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Introduction to Foucault: Mark Thorsby's Prezi

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Introduction to Foucault: Mark Thorsby's Prezi

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Week 2 Lecture: Michel Foucault, "Panopticism"

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Week 2 Lecture: Michel Foucault, "Panopticism"

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Professor's lecture on Panopticonism

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Week 2 Lecture: Michel Foucault, "Panopticism"

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Six minute super accessible intro to Foucault's Discipline and Punish. Great warm up. Lots of film references in the background behind lecture.

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The Origins of Torture & Punishment | The Birth of the Prison Part 1 | Michel Foucault

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M.A.C.A.T. Intro to Disipline and Punish

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M.A.C.A.T. Intro to Disipline and Punish

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Four minutes. Super accessible into to Foucault's project.

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An Introduction to Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish - A Macat Sociology Analysis

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8 minute brief of Panopticonism by grad student. Used it to practice taking notes of a lecture and in the middle of reading Foucault

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(D&P 6)  Foucault "Discipline and Punish" Chapter-by-Chapter Guide

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Introduction to Sociology: Charles Cooley: Looking glass self

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Introduction to Sociology: Charles Cooley: Looking glass self

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Three (3) minute Khan Academic clip about social theory that "we know ourselves by how we imagine others see us". cf: "double-consciousnesses"

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Introduction to Sociology: Charles Cooley: Looking glass self

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TedTalk: Let's Get to the Root of Racial Injustice

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TedTalk: Let's Get to the Root of Racial Injustice

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Professor of Constitutional Law and American Politics Megan Ming Francis speaks on race and justice system. I can see myself using this as a text for students to analyze using the conceptual frameworks from Foucault's "Panopticonism". I can also see how it works with Coates' Between the World and Me  where Coates discusses the embodied experience of racialized surveillance. Twenty Minutes.

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Let's get to the root of racial injustice | Megan Ming Francis | TEDxRainier

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Includes clip by John Oliver and another featuring drug law enforcement in Portugal and links to other sources.  - Sociological Cinema

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The war on drugs has been a controversial social policy, but data suggest that Americans are starting to rethink the war on drugs, and states are now softening drug policy. In this post, I curate 5 of our past video posts to provide a holistic look at the war on drugs, including its consequences, origins, and an alternative approach.

The War on Drugs: What it Looks Like

This short news documentary examines the war on drugs in Baltimore, Maryland. It shows how in Baltimore, which has very high poverty and unemployment, poor residents get attracted to crime and the drug business as a means of economic survival. Through the war on drugs, these people are treated as the enemy and punished with incarceration. Ed Burns, one of the writers behind The Wire, says "I don't know how much progress is being made because we're not dealing with the root causes." For example, jobs have been leaving Baltimore (and other U.S. cities) since the late 1960s as a result of suburbanization and deindustrialization. So, rather than addressing the root causes of drug use and trafficking, the war on drugs attempts to address the symptoms of these structural issues (see our full analysis here).
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deplorable conditions prisoners are now forced to endure, due in part to a move toward greater privatization.
As my co-editor, Lester Andrist, previously noted, nearly 1 in every 100 adults in the US are now in prison or jail. In fact, the U.S. incarcerates more people than those regimes Americans typically regard as repressive, such as China and Russia. In this video from Last Week Tonight, John Oliver explains that 50% of the male prisoners in federal prisons and about 58% of female prisoners are there as a result of drug offenses. The same is true for 25.4% of all prisoners in state prisons. Human Rights Watch recently completed a study where they concluded that blacks were 10.1 times more likely to enter prison for drug offenses than whites. One result is that blacks constitute 40% of all prisoners under state jurisdiction, while whites only constitute 29% of all such prisoners, even though whites and blacks use drugs at similar rates. The video concludes with a review of some of the
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Beyond those impacts on the poor, racial minorities, their families, and their communities, what impact does it have on drug use itself? As the data below shows, drug use declined in the 1980s but--despite huge increases to funding for the war on drugs since the early 1990s, it has risen steadily. In other words, there is no relationship between punishing drug users/traffickers and drug use. In short, the war on drugs has destroyed communities and wasted billions of dollars but has not led to a decline in drug use or demand.
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If the war on drugs has been such a failure, where did it come from in the first place? In her book, The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander examines the rise of mass incarceration and some of the racial implications raised above. As summarized on the book's website, " The New Jim Crow is a stunning account of the rebirth of a caste-like system in the United States, one that has resulted in millions of African Americans locked behind bars and then relegated to a permanent second-class status-denied the very rights supposedly won in the Civil Rights Movement." Alexander traces this process back to 1971, when Richard Nixon first declared the "war on drugs." At that time, the Nixon administration concluded that the most effective way to win elections would be to demonize African Americans and stoke voters' fears of crime. Accordingly, the US became much more punitive in how it approached drug use and trafficking, and specifically targeted African Americans in carrying out this war (see our full post from co-editor, Valerie Chepp).

