The Prison Fix

Trainer: Dr. Sut Jhally, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Communication at UMASS-Amherst and the founder and Executive Director of the Media Education Foundation. His work revolves around the ways in which media and culture impact our understanding of issues connected to race, gender, politics, international relations and hyper-commercialism. He is the author and editor of a number of books and has been involved in the production of over 70 films and videos.

The focus of this class will be the mass incarceration system, which took off in the United States in the 1970s and is directly related to the emerging black freedom struggle. At a time when black labor was made superfluous to the economics of an emerging global neo-liberal system, and when black demands for justice found expression in urban uprising, the prison system became a way to house and contain a potentially revolutionary class. Our discussion will center on the exploration of that issue and its consequences.