TY - JOUR
T1 - Eliminating the enemy
T2 - The import of denying prisoners access to higher education in Clinton's America
AU - Page, Joshua
PY - 2004/10
Y1 - 2004/10
N2 - This article investigates why Congress passed legislation in 1994 that denied Pell Grants - the primary source of funding for postsecondary correctional education (PSCE) - to prisoners, despite evidence that PSCE helped reduce recidivism and bolster carceral order. Analysis of the congressional debates and relevant media texts shows that lawmakers, in concert with the popular media, produced a legislative penal drama in which they spoke to key audiences' - particularly white, working and middle class voters' - mistrust of penal practitioners and criminal justice experts, prejudices toward (black and brown) street criminals, fears about crime and anxiety over the economy, the transformed labor market and access to higher education. The article contends that the timing and texture of the Pell Grant affair were symbiotically related to a confluence of developments in the political and related fields during the 1980s and early 1990s. It extends Emile Durkheim's communicative theory of penality to encompass notions of class power and political interest. By producing such legislative penal dramas, lawmakers simultaneously tap into and legitimize collective sentiments of particular audiences, highlight symbolic boundaries between in- and out-groups and shore up political electoral support for punitive polices.
AB - This article investigates why Congress passed legislation in 1994 that denied Pell Grants - the primary source of funding for postsecondary correctional education (PSCE) - to prisoners, despite evidence that PSCE helped reduce recidivism and bolster carceral order. Analysis of the congressional debates and relevant media texts shows that lawmakers, in concert with the popular media, produced a legislative penal drama in which they spoke to key audiences' - particularly white, working and middle class voters' - mistrust of penal practitioners and criminal justice experts, prejudices toward (black and brown) street criminals, fears about crime and anxiety over the economy, the transformed labor market and access to higher education. The article contends that the timing and texture of the Pell Grant affair were symbiotically related to a confluence of developments in the political and related fields during the 1980s and early 1990s. It extends Emile Durkheim's communicative theory of penality to encompass notions of class power and political interest. By producing such legislative penal dramas, lawmakers simultaneously tap into and legitimize collective sentiments of particular audiences, highlight symbolic boundaries between in- and out-groups and shore up political electoral support for punitive polices.
KW - Pell grants
KW - Politics
KW - Postsecondary education
KW - Prisoners
KW - Punishment
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=20644437284&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=20644437284&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/1462474504046118
DO - 10.1177/1462474504046118
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:20644437284
SN - 1462-4745
VL - 6
SP - 357
EP - 378
JO - Punishment and Society
JF - Punishment and Society
IS - 4
ER -