The media also played a big role in helping to expand the war on drugs. In a previous post, Lester Andrist wrote how the NYT video below chronicles the role media played in exaggerating the scale of the cocaine problem and the dire health consequences predicted for the children of women who used the drug. As expressed by one politician, there was a belief that crack babies would "overwhelm every social service delivery system that they come into contact with throughout the rest of their lives." As the video explains, many people born to mothers who were addicted to crack have been able to lead lives free of the health complications foretold by newscasters. So if the actual threat posed by the growing use of cocaine was something different than the one portrayed in the media, why did the moral panic about "crack babies" take hold in the public consciousness? This supposed "epidemic" coincided with President Ronald Reagan's expansion of War on Drugs. As the legal scholar Michelle Alexander , in an effort to secure funding for the new war, Reagan actually hired staff in 1985 to publicize the emergence of crack cocaine, and a national tragedy involving "crack babies" was just the kind of story they sought to promote. In summary, politicians seeking re-election, conservatives looking to scale back social programs for the poor and racial minorities, and media with an interest in telling sensationalized stories, produced similar narratives to help drive people's fear of drugs and expand the war against it.
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One alternative approach is to treat drugs as a medical, rather than a criminal, issue. This principle underlies Portugal's drug decriminalization policy. In 1999, almost 1% of Portugal's population were heroin addicts, and they had the highest rate of drug-related AIDS deaths in the EU Portugal The program has been enough of a success that drugs and drug decriminalization are no longer a political issue in Portugal. decriminalized all drugs (i.e., they decriminalized possession but the production and distribution of drugs remained illegal). Their goal is harm reduction for both the individual and society. This video examines social outcomes after 10 years of decriminalization (see also this New Yorker article): serious drug use declined significantly (especially among youth), the burden on the criminal justice system eased, the number people willingly seeking treatment increased, and drug-related deaths and infectious disease fell. Despite people's fears, Portugal has also NOT become a haven for "drug tourism."
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​Of course, no two countries are alike. We would expect that what works in one country might work a little differently in a different country that has a unique history, culture, and political context. Nonetheless, the lessons from Portugal are informative and suggest that treating drugs as a health issue offers many advantages.

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The War on Drugs: 5 Video Clips that Show its Consequences, Where it Came From, and An Alternative Approach

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The war on drugs has been a controversial social policy, but data suggest that Americans are starting to rethink the war on drugs, and states are now softening drug policy. In this post, I curate 5 of our past video posts to provide a holistic look at the war on drugs, including its consequences, origins, and an alternative approach.

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How ‘broken windows’ policing harms people of color

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How ‘broken windows’ policing harms people of color

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Five minute clip by Fusion re: "broken windows" policies that depend on elements of panopticon that disproportionately impacts communities of color. Transcript: https://www.thesociologicalcinema.com/videos/broken-windows-broken-people

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Molly Crabapple: How ‘broken windows’ policing harms people of color

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Eight minute brief of Alexander's text including reactions from readers. Accessible - find overview, starting place or pre-reading "appetizer".

