Prison Studies in California

Abstract

The present research work is aimed at providing insight into the Californian State Prison System by focusing on its most controversial aspects, namely prison labor, racial discrimination, and mental health issues by drawing on a combination of literary work and historical context. The first chapter traces the origins of such system back to the California Gold Rush, which played a significant role in the creation and expansion of the state’s correctional institutions. The sudden population growth caused by the influx of fortune seeking people inevitably caused an upsurge in lawlessness and crime rates, and as a result, California’s government was motivated to invest in the development of what would become one of the largest prison systems in the world. The first state prison, San Quentin, was established in 1852, and it quickly acquired a reputation as a place of unimaginable violence. Along with a number of firsthand accounts of life behind bars, a part of Chapter One focuses on Jack London’s novel The Star Rover (1915), which draws on the experience of real inmates at San Quentin and explores the prisoners’ troubled psyche.

The matter of the effects of imprisonment on mental health will also be addressed in the second chapter, which deals with one of the darkest pages of US national history, meaning the internment of Japanese Americans in California during the Second World War. The basic framework for this section shall be provided by the analysis of two compelling novels by Gene Oishi, namely In Search of Hiroshi and Fox Drum Bebop, written respectively in 1988 and 2014 to preserve the memory of life in the concentration camps, and to offer insight into the feeling of displacement and the psychological trauma experienced by the Japanese community.

The concluding chapter of this thesis focuses on the impact of the ‘tough on crime’ policies such as mandatory minimum sentencing, the “stop and frisk” rule and the “Three Strikes and You’re Out” law (enacted by Californian voters in 1994), and the consequent wave of mass incarceration whose implications extend to the present day. Finally, in order to carry out a critical evaluation of the Californian prison system and its inherent racism, this research draws on the extremely authoritative point of view of Angela Y. Davis, and her prison abolition theories outlined in Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003), a book which constitutes a starting point for a reflection on the actual purpose and future of the correctional system.