the corrections project
The CORRECTIONS project is a multi-tiered process questioning overcriminalization and mass imprisonment in the United States. I have tried to reach an audience with the complexity of this crisis through pamphlets or objects, books, and public art.
Today, there are nearly 7,000,000 individuals under some form of judicial supervision: 1,900,000 are imprisoned in federal and state prisons or county jails—the remainder of those supervised, either on probation or parole.
This social crisis is a moral crisis as well. If we do not examine—in detail—how these staggering numbers impact every community, we will overlook the conditions that have encouraged this outcome. Change occurs only when a cause is understood, as well as the effect.
The scale of this data escapes the comprehension of most people. Expanding upon this deficiency is that most white people have no relationship to an incarcerated individual. “Black people in this country are imprisoned at more than five times the rate of whites; one in 10 black children has a parent behind bars, compared with about one in 60 white kids”. (Stanford Center on Poverty & Inequality) Even with an increase in published scholarship and news accounting for these details, too many whites remain uninvolved with over-criminalization or reducing mass imprisonment and the social conditions that create and impact this crisis.
