Sustaining Anti-carceral Strategies in the ‘Caring State’: Community Justice and Grassroots Resistance in Scotland

• In Event: The Logic of "Care" and Abolition

Abstract

This paper seeks to highlight the distinctive dynamics of carceral power and anti-carceral research and resistance specific to ‘caring states’. In Scotland, which is held up as a progressive corner of the UK, narratives of exceptionalism and progress have persisted and evolved even in the face exceptionally high rates of imprisonment and community supervision. This paper documents the revalorisation of carceralism in the policy and discourse of ‘Community Justice’ the sector responsible for community supervision in Scotland, and explores how anti-carceral research and resistance can be strengthened and sustained in this context. The research combined analysis of policy and interviews with Community Justice professionals with an exploration of anti-carceral strategies in Scotland through archival research and activist interviews. This paper will focus on how narratives of community engagement, lived experience, trauma and social justice were disrupted and unravelled by prison activism, decriminalisation campaigns and mad studies. Developing a vital challenge to evolving reformism and co-option, this paper serves as a caution to those aspiring to the ‘caring state’.

Author

• Martha O'Carroll, University of Glasgow