I just finished the final season of Jessica Jones on Netflix and overall I feel fairly ambivalent about it. I think the first season was by far the show’s strongest and I felt like the show lost some of its heart (namely through the way we see the corruption of Trish and especially Malcolm), but overall I felt like it held to some of its core themes, and I certainly didn’t hate it. However, what this season got me thinking about, and what I think becomes a clear problematic which repeats throughout many of Netflix’s Marvel originals shows is the way the vigilante role of the superpowered heroes is represented and played out: heroes demonstrate repetitively the failing of America’s criminal justice system, and yet ultimately reify the validity of these structures in very frustrating ways. Definitely spoilers below.
Before continuing, I do want to emphasize two things: first, this is intended to be an intervention on an incredibly prevalent problem, not a complete dismissal of the shows themselves. Considering how much of the Marvel Cinematic Universe centers on the stories of white men (frequently rich or middle-class, and exclusively canonized as heterosexual despite fan counter-readings), it is important to acknowledge the significance of Netflix shows centering their stories on women, people of color, and people with disabilities, as well as the way they, to some extent, address the social inequalities that marginalized communities and individuals experience. Secondly, I also do not want to suggest that all of the Marvel Netflix-originals have the same kinds of potentials; The Punisher, for example, does not, to me, hold the same possibilities as Luke Cage, and I’m not even looking at Iron Fist because I haven’t watched it and don’t intend to.
Let me first start by briefly discussing the concept of the prison industrial complex and prison abolition. If you are unfamiliar with the concept or the activism I highly suggest reading The Nation’s article “What Is Prison Abolition?” and looking at Critical Resistance, which was co-founded by Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Angela Davis. Taken from the website’s about, “the prison industrial complex (PIC) is a term we use to describe the overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as solutions to economic, social and political problems.” What prison abolition is about “is a political vision with the goal of eliminating imprisonment, policing, and surveillance and creating lasting alternatives to punishment and imprisonment.” There are a number of excellent scholars/theorists/activists who discuss prison abolition, but here I’m going to be citing and discussing “Prison Reform or Prison Abolition?” (the introduction to Angela Davis’s Are Prisons Obsolete?) and Morgan Bassichis, Alexander Lee, and Dean Spade’s “Building an Abolitionist Trans and Queer Movement with Everything We’ve Got.”
Let me start tracing this argument through Jessica Jones by drawing out a few of the examples which initially brought this criticism to the forefront of my mind while watching this final season:
Corrupt Cops & the Need for Jury Evidence: while the show demonstrates the limitations of policing and the criminal justice system, it simultaneously acknowledges corrupt cops who are abusing their power and the inability of police to lock up a villain because they don’t have enough evidence or the ability to get said evidence. By showing these together, there is a suggestion that the two issues at once separate from each other and equally problematic. We do not see police officers acting without warrants, assaulting/shooting suspects (although in one scene, an officer threatens to shoot Jessica when she is smashing a gazebo and digging beneath the foundation to recover a body neither the officer nor the homeowners realize is hidden there up until Trish begins filming her), or acting outside of the law to collect evidence; instead, the show’s hero does many of these things in contexts which suggest she is correct to do so (again, the antagonist she is facing up against is a psycopathic serial killer who tries to kill her multiple times). The corrupt cop in this season is removed from the central action; his corruption allows Jessica to do what she “needs” to do (destroy evidence which will allow the villain to be incarcerated, to keep her sister out of prison), and is represented as being separate from the police force as an institution. There is even a way in which his actions are presented as being potentially justifiable: he kills drug dealers to steal from them. We are told this is wrong because they are kids and still have “time to change,” implying that if they were adults, their murders would be perhaps justified (and one officer even comments that “one of those kids” hit her in the head with a bike lock, suggesting that their age doesn’t matter); we are also told it is wrong because his motive is the theft, not “justice.” This again implies that things might be different if he was murdering drug dealers for dealing drugs, and again obscures the systemic inequalities which produce crime, as well as the way the PIC contributes to and benefits from these inequalities.
“Supers” and Prisons: acknowledged but never fully addressed is the significance of “supers” as an unprotected category. When Trish is arrested, Detective Costa informs her that the NYPD doesn’t have jurisdiction and that powered peoples are, apparently, not afforded due process of law. When Jessica is initially reluctant to tell the police that the masked vigilante is Trish and hopes to stop Trish herself, Jessica comments that no one really knows what happens on the Raft because no one from the Raft is able to contact the outside world. Given the context that Luke Cage’s powers came from illegal experimentation conducted on him while he was incarcerated, it seems possible if not probable that experimentation/medical torture is being conducted on those incarcerated on the Raft, and it becomes all the more insidious that Luke shows up to explain to Jessica that he himself had to send his brother to the Raft, and convince her to do the same. Essentially by addressing some of the extreme human rights abuses involved in incarceration in the real world through the metaphor of fictitious superpowered people being denied the (facade of) protections that are extended to suspected criminals, the argument being made is that even incarceration at its worst is a necessary and viable solution to crime.
