Source: ES21AC Midterm Essay, Prof Victoria Robinson, UC Berkeley
Tags: carcerality, prison industrial complex, PIC, Native Americans, soul wound, boarding schools, Bureau of Indian Affairs, BIA, Pine Ridge, Rosebud Sioux, Major Crimes Act, Dawes Act, cultural genocide, self-determination, Sari Horwitz, Miskoo Petite, Andrea Smith
Carcerality extends far beyond physical prisons. For Native American communities, the prison industrial complex operates through federal control of tribal lands, forced economic deprivation, the boarding school system, and the stripping of language and culture. Three course readings (Horwitz, Petite, Smith) each illustrate a different dimension of how Native peoples are effectively imprisoned within their own communities and lands, even without being physically incarcerated.
Carcerality
The state of being imprisoned or controlled, whether inside a physical prison or not. In this course, carcerality describes the broader reach of the PIC into homes, communities, schools, and economic systems.
Soul wound
The intergenerational trauma inflicted on Native American communities through cultural genocide, forced assimilation, family separation, and systemic deprivation. The wound passes from ancestors to present tribes to future generations.
Prison Industrial Complex (PIC), extended definition
Not limited to detention facilities, prisons, and penitentiaries. Encompasses the entire system of federal oversight, economic control, surveillance, and cultural destruction that confines communities even outside physical bars.
Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)
The federal agency that monitors and restricts tribal communities. Originally created under the Department of War, which reflects its origins as an instrument of control rather than service.
Major Crimes Act of 1885
Federal legislation that removed jurisdiction over serious crimes from tribal courts to the federal judicial system. A key mechanism by which Native Americans are funnelled into federal custody rather than being dealt with through tribal restorative traditions.
Dawes Act of 1887
Required citizenship and allotment of tribal land to individual Native Americans, breaking up communal landholding. Part of the broader pattern of federal programmes designed to dismantle tribal sovereignty.
Natal alienation / social death
The severing of a person from family, community, and cultural roots. Applied here to both prisoners in the physical PIC and Native youth forcibly removed to boarding schools.
"Kill the Indian to save the man"
The guiding philosophy behind Native American boarding schools. The explicit goal was to destroy Indigenous identity through forced assimilation.
Broken windows theory (as referenced)
The policing theory that addressing minor offences prevents major crimes. Used in the essay as an analogy: boarding schools treated Native children as "problems" to be fixed, paralleling how the PIC treats prisoners as threats to be contained.
Self-determination
The right of tribal nations to govern themselves. The essay argues that federal intrusion (BIA, Major Crimes Act, boarding schools) systematically undermines self-determination, creating the very conditions that lead to incarceration.
The PIC is not limited to physical detention facilities
People can be "constantly imprisoned" in their own homes and communities
For Native Americans, the PIC penetrates the judicial system, economy, education, social status, and citizenship
The theme of "soul wound" ties all three readings together: intergenerational trauma caused by systemic carcerality
Native American youth are born into environments that predetermine their fate
The BIA restricts and monitors tribal communities at nearly every level, producing crippling unemployment and poverty
Pine Ridge example:
87% unemployment rate
Shannon County has the highest proportion of people below the poverty line in the U.S.
These conditions make violence, drugs, and crime near-inevitable outcomes for young people
When a "major" crime is committed (under the Major Crimes Act of 1885), jurisdiction transfers from tribal courts to the federal system
60% of juveniles in federal custody are Native American
They receive no education, vocational training, or counselling in federal custody
Key point: carcerality in tribal communities is caused by federal intrusion onto Native traditions (including restorative and rehabilitative practices), not by individual malice
Even in their own homes, the PIC's influence creates conditions that eventually funnel people into physical incarceration
Miskoo Petite (facility administrator, Rosebud Sioux Tribe Corrections Centre) argues Indian communities are effectively prisoners-of-war camps
The BIA was originally created under the Department of War, a telling origin
Federal programmes and legislation targeting Native communities:
Removal from land
Boarding schools for children
Citizenship requirements under the Dawes Act of 1887
Sterilisation programmes
Native Americans are trapped on their own lands (or trapped in giving up their lands) as if those lands were prisons
Consequences for young Native people: loss of language and culture, weakened family connections, higher rates of suicide, school dropout, teen pregnancy, and homelessness
Carcerality affects communities economically, socially, and culturally, even on sovereign land
Boarding schools are likened to prisons for youth
Children were "imprisoned in schools," subjected to:
Forced assimilation
Gruelling labour
Sexual and physical abuse
Isolation from families and communities
This mirrors natal alienation and social death experienced by people in physical prisons
Boarding schools were framed as the solution to the "Indian problem," following the philosophy of "Kill the Indian to save the man"
The stripping of language is particularly significant:
Language creates community and respect by emphasising kinship and relationships
Destroying language is cultural genocide
The "soul wound" is created precisely through this destruction
Analogy to broken windows theory: Native children were treated as problems to be removed from society, just as prisoners are locked away because they are deemed harmful
⚠️ The central concept of Part B is that carcerality operates without physical walls. Every example should be connected back to this idea.
