Dangerous Masculinity

Fatherhood, Race, and Security Inside America's Prisons

By Anna Curtis

SERIES: Critical Issues in Crime and Society

Rutgers University Press

For incarcerated fathers, prison rather than work mediates access to their families. Prison rules and staff regulate phone privileges, access to writing materials, and visits. Perhaps even more important are the ways in which the penal system shapes men’s gender performances. Incarcerated men must negotiate how they will enact violence and aggression, both in terms of the expectations placed upon inmates by the prison system and in terms of their own responses to these expectations. Additionally, the relationships between incarcerated men and the mothers of their children change, particularly since women now serve as “gatekeepers” who control when and how they contact their children. This book considers how those within the prison system negotiate their expectations about “real” men and “good” fathers, how prisoners negotiate their relationships with those outside of prison, and in what ways this negotiation reflects their understanding of masculinity.

This compelling ethnography reveals the excruciating cost of mass incarceration on fathers and their families. Not only do institutional policies undermine relationships between imprisoned fathers and their kids, but gendered expectations of prison masculinity often derail men's efforts to be fathers in a meaningful sense. Curtis's book is an urgent reminder that dismantling mass incarceration is not enough--we must also heal the damage that has been done to children, families, and communities. Jill McCorkel, author of Breaking Women: Gender, Race, and the New Politics of Imprisonment

Anna Curtis evocatively demonstrates how cultural tropes concerning blackness, criminality, and violence have cohered into the organizing concept of 'dangerous masculinity' within prisons. With a discerning eye, Curtis takes us into the prison to show us the sad and misunderstood consequences this has for fathers and their children.'
Timothy Black, author of When a Heart Turns Rock Solid: The Lives of Three Puerto Rican Brothers On and Off the Str

Recommended. Choice

ANNA CURTIS is an assistant professor of sociology at The State University of New York at Cortland.

Introduction: Masculinity, Fatherhood, and Race inside America's Prisons

1          Neoliberal Responsibility and "Being There" as a Father
2          Little Me versus My Princess: Fathers’ Expectations about Gender
3          Unruly Boys and Dangerous Men: Security and Masculinity in Prison
4          Game Faces and Going up the Way: Enacting Masculinity in Prison

Conclusion: The Conditions of Possibility
Appendix: Methods and Research Setting
Acknowledgments
Notes
Works Cited
Index

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