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The Library as Carceral Geography

How LIS Professionals Can Engage in the Work of Liberatory Place-Making

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lawrence maminta

(they / them)

lmaminta@lbcc.edu

Jeremy Abbott

(he / him)

jkabbott@ucla.edu / @librarianjer

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Friends of Puvungna

https://www.friendsofpuvungna.org/

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Defend the Atlanta Forest wishlist

https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/26389CMHF0E32/

Atlanta Solidarity Fund

https://atlsolidarity.org/

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What is abolition?

“Rooted in the Black radical tradition and the lived experiences of criminalized people and communities, PIC abolition is a structural analysis of oppression, a political vision of a restructured society, a ‘theory of social life,’ or how we relate to one another, and a practical organizing strategy.”

from the Introduction to No More Police: A Case for Abolition by Mariame Kaba and Andrea J. Ritchie

Image from: https://criticalresistance.org/mission-vision/not-so-common-language/. Accessed 7 Nov. 2022

SLIDES: https://bit.ly/CRTinLibrariesFA22

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The Prison

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class warfare

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class warfare (cont.)

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Indigenous dispossession

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Black oppression

source: Sawyer, Wendy, and Peter Wagner. “Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2023.”https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2023.html.

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"...the post-racial euphemism of “Mass Incarceration” miserably fails to communicate how the racist and anti-Black form of the U.S. state is also its paradigmatic form…"

source: "Issue 26: Obstacles & Opportunities." The Abolitionist, Critical Resistance, Summer 2016

https://abolitionistpaper.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/the-abolitionist-issue-26.pdfC

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“Prison Industrial Complex”

“…the overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as solutions to economic, social and political problems.”

source: Critical Resistance. “What Is the PIC? What Is Abolition?”

https://criticalresistance.org/mission-vision/not-so-common-language/

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Prison Industrial Complex

“There are many ways this power is collected and maintained through the PIC, including creating mass media images that keep alive stereotypes of people of color, poor people, queer people, immigrants, youth, and other oppressed communities as criminal, delinquent, or deviant.”

source: Critical Resistance. “What Is the PIC? What Is Abolition?”

https://criticalresistance.org/mission-vision/not-so-common-language/

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“...the somewhat more generic 'carceral geographies'”

“[G]eographies that signify regional accumulation strategies and upheavals, immensities and fragmentations, that reconstitute in space-time…to run another round of accumulation.”

source: Gilmore, Ruth Wilson. “Abolition Geography and The Problem of Innocence.” Futures of Black Radicalism, edited by Gaye Theresa Johnson and Alex Lubin. Brooklyn, NY: Verso, 2017.

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Local News – Real Estate – Police Nexus

source: Grieve. “Observer Editors Write, ‘It’s Time to Take Back Tompkins Square Park.’” Accessed May 18, 2023. https://evgrieve.com/2015/07/observer-editors-write-its-time-to-take.html.

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“...the somewhat more generic 'carceral geographies'”

“…[A]bolitionist critique concerns itself with the greatest and least detail of these arrangements of people and resources and land over time.”

source: Gilmore, Ruth Wilson. “Abolition Geography and The Problem of Innocence.” Futures of Black Radicalism, edited by Gaye Theresa Johnson and Alex Lubin. Brooklyn, NY: Verso, 2017.

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The Library(-as-such)

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source: Ndumu, Ana, Diana E. Marsh, Victoria Van Hyning, and Sydney Triola. “Panopticism and Complicity: The State of Surveillance and Everyday Oppression in Libraries, Archives, and Museums.” Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies. https://journals.litwinbooks.com/index.php/jclis/article/view/166

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“An American Value”

source: American Library Association. “Libraries: An American Value” 1999. https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/americanvalue

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Carceral Logics

source: AYO, NYC! “Cosmic Possibilities: An Intergalactic Youth Guide to Abolition by Project Nia” April 19, 2021.

https://issuu.com/projectnia/docs/_2021__ayo-final-combined

“…the way[s] we internalize the Prison Industrial Complex and policing. It is a punishment frame of mind or a belief in the power of punitive justice.”

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Library Logics

Architecture

Gatekeeping

Policy

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Architecture�-�Carceral Foundations

Source: Davis, Mike. "Frank Gehry as Dirty Harry", City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles, London, New York, Verso, 1990.

"...undoubtedly the most menacing library ever built....The Goldwyn Library relentlessly interpellates a demonic Other (arsonist, graffitist, invader) whom it reflects back on surrounding streets and street people. It coldly saturates its immediate environment, which is seedy but not particularly hostile, with its own arrogant paranoia.”

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Architecture�-�Carceral Foundations

Source: ArtServe, Australian National University�http://rubens.anu.edu.au/htdocs/surveys/modarch/bydate/display00301.html

“Small libraries should be pland [sic] so that one librarian can oversee the entire library from a central position.”

You enter through barred gates and descend into the basement; you access the information fortress through the moat. The first thing you encounter is the elevated desk pictured in the very bottom center of the diagram, like a police station desk sergeant doing intake. No one can enter or exit without being observed by the library worker seated at this desk, often a security guard (up until a couple years ago, the LAPD provided security). This is important: You are meant to know you are being watched, which affects the patron. And library workers are made to watch, forcing them into the carceral logic as well.

