Indefinite: Doing Time in Jail

280 Brook St,Providence RI 02912

15 March, 2023

Description

There are over ten million admissions to American jails every year, but very little is known about life for those locked away. “Indefinite” is an ethnographic study of a California county jail that reflects on what it means to do jail time and the effects thereof. Award-winning scholar and author, Dr. Michael L. Walker spent several extended spells in jail. This book is an intimate account of his experience and in it he shares the routines, rhythms, and subtle meanings that come with being incarcerated. Dr. Walker shows how punishment in jail is much more than the deprivation of liberties; it is the eroding of dignity and the purposeful degradation of those at the mercy of custodial deputies and staff. Dr. Walker will discuss his research and the process of writing “Indefinite” with Professor Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve. Purchase book Speaker bio: Michael L. Walker is the Beverly and Richard Fink Professor in Liberal Arts in the Department of Sociology at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. His broad research concerns stratification, social control, punishment, and social psychology, which he translates into studies of race relations, carceral patterns, identities, emotions, and time. He is the author of Indefinite: Doing Time in Jail, which won the 2022 Charles H. Cooley Award for Best Recent Book from the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction and the American Society of Criminology's 2018 Joan Petersilia Outstanding Article Award winning paper, "Race Making in a Penal Institution," published by the American Journal of Sociology.