The problematic of “diverse” cops: this is less centered in the narrative and subsequently has lower stakes than the other two examples I discuss above, but by representing a “diverse” police force, we are given the illusion that police forces “are” “diverse”, and that this means something. Costa, who is shown having “personal problems” in the form of going through the adoption process with his husband, who is worried about how much Costa is working and whether or not he will be more present as a parent, obscures the reality of homophobia in the PIC.
Davis argues that “the prison is considered so ‘natural’ that it is extremely hard to imagine life without it” (10) and the consequence of this is that “the U.S. population in general is less than five percent of the world’s total, whereas more than twenty percent of the world’s combined prison population can be claimed by the United States” (11). She goes on to raise the question “why were people so quick to assume that locking away an increasingly large proportion of the U.S. population would help those who live in the free world feel safer and more secure?” (14). Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, The Punisher, and Daredevil, address, to varying degrees and varying success, some of the problems of the PIC: they acknowledge police corruption, wrongful incarceration, the effects of financial inequalities on criminal justice outcomes (namely in the power of the rich to avoid punishment), illegal treatment of prisoners (through experimentation/medical torture), the effects of trauma and poverty on the creation of the “criminal”, and the lasting effects of incarceration. However, the solutions suggested through these shows, at best emphasize alternative models of policing/surveillance (in the case of Jessica Jones, private investigator and serial trespasser, an increased kind of policing/surveillance) and reforming systems rather than abolishing them. The problem with this, as Davis points out, is that “frameworks that rely exclusively on reforms help to produce the stultifying idea that nothing lies beyond the prison” (20). Furthermore, the shows, for the most part, do not even call of for reforms or imagine reform as a real possibility anyways; they suggest empathy but maintain that prison or death are the only ways to stop “real” criminals. The prison is almost always the naturalsolution in these shows; the only question is who belongs in them and how they should get there. Worse, the only show which consistently deviates from the naturalness of incarceration is The Punisher, which suggests the better alternative to prisons might be revenge killings.
In discussing “the hero mindset,” Bassichis, Lee, and Spade discuss, essentially, the pitfalls of neoliberalism and argue that “stories of mass struggle become stories of individuals overcoming great odds,” and give the example of narratives which center Rosa Parks as “sparking” the Montgomery Bus Boycott through a solitary (“lonely”) act while obscuring the reality that she was an experienced civil rights activist acting in part of a series of civil disobediences (26). This is a general problematic of the superhero (and especially “vigilante” hero) genre, and it becomes particularly relevant in shows such as Luke CageandJessica Jones which are addressing systemic issues like racism, the prison industrial complex, and sexual assault/abuse in important (if imperfect ways). Superheroes, especially vigilante heroes, predominantly work alone; when they do team up it’s typically only with one or two others (Jessica working with Trish), short-lived (The Defenders), or both (Jessica sometimes working with Luke, Malcolm, and/or Erik). What’s important, is that they arevigilantes, working outside of structures or movements; while operating outside structures can have the potential to suggest alternatives solutions to the structures (ie the way that prison abolition looks to find solutions outside of policing/prisons), it also centers the solution (and problem) on individuals in ways which obscure the realities of broader structures. Even in these limited “team-ups” there is little to no potential for meaningful coalition between individual heroes and organizations/activist communities to address the broader inequalities which are being addressed/acknowledged.
This plays out in the third season of Jessica Jones in the way that it centers on a binary logic which runs: prisons or vigilante-justice through murder. The audience is told that the police don’t cut it, they can’t always know who’s a “good” person or a “bad” person, and because of that “good” people are vulnerable and “bad” people walk free. The initial antagonist is a psychopathic serial killer making it easy to subscribe to this model. While it is perhaps better that the solution isn’t for Jones to kill him (again, this is the solution suggested in The Punisher), the problem is not only a reification of the prison, but that in order for this solution to be realized, Jones must take on a heightened policing role, following him, illegally searching his house, and chasing down leads the police overlooked. As Bassichis, Lee, and Spade point out, “the violence of imprisoning millions of poor people and people of color, for example, can’t be adequately explained by finding one nasty racist individual, but instead requires looking at a whole web of institutions, policies, and practices that make it “normal” and “necessary” to warehouse, displace, discard, and annihilate poor people and people of color” (23). The binary is further traced through Trish Walker, who herself becomes a (vigilante) murderer; she is partially excused (morally/as a character) of the murders, because her first two kills are assaults that go to far because she flashes to her mother’s murderer, and the third is her mother’s murderer. Furthermore, her role as a vigilante is contextualized through her own experiences of powerlessness as the victim of abuse. However, even as Trish represents a more morally ambiguous case for the need for prisons, the solution (prison) never addresses the issues we are told shaped her actions, nor any potential for other outcomes.
