Illich (Via Cayley) on Prisons

Abstract:     
This Article considers whether, more than a dozen years after publication of Cayley’s book, "The Expanding Prison: The Crisis in Crime and Punishment and the Search for Alternatives," Illich’s theories help us to make sense of America’s “prison-industrial complex.” The Author concludes that our current situation reflects in part the dynamics of his theory of “counterproductivity,” but that Illich did not take sufficient account of the salience of race and class in American criminal punishment.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 13

Keywords: Ivan Illich, criminal punishment, incarceration, prisons, prison system, racial subordination

Accepted Paper Series