Carceral Geographies, Police Geographies, and the Networked Continuum of State-Sanctioned Coercion and Control

Authors

  • Vanessa Massaro Bucknell University
  • Geoff Boyce Earlham College

Keywords:

Carceral geographies, policing, state violence, racial capitalism, scholar-activism, abolition

Abstract

This essay introduces a special issue of ACME focused on the “carceral-police continuum.” We use this phrase to highlight three important concepts in policing and carceral geographies scholarship. The first is the imminence of coercive state power, and its uneven distribution. The second is the tangled and expansive web of relationships through which carceral logics and practices operate. The third are the ways attention to these conditions can contribute a conceptual framework to abolitionist praxis. After first offering some additional commentary on each of the problem areas identified above, we then describe how each of the papers collected here advances our understanding of these issues. We conclude by identifying several directions for continuing development, including a need for ongoing conceptual and methodological innovation that supports efforts toward collective forms of organizing, mitigation and redress directed at various forms of state violence, carceral power and their repercussions.

 

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Published

2021-11-17

How to Cite

Massaro, V., & Boyce, G. (2021). Carceral Geographies, Police Geographies, and the Networked Continuum of State-Sanctioned Coercion and Control. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 20(6), 569–578. Retrieved from https://acme-journal.org/index.php/acme/article/view/2196

Issue

Section

SI - Carceral Geographies and Policing (eds. Boyce, Massaro & Christian)