Prison labor is a problem we need to address soon.
Convicts in prison should have to work like the rest of us.
You mean like slavery?
No, we’re giving them 3 meals and a bed, at our expense, while they just sit around and watch TV. They should have to work!
Right. Like slavery.
It’s not like slavery!
Can they leave?
No.
Can they refuse work?
No.
So how exactly isn’t this slavery?
We DO pay them!
Do we pay in accordance with labor laws?
No. We pay them between 33 cents and $1.41/hour with a maximum daily wage below $5, then take up to half of that as room&board fees and victim compensation.
Below URL image reads “fun bonus fact: enough of our labor market currently relies on labor at these depressed rates, that it has a substantial downward pressure on both wages and job availability in low-skilled sectors. Immigrants aren’t taking your jobs. Slavery is.
End description.
I’d also like to add it’s not just private prisons. It’s also private detention centers where ICE keeps the immigrants.
-fae
The constitution even acknowledges that it’s still slavery
a hefty chunk of items with that ‘made in america’ sticker are in fact made by prison labor
at the very least anything that is a product of prison labor should be required to have a similar sticker to inform consumers they are taking part of this system, which is difficult to track because prison made manufactured goods include almost the entire uniform of a US soldier, road construction in most southern states, and agricultural goods sold in most stores
this…. looks familliar
Prison is just covert slavery and that’s why they wanna keep so many black people in there for the smallest offences.
This is insane
(Just to clarify, I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m just giving you more information because you’re right, and I like your blog, and I want you to have sources in case you need them.)
It’s not even covert. It’s blatant and overt. It’s even called slavery in the constitution.
“Slavery is illegal except as punishment for a crime.”
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
People just don’t care because they think it’s all murderers and rapists, despite the fact that the number of violent criminals in jail is so small it might as well be negligible.
As of September 30, 2009 in federal prisons, 7.9% of sentenced prisoners were incarcerated for violent crimes,[39] while at year end 2008 of sentenced prisoners in state prisons, 52.4% had been jailed for violent crimes.[39] In 2002 (latest available data by type of offense), 21.6% of convicted inmates in jails were in prison for violent crimes. Among unconvicted inmates in jails in 2002, 34% had a violent offense as the most serious charge. 41% percent of convicted and unconvicted jail inmates in 2002 had a current or prior violent offense; 46% were nonviolent recidivists.[46]
It’s literally slavery, just dumbass racists and capitalists don’t care enough to figure out why we’re calling it that.
Prison labor is a problem we need to address soon.
Convicts in prison should have to work like the rest of us.
You mean like slavery?
No, we’re giving them 3 meals and a bed, at our expense, while they just sit around and watch TV. They should have to work!
Right. Like slavery.
It’s not like slavery!
Can they leave?
No.
Can they refuse work?
No.
So how exactly isn’t this slavery?
We DO pay them!
Do we pay in accordance with labor laws?
No. We pay them between 33 cents and $1.41/hour with a maximum daily wage below $5, then take up to half of that as room&board fees and victim compensation.
Below URL image reads “fun bonus fact: enough of our labor market currently relies on labor at these depressed rates, that it has a substantial downward pressure on both wages and job availability in low-skilled sectors. Immigrants aren’t taking your jobs. Slavery is.
End description.
I’d also like to add it’s not just private prisons. It’s also private detention centers where ICE keeps the immigrants.
-fae
The constitution even acknowledges that it’s still slavery
a hefty chunk of items with that ‘made in america’ sticker are in fact made by prison labor
at the very least anything that is a product of prison labor should be required to have a similar sticker to inform consumers they are taking part of this system, which is difficult to track because prison made manufactured goods include almost the entire uniform of a US soldier, road construction in most southern states, and agricultural goods sold in most stores
this…. looks familliar
Prison is just covert slavery and that’s why they wanna keep so many black people in there for the smallest offences.