And this is by design. And has been part of the design of US public library buildings from the very beginning. Bertram, Carnegie's secretary: “Small libraries should be pland [sic] so that one librarian can oversee the entire library from a central position.”

Libraries have a suspicion of their patrons built into their foundation. Indeed, the library literature has been concerned with tracking "problem patrons" since the beginning of libraries.

And to enforce these suspicions, you need watchers at the door.

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Gatekeeping - Enforcement

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Gatekeeping�-�Enforcement

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Gatekeeping�-�Enforcement

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Gatekeeping�-�Enforcement

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Policies - Targeting

“Once you defund the police, then you gotta take care of policy because policy kills more Black folks than the police…”

Fred Moten

source: “‘Wildcat The Totality’ - Fred Moten And Stefano Harney Revisit The Undercommons In A Time Of Pandemic And Rebellion (Part 1).” MP3. Millennials Are Killing Capitalism. https://millennialsarekillingcapitalism.libsyn.com/wildcat-the-totality-fred-moten-and-stefano-harney-revisit-the-undercommons-in-a-time-of-pandemic-and-rebellion-part-1 @ 18:16

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source: Associated Press. “Mom Jailed for Overdue Library Books.” Los Angeles Times, January 16, 2000. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-jan-16-mn-54484-story.html.

photo credit: Nick Ut/AP, 2014

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Policies - Targeting

San Francisco Public Library. “Long Overdue: Eliminating Fines on Overdue Materials to Improve Access to San Francisco Public Library.” San Francisco: San Francsico Public Library, January 2019. https://sfgov.org/financialjustice/sites/default/files/2020-04/Long%20Overdue_January%202019.pdf.

SFPL proved pretty conclusively that overdue have a disproportionate impact on poor and minoritized communities.
Now, in our materialist frame, the "why" of what was in the hearts of the policymakers when they created fine rules is not entirely relevant. You could maybe argue that these policies were not intended to target those communities, but were instead motivated by equality distressing paternalism: "teaching responsibility" or misguided economic incentive theories. But the very act of engaging in this soothsaying debate itself perpetuates the carceral logic that underlies the fine regime in the first place. By getting us to run in circles around questions of "how to most effectively fine people" or what is the most just reason for fining people, we miss the underlying truths of how unjust and harmful these rules are, as well as how ineffective in terms of curbing late and lost books.
This is the trap of "reform."
Some library policies, however, do not require crystal balls. They can be directly traced back to their classist roots.

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Burbank Public Library

Whittier Public Library

Sierra Madre Public Library

Azusa Public Library

Beverly Hills Public Library

Altadena Public Library

Glendale Public Library

Los Angeles Public Library

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Policies - Targeting

Ruiz, Mario. “Street Person Richard Kreimer Standing in Front of Public Library.” Getty Images. Accessed May 18, 2023. https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/street-person-richard-kreimer-standing-in-front-of-public-news-photo/50469592.

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Policies - Targeting

"The outcome of this litigation may impact on all public libraries. Pending a final decision, public libraries should be particularly careful in enforcing existing regulations governing patron behavior and access to library materials. ALA will continue to monitor the appeal and inform its members of all developments. In the meantime, ALA has established a task force to draft usable library regulations, and is planning an open forum on the issue at its Midwinter Meeting.”

Goedert, Paula. “Legal Alert: Restricting Access to Public Libraries May Violate the First Amendment.” American Libraries 23, no. 1 (January 1992): 110–110.

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Policies – Targeting

https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/guidelinesdevelopment

Source: https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/guidelinesdevelopment

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Policies - Targeting

Source: Public Library Association Policy Manual Committee. PLA Handbook for Writers of Public Library Policies. Chicago: Public Library Association, 1993.

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Gatekeeping

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Policies - Targeting

Source: Santa Monica Public Library. “Rules of Conduct,” May 3, 2018. https://smpl.org/Policies.aspx.

There is only one class of people that generally has to carry so many of their worldly possessions on their bodies at all times, such that a very large bag might be required.
In case the discriminatory intent was not clear, note also the inclusion of shopping cart prohibition; note the bedroll prohibition
But especially note the carveout for musical instruments. You can bring a cello into the library, but not a suitcase.
There are more: bathing (you're not allowed to remedy the hygiene problem), sleeping, nonresident fees, proofs of address, you can find more. The point is that there is a large body of rules in libraries across the country that trace back to an effort to prevent an unhoused man from accessing a library in New Jersey 30 years ago, and which are still being used for that same purpose today. The logic of Otherizing, and quite literally sanitizing a preferred library patron population.

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Carceral Imaginaries – Imagined Geographies

“If you build it, they will come”

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Abolition Geography

“…is carceral geography’s antagonistic contradiction.”

source: Gilmore, Ruth Wilson. “Abolition Geography and The Problem of Innocence.” In Futures of Black Radicalism, edited by Gaye Theresa Johnson and Alex Lubin. Brooklyn, NY: Verso, 2017.

