Prisons create the illusion that free people’s rights and liberties are secured by imprisonment.

Evidence

This question can be formulated in more general terms. Why do prisons tend to make people think that their own rights and liberties are more secure than they would be if prisons did not exist? What other reasons might there have been for the rapidity with which prisons began to colonize the California landscape? — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 24

Categorization

• QUESTION: Davis poses the deep psychological question — why does the prison seem to secure the liberty of the free — which the rest of the book’s argument addresses.
• XREF: connects to: Permanent lethal surveillance imposes psychic imprisonment, not just physical harm.; Prison reform rhetoric reinforces the prison’s permanence.; Prison imagery in media makes incarceration seem natural and permanent (+4 more)

Related

• For stateless people, imprisonment can paradoxically secure more rights than freedom. (similarity 0.85)
• Prison is treated as an inevitable fact of life even in communities it oppresses (similarity 0.84)
• Prison imagery in media makes incarceration seem natural and permanent (similarity 0.80)
• Prisons function as criminal training centers and a just society would not need them (similarity 0.80)
• Permanent lethal surveillance imposes psychic imprisonment, not just physical harm. (similarity 0.80)
• The penitentiary made incarceration itself the punishment for the first time. (similarity 0.79)
• The penitentiary was framed as a progressive reform of its era. (similarity 0.78)
• Punishment follows politics, corporate profit, and media, not crime itself (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Subtler punishment masked sovereign power rather than making it more humane #expands (0.60)
• Prison is treated as an inevitable fact of life even in communities it oppresses #corroborates (0.60) — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 29
• Prison reform rhetoric reinforces the prison’s permanence. #complicates (0.55)
• Civil-liberties-versus-security framing normalizes sacrificing minority rights. #complicates (0.55)
• Prison imagery in media makes incarceration seem natural and permanent #corroborates (0.50)