A Wall Is Just a Wall: The Permeability of the Prison in the Twentieth-Century United States

In the past, incarcerated people were frequently released for Christmas holidays, had unsupervised visits with their wives, and had their sentences commuted. However, by the 1990s, these practices had become rare due to the perception that the public needed protection from violence. In her book "A Wall Is Just a Wall," Reiko Hillyer examines the origins and decline of practices that allowed incarcerated people to transcend prison boundaries, such as gubernatorial clemency, furlough, and conjugal visits. She shows that the current impermeability of the prison is a recent, uneven, and contested phenomenon, historicizing changing ideas of risk, the growing acceptance of permanent exile, and prisoners' efforts to resist.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 368 pages
Publication date: 13 February 2024
Publisher: Duke University Press

Throughout the twentieth century, even the harshest prison systems in the United States were relatively porous. Incarcerated people were regularly released from prison for Christmas holidays; the wives of incarcerated men could visit for seventy-two hours relatively unsupervised; and governors routinely commuted the sentences of people convicted of murder. By the 1990s, these practices had become rarer as politicians and the media, in contrast to corrections officials, described the public as potential victims who required constant protection against the threat of violence.

In A Wall Is Just a Wall, Reiko Hillyer focuses on gubernatorial clemency, furlough, and conjugal visits to examine the origins and decline of practices that allowed incarcerated people to transcend prison boundaries. Illuminating prisoners' lived experiences as they suffered, critiqued, survived, and resisted changing penal practices, she shows that the current impermeability of the prison is a recent, uneven, and contested phenomenon. By tracking the "thickening" of prison walls, Hillyer historicizes changing ideas of risk, the growing bipartisan acceptance of permanent exile and fixing the convicted at the moment of their crime as a form of punishment, and prisoners' efforts to resist.

Weight: 546g
Dimension: 152 x 230 x 26 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781478030133