be fighting physics among other things. In […]