The Jail Is Everywhere: Reflections on Organized Abandonment, Mass Criminalization, and a Changing Carceral Landscape with Dr. Jack Norton

Wednesday, October 22, 5:00 p.m. PST 

Stanford Humanities Center Boardroom & Zoom

RSVP - includes Zoom Webinar Registration

There are over three thousand counties in the United States; most of them have a county jail. Over the past few decades, county after county—especially in rural areas—has expanded or built a new jail. The result is a sprawling and decentralized carceral capacity used by local police, state prison authorities, and federal agencies such as USMS and ICE. This changed and dynamic carceral landscape was built largely through public debt taken on at the county level, and the quiet local jail boom of the last few decades has played an important role in reorienting local politics and development priorities. Drawing on nearly a decade of fieldwork and research on rural jail expansion, Dr. Norton will discuss this new geography of incarceration and detention, and how communities across the country are fighting jail expansion and organizing toward abolition. 

Jack Norton is an Assistant Professor of criminal justice at Governors State University in the Chicago Southland. His research focuses on the political economy of incarceration and detention. He is a founding member of the Yarrow Institute of Organizing and Analysis, and is co-editor of The Jail Is Everywhere: Fighting the New Geography of Mass Incarceration (Verso, 2024). His writing and photography has been published in many outlets, including N+1, The Guardian, New York Review of Books, Truthout, Spectre, Hammer & Hope, and The Nation.

Please find the event on the Stanford Humanities Center event page.