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Challenging Mass Incarceration: A California Group's Advocacy for the Parole Release of Term-to-Life Prisoners

Abstract

This dissertation examines resistance to mass incarceration using the case of a South Los Angeles-based group advocating for the expedited release of prisoners sentenced to life with the possibility of parole. The California Lifer Advocacy Group (CLAG) helped prisoners' families and romantic partners to navigate and challenge the state's restrictive parole policies. Founded in 2008 and with less than 50 active members, the group achieved limited results. Fledgling grassroots advocacy groups like CLAG have received little attention from scholars of mass incarceration or social movements. But they represent an understudied dimension of mass incarceration, offer insights into the absence of a broader and more effective movement against its policies, and contribute to our understanding of a common mode of activism. Through participant observation, interviews, and content analysis, I explore the factors that shaped the group's tactics and examine its impact on prisoners' parole prospects. I find that many of the factors that propelled the group also held it back.

First, I show that advocates' individual efforts had a mixed impact on prisoners' parole prospects. While past research has shown that incarceration strains prisoners' intimate relationships and that prison systems are often indifferent to these ties, California's parole board encouraged and rewarded prisoners' enduring or nascent relationships with CLAG members. But these relationships risked prolonging prisoners' sentences because they often relied on violations of obstructive prison policies, such as limitations on telephone use and intimate physical contact with visitors. Turning next to the group's collective efforts, I trace the roots of advocates' interpretive understandings of opportunities and outcomes, and identify their consequences. CLAG gravitated towards conventional, non-disruptive collective action - such as petitioning the parole board through letters and speaking at its public hearings - because its leader and members believed their goals were attainable through institutionalized channels. Finally, I consider questions of impact and show that members' positive assessments of their efforts preceded, rather than followed, ambiguous or negative evidence and feedback. Advocates' interpretations of efficacy helped to sustain the group, but kept it wedded to a course of action with limited impact on prisoners' parole prospects.

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