Stanley-Eric-Captive-Genders-Trans-Embodiment-and-Prison-Industrial-Complex

Captive Gendersissues are considered in isolation from each other. On the one hand, prisonerjustice activists have not always paid sufficient attention to the genderand sexual dimensions of prisons, 2 especially for queer, trans, and gendernon-conformingpeople. 3 On the other hand, queer and trans organizershave often excluded prisoners from our communities and not prioritizedprisoner justice issues within broader movement struggles. Within antiviolencemovement politics, some feminist, queer, and trans activists havealso been too quick to equate justice with imprisonment—by embracinghate crimes laws, advocating for longer prison sentences for those whocommit sexual violence, and calling for increased “community” policing. 4But struggles against abuse, assault, poverty, racism, and social controlrequire clearer connections between the violence of gender/sexualoppression and the violence of the prison system. Indeed, many of uswho are involved in antiviolence work through rape crisis centers, homelessshelters, and queer/trans safe spaces are also committed to strugglesagainst imprisonment. For some, our anti-prison politics grew out of thatantiviolence work. After years of repeatedly responding to the same formsof violence, and after dealing with the ongoing failures and injustices ofthe criminal system, it has become clear that prisons not only fail to protectour communities from violence, but actually enable, perpetuate, andfoster more violence.Engaging in struggles against imprisonment is particularly urgentnow, as the so-called “war on terror” intensifies, as attacks on migrantsand people of color increase, as violence against women, queers, and transpeople show few signs of abating, and as the global prison populationexpands dramatically. These trends are closely related to changes in theglobal political economy; as governments continue to slash welfare, education,housing, and health budgets on the one hand, they increase spendingon prisons, police, military, and border controls on the other.Never before has the prison industrial complex 5 been so powerful,particularly in the Global North. While the United States takes the globallead in locking up its people (with 1 in every 100 adults currently behindbars and more than 7.3 million people in prison, on probation, or onparole 6 ), other countries, such as Britain, Canada, and Australia are rapidlyfollowing suit. England and Wales, for example, has nearly doubledits prison population since 1992 and is currently embarking on a £3.2–4.7 billion ($5–7 billion USD) prison-building spree to create space formore than 10,500 new prisoners by 2014. 7 Canada has recently passedtougher sentencing laws, and prison expansion proposals are looming. 8236