CALL FOR PAPERS
“New Directions in Theorizing ‘The Prison’ as an Institution”
Incarceration: An international journal of imprisonment, detention, and coercive confinement.
As we approach the twenty-fifth anniversary of Loïc Wacquant’s (2000) seminal article, “The New
‘Peculiar Institution’: On the Prison as Surrogate Ghetto,” theorizing what, exactly, “the prison” is
remains a vibrant research stream. While some scholars continue the vital work of locating the linkages between prisons and other peculiar institutions, others have seized on Wacquant’s core thesis—that the carceral apparatus is tethered to other racialized forms of confinement—to holistically (re)consider what type of institution “prison” represents. Scholars engaged in these parallel agendas have yet to fully cross- proliferate insights that can deepen our understanding of “the prison” as a Weberian pure type.
To this end, we wish to bring scholars into conversation who are working in these varied theoretical treatments in this special issue of Incarceration. In particular, we seek to assemble diverse theoretical understandings of the institutional or organizational forms of the prison and related sites of coercive confinement. Examples of potential contributions may include (but are not limited to) papers that:
- Critically revisit existing theories of prisons as institutions.
- Revise existing theories of institutions through the lens of the prison.
- Introduce new theoretical treatments of “the prison” as a type of institution.
- Locate new dependencies between prisons and other institutions of coercive confinement.
- Theorize how non-carceral institutions of coercive confinement (e.g., immigration detention centers, asylums, reformatory schools, and others) may operate in a carceral manner.
- Theorize novel institutional qualities of prisons or social functions of confinement.
- Reveal novel linkages between prisons and non-carceral institutions, broadly defined.
- Advance theoretical models of how technologies of coercion reshape the operation of prisons and related institutions of coercive confinement.
- Uncover surprising distributions of power between institutional officials and system-impacted groups that induce distinct forms of conformity and/or structure behavioral norms.
Though we expressly solicit primarily theoretical works for this special issue, we also welcome compelling empirical submissions that deeply engage with or advance relevant theoretical frameworks.
Submission Procedures
Interested parties should submit an extended abstract of approximately 250 words to the special editors via email by January 1, 2025. Please indicate that your abstract is a candidate for the Incarceration special issue in the subject line of the email. Based on these abstract submissions, the special editors will reach out to selected authors to coordinate full manuscript submissions that will result in a coherent issue.
All papers will go through the standard Incarceration double-blind peer-review process. As such, publication is not guaranteed. Invited authors will submit their full manuscripts by June 30, 2025. Questions about this call for papers should be directed to the special editors:
- Michael Gibson-Light, PhD (Michael.Gibson-Light@du.edu), Associate Professor, Department
of Sociology & Criminology at the University of Denver, USA - Alexander B. Kinney, PhD (akinney@shsu.edu), Assistant Professor, Department of Criminal Justice & Criminology at Sam Houston State University, USA