On an average day in 2009, there were about 33,000 immigrants in detention centers around the country – six times as many as in 1994. In that same year, there were 2 million people incarcerated – five times what the number had been in 1972. This chapter explores the intersections between incarceration and detention, drawing from the stories of deportees who experienced both forms of confinement. The author argues that a political economy of mass incarceration helps us to understand these trends as well as how mass incarceration fits into the story of mass deportation.

1. Chapter 6
Behind Bars:
Immigration
Detention and
Prison Life

2. Class Goals
• Develop an understanding of how and why incarceration
and detention rates have soared.
• Develop an understanding of the difference between
incarceration and detention.
• Develop an understanding of the consequences of mass
incarceration and mass detention.

3. Population under correctional supervision,
1980-2009

4. The U.S. is exceptional

5. Detention rates have soared

6. How is the rise in mass incarceration
tied to neoliberal economic reforms?

7. What are some of the legal differences
between incarceration and detention?
Prisons and Jails Detention
• Serving time or awaiting
trial.
• Right to a bond hearing
after 72 hours.
• Right to a lawyer, even if
you can’t afford one.
• Awaiting immigration
hearing or deportation.
• Right to a bond hearing
after 6 months.
• No right to legal
representation.

8. How different or similar are
incarceration and detention?

9. Questions for Discussion
• What are some of the long-term effects of mass
incarceration?
• How does hypermasculinity contribute to the dynamics of
violence in prisons?
• How and why do some deportees experienced detention
as punitive?
• How does mandatory detention pressure detainees to
accept deportation orders?

10. Class Goals: RECAP
• Develop an understanding of how and why incarceration
and detention rates have soared.
• Develop an understanding of the difference between
incarceration and detention.
• Develop an understanding of the consequences of mass
incarceration and mass detention.