This is insane
(Just to clarify, I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m just giving you more information because you’re right, and I like your blog, and I want you to have sources in case you need them.)
It’s not even covert. It’s blatant and overt. It’s even called slavery in the constitution.
“Slavery is illegal except as punishment for a crime.”
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
People just don’t care because they think it’s all murderers and rapists, despite the fact that the number of violent criminals in jail is so small it might as well be negligible.
As of September 30, 2009 in federal prisons, 7.9% of sentenced prisoners were incarcerated for violent crimes,[39] while at year end 2008 of sentenced prisoners in state prisons, 52.4% had been jailed for violent crimes.[39] In 2002 (latest available data by type of offense), 21.6% of convicted inmates in jails were in prison for violent crimes. Among unconvicted inmates in jails in 2002, 34% had a violent offense as the most serious charge. 41% percent of convicted and unconvicted jail inmates in 2002 had a current or prior violent offense; 46% were nonviolent recidivists.[46]
It’s literally slavery, just dumbass racists and capitalists don’t care enough to figure out why we’re calling it that.
“Having finally established our base in El Barrio, we opened a new branch in the Bronx. The new office, situated at 949 Longwood Avenue (corner of Kelly St.) was opened early this April and will continue the programs started in El Barrio. More than this, it will begin programs relevant to the people in the Bronx area, it will also serve as a Latin Community News Service called “Palante” in which international revolutionary news will be included, and distributed to the people of the community. This last function of the YLO came about after we found that many of the liberation struggles undertaken by peoples in other countries are not known to people in this country due to press “censorship" of revolutionary news.“ —Lulu Carreras, Lieutenant of Finance. Palante(1970)
Anybody in the HUMBOLDT/DEL NORTE AREA who is willing to join the local mobilization to Pelican Bay State Prison on July 8th for a nonviolent demonstration in support of the 5 DEMANDS of the Prisoner Hunger & Work Strike, please contact People’s Action for Rights & Community at (707)442-7465 or [email protected]
Please join us on July 8th @ Pelican Bay State Prison for the demonstration, we will be rallying in the Safeway parking lot in Crescent City at 12:30pm
Also stay in touch with us if you wanna come join the Humboldt caravan to the statewide mobilization to Corcoran State Prison on July 13th
Huey P. Newton (seated on porch) watches Donna Howell and the children of the Intercommunal Youth Institute. Photo: Lauryn Williams, 1972
The Oakland Community School (OCS) was one of the most well-known and well-loved programs of the Black Panther Party. Point Five of the Black Panther Party’s original 1966 Ten Point Platform and Program, emphasized the need to provide an education that, among other things, taught African American and poor people about their history in the United States. To this end, the Oakland Community School became a locale for a small, but powerful group of administrators, educators, and elementary school students whose actions to empower youth and their families challenged existing public education concepts for black and other poor and racially marginalized communities during the 1970s and 1980s.
Historically, however, the educational programs of the BPP started long before the OCS with the vision of the party’s leaders. As early as 1967 Huey Newton and Bobby Seale began speaking to high school youth at San Francisco/Bay Area public schools. In 1969, in U.S. cities where there were strong BPP chapters, liberation schools staffed by volunteer party members opened in storefronts, churches and homes. These after-school programs were created to give academic support to black and other poor youth. These community school programs created a forum for young people to explore a factual history of America and a sense of connection and community.
The Indiana Department of Corrections is taking cruel and racist actions in a number of their prisons.
A New Afrikan prisoner was recently transferred from New Castle (because of their intolerance of his political organizing) to Pendleton, where Internal Affairs are seeking revenge on him for past political organizing. He is being threatened with state court for alleged weapons possession, while many members of the Aryan Brotherhood have recently been caught with upwards of 5 knives each and been only lightly penalized by comparison.
Another prisoner at New Castle dared to organize against the for-profit prison’s lack of transitional programming and transfer-to-population opportunities. For this, he was transferred back to the Secure Housing Unit, where he’s now indefinitely locked up in solitary confinement.
These men are clearly being targeted and excessively punished by a chauvinist administration which allows racist groups to form and thrive within their walls while snuffing out any and all sparks of radical organizing.
New Castle’s mailroom is another venue for racism and subjugation; it’s standard procedure for them to throw away or deny prisoners access to anything of an explicitly political/revolutionary nature, as well as anything related to black liberation and/or black empowerment. This blatantly racist repression will not be tolerated!
Additionally, Pendleton recently implemented a ludicrous new policy regarding the books prisoners are allowed to receive: they’re currently accepting publications from only three bookstores, two of which are religious (one Christian, one Islamic). This is obviously a move to stifle political action, as radical reading materials are invaluable in fostering connections between prisoners and enabling political organizing in an isolating environment.
