In, The Law is a White Dog, Colin Dayan explains the problems that arise due to the enigmatic nature of "sublegal" entities. Before the abolition of slavery there were two cases that illustrated those typically deprived of constitutional or human rights; the free person of property who has committed a felony and undergoes civil death, and the enslaved person who, as a bearer of “negative personhood”, has undergone social death. Following the abolition of slavery, negative personhood was seemingly incorporated into what should be expected if one was imprisoned. This inevitably lead to the criminalization of race, and for all intents and purposes made prisoners slaves of the state.
At this same time in history, the corrections system was moving away from a method of simply incarcerating people, and had hopes of rehabilitating those currently within the system. We begin to see much less corporeal punishment sanctioned against those that broke the social contract, and an increase in solitary confinement. What was originally intended to give prisoners a chance to reflect on their lives and the issues that may have landed them in prison has long since been understood to be, more or less, torture. In this sense, we've facilitated social death as well as death of the mind/and our soul amongst prisoners.
Ironically, laws contrived by man can strip living, breathing humans of their personhood yet also recognize the legal existence of ghosts, dogs, and corporations. It seems non-human entities are gaining rights and protections, while humans in desperate need of legal protections are losing ground. This issue is highlighted in another very relevant issue, abortion.
No comments:
Post a Comment