Da Thoreau al Supermax
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.13136/2281-4582/2019.i14.638Abstract
Starting from the canon of the nineteenth century (Melville, Poe, Thoreau) this essay looks at primary and secondary sources on the carceral universe in the USA. Transforming the condemned in an inmate and eventually in a proletarian is one of the goals of mass incarceration. It produces a space where guilt is automatically associated to sentences as a manifestation of social cruelty, to prison as human warehouse, to detention as progressive manipulation of the most fundamental qualities of a human being. Retaliation instead of rehabilitation, profit instead of compassion, long sentences instead of re-entry programs: such are the features of a revengeful legislation, which turns poverty in United States into a crime, following a political rather than moral pattern. The recognition of trauma as the key factor in generating crime (as seen in prison life itself, and in novels by Bunker and Kushner among others) opens up a chance for separating inmates from experiences that keep them tied to a tragic past. Far from punitive fantasies and political decisions, such a trauma-sensitive approach is progressively taking hold in American prisons, offering a reconsideration of human beings as separated from their crimes.References
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Titolo italiano: Io sono un evaso.
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traumatiche. Milano: Raffaello Cortina, 2015.
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Ombre corte, 2013.
---. Punire i poveri. Il nuovo governo dell’insicurezza sociale. Roma: DeriveApprodi, 2006.
When They See Us. Ava DuVernay, Netflix, 2019.
Woodfox, Albert. Solitary: Unbroken by Four Decades in Solitary Confinement: My Story of Transformation
and Hope. New York: Grove Press, 2019.
Batcheller, Pat. “Study Finds Treating Inmates’ Mental Health Reduces Their Risk of Returning to Jail.”
WDET 12 giugno 2019. https://wdet.org/posts/2019/06/12/88293-study-finds-treating-inmates-mentalhealth-reduces-their-risk-of-returning-to-jail/. (Tutti i siti sono stati visitati in data 21/11/2019).
Bauer, Shane. American Prison: A Reporter's Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment. New
York: Penguin Press, 2018.
Beck Elizabeth, Sarah Britto e Arlene Andrews. In the Shadow of Death: Restorative Justice and Death Row
Families. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Bergner, Daniel. God of the Rodeo: The Search for Hope, Faith, and a Six-Second Ride in Louisiana’s
Angola Prison. New York: Crown, 1998.
Bunker, Edward. Education of a Felon. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000.
Edizione italiana: Educazione di una canaglia. Torino: Einaudi, 2002.
Colombo, Gherardo. Sulle regole. Milano: Feltrinelli, 2008.
Conover, Ted. Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing. New York, Random House, 2000.
Curi, Umberto. Il colore dell’inferno. La pena tra vendetta e giustizia. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 2019.
Davis, Angela. Are Prisons Obsolete? New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003.
Ford, Matt. “America’s Largest Mental Hospital is a Jail.” The Atlantic 8 giugno 2015.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/americas-largest-mental-hospital-is-a-jail/395012/
Green, Tara T., a cura di. From the Plantation to the Prison: African-American Confinement Literature.
Macon: Mercer University Press, 2008.
Harris, Marvin e Eric B. Ross: “How Beef Became King.” Psychology Today ottobre 1978: 88-94.
I am a Fugitive from a Chain-gang. Mervin LeRoy, Warner Bros., 1932.
Titolo italiano: Io sono un evaso.
Irwin, John e J. Austin. It’s About Time. America’s Imprisonment Binge. Belmont: Wadsworth, 2001.
Jackson, George. Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson. New York: Bantam, 1970.
Kalica, Elton e Simone Santorso. Farsi la galera. Spazi e culture del penitenziario. Verona: Ombre corte,
2018.
Kehrwald, Kevin. Prison Movies: Cinema Behind Bars. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017.
Kerouac, Jack. On the Road. New York: Viking Press, 1957.
Kushner, Rachel. Mars Room. London: Jonathan Cape, 2018.
Edizione italiana: Mars Room. Torino: Einaudi, 2019.Lewis, W. David. From Newgate to Dannemora: The Rise of the Penitentiary in New York, 1796-1848.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018.
London, Jack. “Pinched.” The Road. New York: Macmillan, 1907.
http://london.sonoma.edu/Writings/TheRoad/pinched.html.
Edizione italiana: “Pizzicato.” La strada. Torino: Einaudi, 1997. 127-146.
Lowrie, Donald. My Life in Prison. New York and London, 1912.
www.archive.org/details/mylifeinprison00lowruoft.
McCarthy, Tom. “Ocasio-Cortez Details ‘Horrifying’ Conditions at Migrant Detention Facility.” The Guardian 2
luglio 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/01/aoc-border-facility-horrifying-cbpofficers-tweets.
Melossi, Dario e Pavarini Massimo. Carcere e fabbrica. Alle origini del sistema penitenziario. 1977. Bologna:
Il Mulino, 2018.
Melville, Herman. “Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street.” 1853. The Piazza Tales and Other Prose
Pieces 1839-1860. A cura di Harrison Hayford et al. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1987.
13-45.
Edizione italiana: Bartleby, lo scrivano. Milano: Feltrinelli, 2015.
Mill, Alice e Kathleen Kendall, a cura di. Mental Health in Prisons: Critical Perspectives on Treatment and
Confinement. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
Nebehay, Stephanie. “U.S. Has World's Highest Rate of Children in Detention: U.N. Study.” New York Times
18 novembre 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2019/11/18/world/americas/18reuters-un-rightschild.html.
O’Donnell, Ian. Prisoners, Solitude, and Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Pit and the Pendulum.” 1850. Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe. Volume II. A cura
di Thomas O. Mabbott. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978. 678-700.
Edizione italiana: “Il pozzo e il pendolo.” I racconti di Edgar Allan Poe nella traduzione di Giorgio
Manganelli, Vol. 2. Torino: Einaudi, 1983. 461-481.
Skarbeck, David. The Social Order of the Underworld: How Prison Gangs Govern the American Penal
System. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Steinbeck, John. Tortilla Flat. New York: Covici Friede, 1935.
Edizione italiana: Pian della Tortilla. Milano: Bompiani, 2014.
Stern, Kaia. Voices from American Prisons: Faith, Educating and Healing. New York: Routledge, 2014.
The Mustang. Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, Légende Films, 2019.
Thoreau, Henry David. Civil Disobedience. 1849. Seattle: Pacific Publishing, 2010.
Edizione italiana: La disobbedienza civile. Milano: Garzanti, 2018.
Trump, Donald. “Bring Back the Death Penalty and Bring Back our Police!” New York Times 1 maggio
1989, Sezione B: 6.
Van der Kolk, Bessel. Il corpo accusa il colpo. Mente, corpo e cervello nell’elaborazione delle memorie
traumatiche. Milano: Raffaello Cortina, 2015.
Wacquant, Loïc. Ipercarcerazione. Neoliberismo e criminalizzazione della povertà negli Stati Uniti. Verona:
Ombre corte, 2013.
---. Punire i poveri. Il nuovo governo dell’insicurezza sociale. Roma: DeriveApprodi, 2006.
When They See Us. Ava DuVernay, Netflix, 2019.
Woodfox, Albert. Solitary: Unbroken by Four Decades in Solitary Confinement: My Story of Transformation
and Hope. New York: Grove Press, 2019.
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