Ensuring the locks work both ways is a necessary strategy for the carceral state's survival. Because eroding that border – making prison doors porous – makes the charade less believable and less tenable. It also reveals the death trap inside and its scale of horror.
Emily Russell
Emily Russell is a San Francisco-based writer and Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Stanford University where she is a Knight-Hennessy scholar. Her work across genres examines carceral and contentious politics. She is committed to political struggles for decarceration, and uses her projects to examine the coercive consequences of capitalism. She is also an instructor with the Stanford Jail and Prison Education Program.