Carceral Time & Decarceral Time: An Account of Prison Temporality

Abstract: What is the meaning of "time" when one is "doing time'? Through a phenomenological analysis of first-person accounts, this article considers the imprint incarceration enacts upon a person's primary experience of time. This is termed carceral time, and includes experiences such as the social death of incarceration, temporal stasis, natal alienation, carceral captivity, and the foreclosing of diachronic agency. Retributivists—including Kant and Hegel—assert that punishment is justified when it is proportional to the crime. Yet, the proportionality of a prison sentence hinges on the assumption that carceral time can be calculated in terms of its equivalency or economic exchangeability to free people's experience of time. In evaluating whether incarceration is just, one must consider the impact it has on the incarcerated person. The testimonies on carceral time evince that incarceration indelibly inscribes the whole of an individual's temporal horizon and is not quantifiably proportional to ordinary 'free" experiences of time. This undermines the concept of proportional time at the heart of retributivist arguments, but also, potentially, the justness of the justice system. This article concludes by drawing on prominent carceral theorists, abolitionists, and critical phenomenologists to consider possible tactics of temporal repair termed 'decarceral time."