Becoming a Felon: A Successful Ceremony of Degradation

• In Event: Inmate Culture, Identity, and Transitioning to Release

Abstract

Justice reform seems to be floating around the top of bottom-line discussions. While the financial “burden” of incarceration is elucidating an economic issue, the social and human consequences of mass incarceration have also been called to action toward a deeper consideration (The National Research Council 2014). This paper pulls from a dissertation of 54 interviews with inmates serving life sentences, or 20+ years in prison. Reconsidering prison as a rite of passage allows the theoretical reframing of the sentencing process as a successful ceremony of degradation (Garfinkle, 1956). This modern day rite of passage stigmatizes the convicted into the system, but does little to reincorporate felons back into society after prison. While US corrections are in a financial crisis of historic proportions, this work theoretically (re)frames identity transitions of citizen into felon bearing implications for unlocking new insights into the human consequence of Justice’s contemporary binge on punitivity.

Authors

• Edward LW Green, Roosevelt University

• Sue L Williams, Kansas State University