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Incarceration in America: The Inside Story

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Three minute CNN clip on crime deterrence and surveillance - Into PANOPTICON.

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Re-humanizing inmates | Anthony Wyatt | TEDxGraterfordStatePrison

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Re-humanizing inmates | Anthony Wyatt | TEDxGraterfordStatePrison

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Haven't watched yet . . . saving it here.

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Re-humanizing inmates | Anthony Wyatt | TEDxGraterfordStatePrison

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Twenty minute TedTalk on surveillance and privacy. Katie Ness say, "I like this a lot because it gives a brief introduction to Foucault and discusses Bentham's panopticon. So, great connection there. It also discusses 1984 . . ." (emphasis is mine).

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Glenn Greenwald was one of the first reporters to see -- and write about -- the Edward Snowden files, with their revelations about the United States' extensive surveillance of private citizens. In this searing talk, Greenwald makes the case for why you need to care about privacy, even if you're "not doing anything you need to hide."

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"From Slavery to Mass Incarceration, Ava DuVernay’s Film "13th" Examines Racist U.S. Justice System" - Democracy Now 

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"From Slavery to Mass Incarceration, Ava DuVernay’s Film "13th" Examines Racist U.S. Justice System" - Democracy Now 

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Thirteen minute piece including clips from documentary 13 and interview with Ava DuVernay. Considering using it to prep for screening the documentary. Accessible.. Short enough to show in class and/or to assign for a quick reflection prior to screening.

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From Slavery to Mass Incarceration, Ava DuVernay’s Film "13th" Examines Racist U.S. Justice System

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"Slavery to Mass Incarceration" by Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) 

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"Slavery to Mass Incarceration" by Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) 

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Six minute clips that links slavery to mass incarceration - super accessible way to introduce Michelle Alexander's work and others that conceive of prison industrial system as slavery by another name. Provides basic timeline for US'As "peculiar institution".

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 American Kids & The School-To-Prison Pipeline by Al Jazeera (AJ) 

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 American Kids & The School-To-Prison Pipeline by Al Jazeera (AJ) 

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100 second, compact clip that could serve as a great prep piece for the Policing & School Black Boys & Men clip also featured on this list.

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American Kids & The School-To-Prison Pipeline

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Michelle Alexander addresses Cooley Law School

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Michelle Alexander addresses Cooley Law School

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Eight Minute clip, largely narrative, about how Alexander's mindset about prisons and race evolved. Accessible - and good model of how someone's mind can change and evolve, plus good preview/supplement for h er book.

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Dr.Michelle Alexander | The New Jim Crow | Cooley Law School

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Akala on The UK Being Responsible for Slavery in America

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Akala on The UK Being Responsible for Slavery in America

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10 minute clip of interview with Afro-Brit rapper/author discussing Britain's relationship to slavery. Not directly related to theme, but I think it's useful include Britain in the mix when we think of slavery .

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Akala on The UK Being Responsible for Slavery in America

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Seventy minute lecture that compares/contrasts criminal justice and education policies. Lecture format. From the "Black Mind Matters" Online course by folks at M2C3.

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Black Minds Matter - Week 1, part 2- Policing and Schooling Black Boys and Men

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Akala on Racism Against Blacks in the U.K.

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Akala on Racism Against Blacks in the U.K.

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Ten minute excerpt of Interview with Akala, Afro-Brit rapper/author. This clip features his comparison of what's up in Britain and US in terms of criminal justice and race.

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Akala on Racism Against Blacks in the U.K.

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Mass Incarceration, Visualized by the Atlantic

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Mass Incarceration, Visualized by the Atlantic

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Three minute primer on mass incarceration with sociologist Bruce Western. Lots of demographic information. Good piece to open convo and get initial thought/beliefs about penal system.