Social Change and Transgressive Studies: The Role of Carceral History

• In Event: Transgressive Studies for the Age of Discontent

Abstract

This paper discusses the work of the Critical Social History Project, which forms part of CUNY’s Social Change and Transgressive Studies Center. The project’s objective is to build on the discussion introduced by E.H. Carr (1961) and developed by Bosworth (2001), Mooney (2014, 2019) and Godfrey (2021) about the importance of learning from the past and the need to keep an “eye” on what lessons social science disciplines can learn from history, as well as, the input into history that can be gleaned from social science. By exploring the histories of New York City’s first penitentiaries, Rikers Island jails and Sing Sing we show how history can help shed light on the origins and functions of inequality and exclusion and the latter’s role in nation-building, the shoring up of the neo-liberal state, and the level that this persists in the present period. We argue that the telling of this history has the potential to inform current debate in relation to penal reform and abolitionism, and, crucially, helps to preserve the memory of those who have suffered from and resisted the practices of the state. Our research is based largely on archival data.

Authors

• Jayne Mooney, jmooney@jjay.cuny.edu

• Jacqui Young, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY