Understanding E-Carceration: James Kilgore, Myaisha Hayes, Victoria Law
February 7, 2022
- 7:00 PM
Bluestockings Bookstore
Virtual,

Please join The New Press and Bluestockings Cooperative for a discussion with James Kilgore, author of Understanding E-Carceration, Myaisha Hayes, and Victoria Law

In the last decade, as the critique of mass incarceration has grown more powerful, many reformers have embraced changes that release people from prisons and jails. As educator, author, and activist James Kilgore brilliantly shows, these rapidly spreading reforms largely fall under the heading of “e-carceration”—a range of punitive technological interventions, from ankle monitors to facial recognition apps, that deprive people of their liberty, all in the name of ending mass incarceration. E-carceration can block people’s access to employment, housing, healthcare, and even the chance to spend time with loved ones. Many of these technologies gather data that lands in corporate and government databases and may lead to further punishment or the marketing of their data to Big Tech. This riveting primer on the world of techno-punishment comes from the author of the National Book Award–winning Understanding Mass Incarceration. Himself a survivor of prison and e-carceration, Kilgore captures the breadth and complexity of these technologies and offers inspiring ideas on how to resist.

James Kilgore is an activist, researcher, and writer based in Urbana, Illinois, where he has lived since paroling from prison in 2009. He is the director of the Challenging E-Carceration project at MediaJustice and the co-director of FirstFollowers Reentry Program in Champaign, Illinois. He is the author of five books, including Understanding E-Carceration and the award-winning Understanding Mass Incarceration (both from The New Press).
 
Myaisha Hayes is the Campaign Strategies Director at MediaJustice. She previously spent two years as the organization’s National Organizer on Criminal Justice & Technology, where she oversaw the launch of the #NoDigitalPrisons and #ProtectBlackDissent campaigns. Myaisha also brings several years of organizing experience with her from various national and local campaigns including President Obama’s re-election campaign, Fight for $15, and the CLOSErikers Campaign. As the grandchild of a political prisoner, she is deeply committed to organizing people power that leads to radical transformative change and justice. Myaisha earned her BA in Black Studies at Occidental College and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Victoria Law is a freelance journalist and the co-author (with Maya Schenwar) of Prison by Any Other Name (The New Press) as well as the author of Resistance Behind Bars and co-editor of Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind. She is a co-founder of NYC Books Through Bars and lives in New York.