Geographical Isolation as a Tactic of Punishment toward Chicana/Latinas in (Group) Homes

Keywords: carcerality, group homes, geographical isolation, Inland Empire, gender, Chicana/Latinas,
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

This paper examines the state violence that young Chicana/Latinas experience through surveillance, punishment, and geographical isolation in group homes in the Inland Empire, California. I argue that group homes are understudied sites of incarceration emblematic of privatization facilities within the neoliberal prison-industrial complex. Moreover, reformers and group home advocates suggest group homes replicate a home environment, however they fail to meet crucial requirements necessary to supporting young women's mental and emotional well-being. Rather, these homes reproduce unequal power relations of punishment and violence that more closely resemble incarceration by analyzing the tactics of this carceral state of group homes. This paper focuses on how geographical isolation is a tactic of punishment and assimilation toward young women of colors. Historically this form of family and community separation has occurred through boarding schools and correctional institutions. The geographical landscape of the Inland Empire I analyze is surrounded by small suburbs within the desert, where many people migrate for jobs and affordable housing. This is not only an area of California that is often ignored, but it is a massive place where incarceration is occurring rapidly. I center these geographical landscapes in Southern California to research in particular alternative carceral spaces that have historically existed and (dis)placed young women by separating them from their loved ones in order to punish them through geographical isolation and corrective discipline. Lastly, my paper highlights the way that young Chicana/Latinas have always contested tactics of punishment and spaces of power by creating their own agency and testimonios.