Prisoners, 1895-1916

In Discipline and Punish Foucault argued that the carceral state is inescapable. But is this true? One answer can be found within the ultimate carceral institution: the American prison at the turn of the 20th century. This paper examines writing by American prisoners from between 1890 and 1915, and argues that prisoners ’ self-representations fit uneasily into the parameters of Foucault’s carceral state: prisoners ‘escaped ’ through religion, generic writing that defied progressive individuality, and the ‘mirroring ’ of their audiences values, fears, and identity. In this way they blurred the distinction between ‘self ’ and ‘other, ’ ‘delinquent ’ and ‘normal ’ that Foucault believed arose inevitably in the modern carceral state