The Carceral Feminism Debate as a Comparative Lens for Punishment and Society Research?

• In Event: Prison Groups at Risk

Abstract

Against the backdrop of mass incarceration, US scholars and activists have brought forward an intersectional critique of feminist discourses that call for the expansion of criminal law in order to foster gender equality. Feminist public discourses in Germany call for the expansion and harshening of criminal law, too. However, critical reflections similar to the discussion in the US are extremely rare not only in public but also in academic debates.
Using these two diverging observations, this presentation explores what insights the analysis of carceral feminism in these two countries offers for punishment and society research and for (comparative) accounts on the political economy of punishment specifically. In a first step, the presentation carves out how the literature on carceral feminism refines existing accounts on the political economy of punishment. In a second step, both countries are contrasted in two ways. First, differences in the phenomenon of carceral feminism in both countries are being analyzed and linked back to existing comparative studies of the political economy of punishment. Second, this presentation also dissects the differences in academic and public reflections on carceral feminism (or the lack thereof) to reveal further insights on the political economy of punishment.

Author

• Johanna Nickels, Freie Universität Berlin