Carceral Citizenship in Puerto Rico: Self-Help and Punishment

By Caroline Mary Parker

The predominant criminological view of ‘carceral citizenship’ takes citizenship as a purely juridical matter, overlooking key social dimensions of citizenship as a human practice. To understand how the carceral turn is reconfiguring citizenship in Puerto Rico, I explore how formerly incarcerated people carve out a place for themselves in Puerto Rican society under the shadow of the prison. Focusing on one couple and their efforts to operate a therapeutic community, I show how self-help supplies a subset of former prisoners with a publicly recognized form of social belonging. Though more stable and encompassing than the stigmatized exile that awaits many people returning from prison, this carceral citizenship invites formerly incarcerated people to assume critical roles in the confinement, punishment, and care of people convicted of drug offences. Overall, this article highlights how self-help and punishment have emerged as intertwined mediums through which formerly incarcerated people assert their citizenship. 

EUROPEAN REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN STUDIES. No. 116 (2023): July-December, pp. 87-104