Militarism, Criminal Justice, and the Hybrid Prison in England and Wales

JULIA SUDBURY'S COMPELLING ARTICLE ANALYZES THE COMPLEX INTERRELATIONSHIP between militarism, neoliberal globalization of capital, and transnational expansion of prison-industrial complex. The analytical connections she makes between multinational corporations, U.S. empire building and devastated, criminalized lives of women in particular directly challenge mystifying liberal fog that has descended on much of academic debate around prisons. She also challenges critical scholars to think about developing new tactics, strategies, and links in order to repudiate deeply embedded popular and political discourses that extol prison behemoth as a mechanism of social defense operating in public interest. These discourses mystify institution's role as a place of punishment and pain for poor and powerless, especially women, and black and other minority groups. Sudbury's analysis is theoretically stimulating and politically provocative in demanding a reappraisal of our thinking about prisons, particularly in aftermath of September 11 and war in Iraq. My response builds on insights in article to shed light on some recent developments in England and Wales. It does this by focusing on four areas: expanding prison, issue of private prisons, militarization of criminal justice system, and strategies of resistance. The Expanding Prison As Sudbury indicates, modern penal institutions are deeply implicated in management of an inequitable and divided social order through detaining increasing numbers of socially and economically marginalized. In England and Wales, expanding prison is literally and metaphorically big house of poor while, as ever, powerful operate beyond law's reach as successive governments have pursued an anti-statist strategy with respect to non-policing of their destructive and detrimental activities (Sim, 2000). The country is now prison capital of Western Europe. This began in early 1980s when Margaret Thatcher's first Conservative government initiated biggest prison-building program seen in 20th century. This expansion continued over next two decades (despite occasional drop in numbers inside), to point that average daily prison population reached an all-time high of 74,960 in March 2004. Projected figures indicate population could rise to over 109,000 by end of decade (Prison Reform Trust, 2003). Other data provide further evidence of stark reality of penal expansionism. In 2002, courts sentenced 111,600 people to immediate custody and 186,500 to community punishments. Both figures were the highest on record (Home Office, 2004: 2). Taken together, they raise serious issues about the continual recycling of same individuals and groups between prisons and communities, [which] creates a damaging but self-sustaining process (Matthews, 2003: Abstract). As in USA, prison in England and Wales has become a punitive space for disproportionate detention of black people in general and black women in particular. In 2001, incarceration rate for white people was 170 per 100,000 of population. This compared with 1,140 per 100,000 for black people, 536 per 100,000 for Chinese and other groups, and 166 per 100,000 for South Asians (Home Office, 2003a: 106; 113). At end of June 2002, 22% of male population and 29% of female population came from ethnic minority backgrounds. In addition, foreign nationals made up 11% of prison population. In terms of drugs, and again running parallel with Sudbury's argument, 28% of sentenced female British nationals were imprisoned for drug offenses. This figure rose to 84% in case of female foreign nationals (Home Office, 2003b: 114). Once confined, black and other minority groups experience a range of inequalities based on skin color (Commission for Racial Equality, 2003). …

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