Philip Goodman

The long struggle: An agonistic perspective on penal development

Bringing together insights from macro-level theory about “mass imprisonment” and micro-level case studies of contemporary punishment, this article presents a mid-level agonistic perspective on penal change in the USA. Using the case of the “rise and fall” of the rehabilitative ideal in California, we spotlight struggle as a central mechanism that intensifies the variegated (and sometimes contradictory) nature of punishment and drives penal development. The agonistic perspective posits that penal development is fueled by ongoing, low-level struggle among actors with varying amounts and types of resources. Like plate tectonics, friction among those with a stake in punishment periodically escalates to seismic events and long-term shifts in penal orientations, pushing one perspective or another to the fore over time. These conflicts do not occur in a vacuum; rather, large-scale trends in the economy, politics, social sentiments, inter-group relations, demographics, and crime affect—but do not fully determine—struggles over punishment and penal outcomes.

Race in California's prison fire camps for men: prison politics, space, and the racialization of everyday life

The vast majority of social scientists agree that race is “socially constructed.” Yet many scholars of punishment and prisons still treat race as static, self-evident categories. One result is that not enough is known about the production, meanings, and consequences of race as experienced by prisoners and those who guard and manage them. The author’s research on California’s prison fire camps uncovers the microlevel ways in which race is performed and imbued with meaning; he reveals how racial understandings color people and settings. One puzzle is that prisoners in California’s fire camps will fight natural disasters side by side, sharing water and provisions, but separate into racial groups when in the camp itself. In part to answer this (and in part to develop better understandings of race and prisons more generally), the author unpacks the variegated nature of punishment and the spatialization of race and advocates for research that is faithful to the constructivist framework.

Creative disruption: Edward Bunker, carceral habitus, and the criminological value of fiction:

Drawing on Edward Bunker’s semi-autobiographical novels, this article argues for the criminological value of fiction. Drawing inspiration and extending core insights from “narrative criminology” and “popular criminology”, we posit that novels and other creative sources can disrupt scholarly commonsense, pushing scholars to reconsider and extend theoretical perspectives. Specifically, Bunker’s fiction encourages re-thinking of overly cognitive (i.e. “mentalist”) understandings of “prisonization”, which do not sufficiently capture the embodiment of carceral culture and routines. Through Bunker’s work, we flesh out the concept of “carceral habitus”—itself deeply gendered and raced—to extend theories of prisonization, deepening understandings of how incarceration transforms people. We affirm that literary devices provide scholars innovative paths to communicating full-bodied accounts that breathe new vitality into criminological theory.