Carceral state
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A carceral state is a state modelled on the idea of a prison. It employs physical boundaries in order to gain control of urban space. In the carceral state, public space is transformed into defendable space, with the installation of walls, gates, fences, surveillance cameras and security checkpoints. Such installations are meant to provide control over urban space. In these spaces, gatherings of strangers to the area are discouraged, and barricades of various forms can prevent people from entering or passing through.
Many different private and public places may exist in a carceral state. Shopping malls for instance have all the prerequisites, numerous surveillance cameras, security guards, and gates to secure the various shops. The purpose of this environment existing in a carceral state is to monitor and maintain security in a space where many people are present and where there is potential for crime, such as theft, to occur. College campuses also exhibit signs of a carceral state for the sake of student safety. Monitored by cameras, and campus security guards, campuses often also wield control over entrance to buildings through the use of the ubiquitous college ID cards. Many public spaces exhibit such manifestations of the carceral state in varying degrees: public squares, parks, libraries, airports, museums. The control of space in these instances is to maintain security while encountering the general public. In other cases, private space uses the tools of the carceral state to prevent access to the general public. These may be private business or private residences or communities. The quintessential private space existing in a carceral state is the gated community.
Gated communities throughout urban areas also exist in a kind of carceral state. Because of the fear of urban crime, these wealthy communities separate themselves through the use of physical barriers such as wrought iron fences and gates. Some communities employ guards that act as a kind of private police force. Gated communities can also refer to poorer inner city areas that have installed barricades and checkpoints in order to curtail gang violence and drug dealing.
“Gates, fences, and walls are no longer reserved solely for the rich. City neighborhoods, from the wealthiest to the most poverty-stricken, are installing gates and fences, completely closing themselves off. Lower-income neighborhoods that gate are desperate to control crime and regain control of their streets. In public housing projects and very low income neighborhoods, government, police and neighborhood residents are banding together to build systems of fences, gates, and security checkpoints to control gang activity, drug dealing, and other crimes. These gates and walls are more often paid for by the city government or the local housing authority than by the residents, but the initiative can come from either. In any case, these walls differ from those discussed so far in that they are seen by their builders as an exigency rather than an amenity.”[1]
Gated communities that exist scattered throughout the urban landscape turn the modern metropolis into a kind of carceral archipelago, in which the gated communities and defended public spaces exist as perceived “islands of security.” These perceived “islands” are often surrounded by residential areas populated by the lower class. In the book, Fortress America: Gated Communities in the United States, Blakely and Snyder describe the phenomena of the carceral archipelago:
“The drive to redefine territory and protect boundaries is being felt in neighborhoods of all income levels throughout America's cities. Much of the growth in gated communities is not created by developers but by residents of existing neighborhoods who install gates and barricades in an attempt to defend their existing way of life. These are the security zone communities, the closed streets of the city, suburb, and barricade perches. We define this type by the origin of its gates and fences: unlike the lifestyle and prestige communities, where gates are built by the developer, in security zone communities the residents build gates and retrofit their neighborhoods with security mechanisms. In the city and suburb perches, residents turn their neighborhoods into gated communities by closing off all access and sometimes hiring guards.”[2]
A Carceral state exists in a form of, or a pre-requisite to/evolution upon, a police state. A carceral state is one that seeks to know everything about its inhabitants and visitors, but hide everything about itself. It demands transparency of everything except its own operations. The idea was discussed by Michel Foucault in his works regarding imprisonment especially psychiatric imprisonment.
Certain aspects of the carceral state can serve to increase the fear of residents. The psychological effect of living in an area guarded by cameras, gates, and guards reinforces the idea that the outside world is dangerous, creating a kind of fortress mentality or paranoia when traveling outside.
The Panopticon prison as proposed by Jeremy Bentham led to the current concept of the carceral state as developed by George Orwell in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. This book was set in a totalitarian Britain dominated by all-seeing "telescreens," and today there are more cameras in public places in the UK than in any other country per capita. Eastern State Penitentiary is an example of a prison built upon the Panopticon principle. It used mirrors to allow guards in a central hub to view prisoners.
A current theorist of the carceral state is Steve Mann, "the first cyborg", who travels wearing digital recording and transmitting equipment all over the world including airports, shopping malls, demonstrations, etc., where recording of the authorities or guards is discouraged. However, as Mann points out, cameras are constantly being used in these places to capture images of people, and Mann is simply doing the same in return. Since the right to record is not necessarily reciprocal, Mann had often been ejected or harassed.
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- ^ Fortress America: Gated Communities in the United States (Blakely and Snyder, 1997)
- ^ Fortress America: Gated Communities in the United States (Blakely and Snyder, 1997)
Fortress America: Gated Communities in the United States (Blakely and Snyder, 1997)
