Carceral Citizens: Labor and Confinement in Puerto Rico

A nuanced take on how carceral expansions are changing labor and social life.

InCarceral Citizens, anthropologist Caroline M. Parker offers an ethnographic portrait of therapeutic communities in Puerto Rico, the oldest colony in the Americas. As nonprofits nested within the carceral state, therapeutic communities serve as reeducation and recovery centers for the mostly male drug offenders who serve out their sentences engaged in manual labor and prayer. The most surprising aspect of these ce...