Donald Braman

Donald Braman brings the discussion of incarceration and criminal justice full circle in the way he connects public policy and societal perceptions to describe affect the lives and families of those involved with the criminal justice system. Braman’s anthropological approach to this subject matter challenges the way we like to homogenize those involved in the criminal justice as faceless threats. Braman treats (as we all should) as people.

Braman breaks his argument up into 4 sections: the historical factors that surround incarceration including the creation of ghettos and racial stigmas, the affect incarceration has on familial connections, kinship ties and social exchanges and the silence and stigma those who are incarcerated and their families must face.

Braman outlines a vicious and absurd cycle created by our current policy that does not make us safer. Instead it serves as another instance of institutional oppression that renders largely non white communities unable to meaningfully participate in the society by destroying what the society defines as its most basic unit, the family.… (més)