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Abolition Geography

“…starts from the homely premise that

freedom is a place.

Place-making is normal human activity.”

source: Gilmore, Ruth Wilson. “Abolition Geography and The Problem of Innocence.” In Futures of Black Radicalism, edited by Gaye Theresa Johnson and Alex Lubin. Brooklyn, NY: Verso, 2017.

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Opportunities for…

intervention
disruption
refusal
liberatory place-making

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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References

American Library Association. “Libraries: An American Value.” Text. Advocacy, Legislation & Issues, June 30, 2006. https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/americanvalue.
Associated Press. “Mom Jailed for Overdue Library Books.” Los Angeles Times, January 16, 2000. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-jan-16-mn-54484-story.html.
AYO, NYC! “Cosmic Possibilities: An Intergalactic Youth Guide to Abolition by Project Nia - Issuu,” April 19, 2021. https://issuu.com/projectnia/docs/_2021__ayo-final-combined.
Bobinski, George S. Carnegie Libraries: Their History and Impact on American Public Library Development. Chicago: American Library Association, 1969.
Critical Resistance. “What Is the PIC? What Is Abolition?” What is PIC? What is Abolition?, https://criticalresistance.org/mission-vision/not-so-common-language/.
Davis, Mike. City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles, London, New York, Verso, 1990.

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References

Gilmore, Ruth Wilson. “Abolition Geography and The Problem of Innocence.” In Futures of Black Radicalism, edited by Gaye Theresa Johnson and Alex Lubin. Brooklyn, NY: Verso, 2017.
Gilmore, Ruth Wilson. Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California, 2007.
Grieve. “Observer Editors Write, ‘It’s Time to Take Back Tompkins Square Park.’” Accessed May 18, 2023. https://evgrieve.com/2015/07/observer-editors-write-its-time-to-take.html.
Goedert, Paula. “Legal Alert: Restricting Access to Public Libraries May Violate the First Amendment.” American Libraries 23, no. 1 (January 1992): 110.
Hernández, Kelly Lytle. City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771-1965, 2017.

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References

Kaba, Mariame, and Andrea J. Ritchie. No More Police: A Case for Abolition. New York: The New Press, 2022.
Ndumu, Ana, Diana E. Marsh, Victoria Van Hyning, and Sydney Triola. “Panopticism and Complicity: The State of Surveillance and Everyday Oppression in Libraries, Archives, and Museums.” Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies 4 (February 10, 2023). https://journals.litwinbooks.com/index.php/jclis/article/view/166.
Rodriguez, Dylan. “‘Mass Incarceration’ as Misnomer.” The Abolitionist, Summer 2016, 26 edition. https://abolitionistpaper.wordpress.com/2017/12/22/abolitionist-issue-26-obstacles-and-opportunities/.�
San Francisco Public Library. “Long Overdue: Eliminating Fines on Overdue Materials to Improve Access to San Francisco Public Library.” San Francisco: San Francsico Public Library, January 2019. https://sfgov.org/financialjustice/sites/default/files/2020-04/Long%20Overdue_January%202019.pdf.
Sawyer, Wendy, and Peter Wagner. “Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2023.” Accessed April 6, 2023. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2023.html.
“‘Wildcat The Totality’ - Fred Moten And Stefano Harney Revisit The Undercommons In A Time Of Pandemic And Rebellion (Part 1).” MP3. Millennials Are Killing Capitalism. Accessed April 6, 2023. https://millennialsarekillingcapitalism.libsyn.com/wildcat-the-totality-fred-moten-and-stefano-harney-revisit-the-undercommons-in-a-time-of-pandemic-and-rebellion-part-1.

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Behavior Policy References

Altadena Library District. “Code of Conduct,” September 23, 2019. https://www.altadenalibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Code-of-Conduct_9.23.19.pdf.
Azusa Public Library. “Patron Conduct,” December 5, 2016. https://www.ci.azusa.ca.us/DocumentCenter/View/6184/Patron-Conduct?bidId=.
Beverly Hills Public Library. “Library Standards of Behavior Policy,” 2021. https://www.beverlyhills.org/cbhfiles/storage/files/15852695691323117642/FinalBHPLStandardsofBehavior2021.pdf.
Burbank Public Library. “Library Rules of Conduct,” August 2019. http://www.burbank.lib.ca.us/about/library-policies/library-rules-conduct.
Glendale Public Library. “Rules Of Behavior.” Accessed February 27, 2020. https://www.eglendalelac.org/about.
Los Angeles Public Library. “Rules of Conduct,” December 12, 2019. https://lapl.org/about-lapl/rules-conduct.
Santa Monica Public Library. “Rules of Conduct,” May 3, 2018. https://smpl.org/Policies.aspx.
Sierra Madre Public Library. “Rules of Behavior,” July 26, 2006. http://www.cityofsierramadre.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_212309/File/Services/Library/policy_manual_smpl_20151001.pdf.
Whittier Public Library. “Standards of Behavior,” May 2014. https://www.whittierlibrary.org/home/showdocument?id=1750.

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