The Public Secret: Information and Social Knowledge

As the number of prisons increases, so does the level of secrecy about what goes on inside them. The secret of the abuses perpetrated by the Criminal Justice System and Prison Industrial Complex can be heard in many stories told by many narrators, but only when they are allowed to speak. After a series of news stories and lawsuits documenting egregious mistreatment of prisoners in 1993, the California Department of Corrections imposed a media ban on all of its facilities. This ongoing ban prohibits journalists from face-to-face interviews, eliminates prisoners rights to confidential correspondence with media representatives, and bars the use of cameras, recording devices, and writing instruments when conducting interviews. For the past three years, I have intentionally circumvented the California Prison media ban, gaining access to the incarcerated women by posing as a legal advocate. I have collaborated with non-profit, human rights organization, Justice Now.[1] Together we have been documenting conversations with women prisoners at the Central California Women's Facility (CCWF) in Chowchilla, CA, the largest female correctional facility in the United States, and publishing their statements online at http://improbablevoices.net.[2] The existence of the Prison Industrial Complex, its pervasive network of monopolies, its human rights abuses, are all extremely well documented yet wholly submerged and repressed. The growth of the prison industrial complex and the unimpeded violation of human rights within it are irrefutable testimony to the power of the public secret.[3]