Today, Monday, September 8th, join us in protest: call in to the DOC office to demand that they abolish the stifling of radical politics/black empowerment through mailroom censorship, and allow inmates to receive books from any publisher they choose.
Niara is a black trans woman imprisoned in Pennsylvania. Currently, she is struggling to get the money together so she can afford the legal fees associated with changing her name to match her gender identity.
PLEASE, if you can spare ever a few dollars, send her some money to help with these costs!
TO DONATE 1. Go to https://jpay.com/. 2. Type state and inmate ID: Pennsylvania, KU1265 3. Click the name of the prisoner: Herman Burton 4. Register an account 5. Send money
Today, for Black Futures Month, we uplift our incarcerated/formerly incarcerated folks. This beautiful poster was created by Awuradwoa Afful @rajieee. Also find Auradwoa at www.instagram.com/rajieeee.
Niara is a black trans woman imprisoned in Pennsylvania. Currently, she is struggling to get the money together so she can afford the legal fees associated with changing her name to match her gender identity.
PLEASE, if you can spare ever a few dollars, send her some money to help with these costs!
TO DONATE 1. Go to https://jpay.com/. 2. Type state and inmate ID: Pennsylvania, KU1265 3. Click the name of the prisoner: Herman Burton 4. Register an account 5. Send money
Our friend Niara, a black trans woman imprisoned in Pennsylvania, is in desperate need of money. For the past few months, she has been economically supported by another inmate, who she began a romantic relationship with. She is now attempting to escape the relationship, but he is using his support of her as leverage to pressure her into sex with him. She desperately needs money in order to get this man to cease his coercion and abuse.
Words are not enough, and if we claim to be against white supremacy, against homophobia, against transmisogyny, we must act in solidarity with those who suffer under these systems of power.
PLEASE give whatever you can to help Niara!
To donate: 1. Go to https://jpay.com/ 2. Type state and inmate ID: Pennsylvania, KU1265 3. Click the name of the prisoner: Herman Burton 4. Register an account 5. Send money, stamps, digital mail, etc
Our friend Niara - a trans woman of color imprisoned in Pennsylvania - is desperately in need of money. She is receiving little support from the outside, and is struggling with constant harassment from male inmates inside.
Prison is hell. Please send her money:
1. Go to https://jpay.com/. 2. Type state and inmate ID: Pennsylvania, KU1265 3. Click the name of the prisoner: Herman Burton 4. Register an account 5. Send money, stamps, digital mail, etc
And support mail:
Herman Burton #KU1265 10745 Route 18 Albion, PA 16475-0002
[address the envelope to Herman Burton, but the letter to NiaraorPeaches]
Our friend Niara - a trans woman of color imprisoned in Pennsylvania - is desperately in need of money. She is receiving little support from the outside, and is struggling with constant harassment from male inmates inside.
Prison is hell. Please send her money:
1. Go to https://jpay.com/. 2. Type state and inmate ID: Pennsylvania, KU1265 3. Click the name of the prisoner: Herman Burton 4. Register an account 5. Send money, stamps, digital mail, etc
And support mail:
Herman Burton #KU1265 10745 Route 18 Albion, PA 16475-0002
[address the envelope to Herman Burton, but the letter to NiaraorPeaches]
Unfortunately due to TV shows that stress forensic investigation, juries are demanding this kind of evidence at trial, and have little idea of how untested and unreliable it really is.
Hair analysis alone has been used in thousands of trials. The FBI is reviewing 2500 cases out of “21000 federal and state requests to the FBI’s hair-comparison unit between 1972 and 1999″. Even if this review exonerates some of those convictions, that doesn’t even begin to cover the hundreds of state and local “experts” trained by the FBI in this bogus “hair analysis” technique to do things like this:
Santae Tribble served 28 years for a murder based on FBI testimony about a single strand of hair. He was exonerated in 2012. It was later revealed that one of the hairs presented at trial came from a dog.
So anyway remember anytime you hear about “forensic evidence” that a lot of it is bullcrap and not scientifically validated and a lot of so-called experts are just pulling conclusions out of their ass.
the forensic hair analysis thing is terrible, the FBI literally invented a branch of forensic psuedoscience with no evidence behind it in order to boost conviction rates, then taught the bogus technique to thousands of forensic investigators in the us and around the world. we have no idea how many people have been wrongfully convicted, and this is just one in a very long list of forensic techniques that lack rigorous scientific evaluation