⚠️ Know the three readings and what each contributes: Horwitz covers the judicial and economic pipeline, Petite covers the historical and structural entrapment on reservations, Smith covers cultural genocide through boarding schools.
⚠️ The BIA's origin under the Department of War is a key detail. It illustrates that federal oversight of Native communities was designed as control, not service.
⚠️ The Major Crimes Act of 1885 is a critical mechanism. It strips tribal jurisdiction and funnels Native youth into a federal system that offers no rehabilitation, directly undermining tribal restorative traditions.
⚠️ The 60% statistic (juveniles in federal custody who are Native American) is a likely exam detail. Pair it with the conditions that produce it: poverty, unemployment, and lack of opportunity created by federal control.
⚠️ "Soul wound" is intergenerational. The boarding school system did not only harm the children who attended; the trauma passes through present tribes to future generations.
⚠️ Common mix-up: the essay does not argue that Native Americans are never physically incarcerated. Many are, especially through the Major Crimes Act. The argument is that carcerality begins long before physical imprisonment.
Q: What does the essay mean by "carcerality beyond physical prisons"?
A: Carcerality extends beyond detention facilities into homes, communities, and daily life. For Native Americans, the PIC operates through federal control of tribal land, economic deprivation, educational destruction (boarding schools), and the stripping of culture and language.
Q: How does Horwitz's "From Broken Homes to Broken Systems" illustrate the pipeline from community carcerality to physical incarceration?
A: The BIA's restrictions produce extreme poverty and unemployment (87% at Pine Ridge). These conditions push young people toward crime, and the Major Crimes Act transfers jurisdiction to the federal system, where 60% of juveniles are Native American and receive no education or rehabilitation.
Q: Why is the BIA's origin under the Department of War significant?
A: It reveals that the federal government's relationship with Native communities was structured as military control from the outset. Petite uses this to argue that reservations function as prisoners-of-war camps, not self-governing sovereign lands.
Q: How does Andrea Smith connect boarding schools to the prison industrial complex?
A: Smith describes boarding schools as prisons for youth, where children were forcibly removed from families, subjected to abuse, and stripped of language and culture. This mirrors the natal alienation and social death experienced in physical prisons. The philosophy of "Kill the Indian to save the man" treated Native identity itself as the problem to be eliminated.
Q: What is the "soul wound," and why is the destruction of language central to it?
A: The soul wound is the intergenerational trauma from cultural genocide. Language is central because it creates community through kinship and relationships. Destroying it severs people from their cultural identity, and that severing passes down through generations.
Q: How does the Major Crimes Act of 1885 undermine tribal self-determination?
A: It removes jurisdiction over serious crimes from tribal courts, transferring them to the federal system. This strips tribes of their ability to apply their own restorative justice traditions and instead subjects Native youth to a federal system with no rehabilitative support.
Carcerality, prison industrial complex, PIC, Native Americans, Indigenous peoples, soul wound, intergenerational trauma, cultural genocide, boarding schools, Kill the Indian save the man, forced assimilation, Bureau of Indian Affairs, BIA, Department of War, Major Crimes Act 1885, Dawes Act 1887, Pine Ridge, Shannon County, Rosebud Sioux, Miskoo Petite, Sari Horwitz, Andrea Smith, natal alienation, social death, broken windows theory, self-determination, tribal sovereignty, federal jurisdiction, sterilisation programme, restorative justice, rehabilitation, ES21AC, UC Berkeley, Prof Victoria Robinson