“Stone Walls Do Not a Prison Make” – Toward an Ontology of the Prison
Criminologists spend a lot of time examining the scale, cost, and policy implications of mass incarceration. Yet fundamental questions remain unanswered.
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Description
One such question – What is a prison? – has profound implications for the study of punishment, both historical and contemporary. Starting with several competing definitions, a working ontology is developed. Then, drawing upon examples from popular culture, multiple philosophical and public policy tensions are explored. By exploring the definitional limits of the prison, it might be possible to shed light on the meaning of carceral punishments.
Speaker Bios
James Oleson is an Associate Professor of Criminology at the University of Auckland. He earned his BA in psychology and anthropology from St. Mary’s College of California, his MPhil and PhD in criminology from the University of Cambridge, and his JD from the law school at the University of California, Berkeley (Boalt Hall). Between 2001 and 2004, he taught criminology and sociology at Old Dominion University. In 2004, he was selected as one of four U.S. Supreme Court Fellows for 2004-05. After the end of the fellowship year, he was appointed as Chief Counsel to the newly-formed Criminal Law Policy Staff of the U.S. Courts, and served in that capacity from 2005 until he relocated to Auckland in 2010. He is currently working on a book about representations of the prison in popular culture.