CURRENTLY ONLINE ONLY: We hope to pick back up with in-person Civic Conversation groups at the Library in the near future. In the meantime, please feel free to utilize our resources for your own in-person or virtual group discussions!
This event features a screening from the Netflix documentary 13th with a conversation around mass incarceration and the racial and ethnic disparities in the U.S. prison system.
Potential Discussion Questions:
- Do you feel the justice system and the prisons in the US mirror the general at-large population? Do you feel that imprisonment metrics should reflect population percentages?
- Does declaring a “War on…” societal ills such as drug usage, create a surge in incarceration numbers? Is that a desirable result?
- With prison construction as an industry and prisons as large employers, do the economic forces exaggerate our incarceration levels? Are there other ways for prison and rehabilitation to work?
- Do you think a private prison industry can be reformed?
- Do you think high levels of incarceration add to or detract from the human potential of a society?
- What policies might reduce incarceration without reducing public safety?
- How often should we revisit whether our previously chosen punishments suitably fit the crime?
- It has been said by a prison warden “We want them, for lack of a better term, to feel like a herd of cattle.” What are the consequences of this mindset?
LIBRARY OF VIRGINIA RESOURCES
Books:
- Stronger Together: A Blueprint for America’s Future by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Timothy M. Kaine
- Mass Incarceration in the United States: At What Cost? hearing before the Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States
- Race, Crime, and Policing in the Jim Crow South: African Americans and law enforcement in Birmingham, Memphis, and New Orleans, 1920-1945
From the Library’s UncommonWealth Blog:
- More Than an Entry in a Register: Local Government Convict Registers
- The Business of Racism
- Virginia’s Lost Papers
- “A Frolicsome Freak of Boyhood”
- Elmer Raines
- Ben Parker
- Clifton Roberts and Sam Washington
Web Pages:
A Guide to the Records of the Virginia Penitentiary, 1796 – 1991
EXTERNAL RESOURCES
Books:
- A book list curated by the Marshall Project on criminal justice
- This reading list includes books to aid in understanding how and why America developed its prison industrial complex and what it will take to end mass incarceration.
- A curated selection of multicultural and social justice books for children, YA, and educators.
- Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Y. Davis
- American Prison: A Reporter’s Undercover Journey Into the Business of Punishment by Shane Bauer
- The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
- Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson
- Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
- From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America by Elizabeth Hinton
- My Brother Moochie: Regaining Dignity in the Face of Crime, Poverty, and Racism in the American South by Issac Bailey
- Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America by James Forman Jr.
Articles and Reports:
- The Lasting Effects of Incarceration in Our Local Prison System in Coast Virginia Magazine
- Virginia’s Justice System: Expensive, Ineffective and Unfair paper by Justice Policy Institute
- My Four Months as a Private Prison Guard in Mother Jones by Shane Bauer, author of American Prison
- The Business Model of Private Prisons in Investopedia
- For Private Prisons, Detaining Immigrants is Big Business in the New York Times
- Capitalizing on Mass Incarcerations: U.S. Growth in Private Prisons by Brennan Center for Justice
Web Pages:
- The Sentencing Project compiles state-level criminal justice data from a variety of sources.
- The US Department of Justice, National Institute of Corrections Virginia 2017 metrics
- A list of criminal and juvenile justice organizations by Justice Policy
- The Marshall Project hosts nonprofit journalism about criminal justice.
- Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2020 by the Prison Policy Initiative
TED talks:
Truths About the US Prison System playlist of engaging talks explore the systemic issues of the US criminal justice system and how they plague everyday people and society as a whole.
Other Films & Documentaries:
Cooler Bandits film Facebook page with link to view free on YouTube