In 2010, Kalief Browder, who was 16 years old at the time, was apprehended on suspicion of bag theft. However, his failure to pay bail resulted in his incarceration at Riker Island Prison. Subsequently incarcerated at Rikers for three years while awaiting trial, he endured two years in solitary confinement before his trial took place. Regrettably, the American criminal justice system proved ineffective in his case. Following the withdrawal of the allegations, no further action was taken, and Browder took his own life in 2015 due to a decline in his mental well-being resulting from extended periods of isolation during his imprisonment at Rikers. 

By presenting Browder’s story as a multi-part documentary, the filmmakers can focus on and examine the interconnected institutions that collaborated to shape his destiny. The comprehensive story includes first-person testimonials, historical films, and creative recreations to depict crucial stages in Kalief Browder’s life. 

The essay will discuss a documentary that sheds light on the American carceral state, focusing on the issues of jail and police as they pertain to Black males. Additionally, it will explore the insights gained by interacting with the carceral state through this particular form of creative expression: a short documentary series.

“Poor folks and folks of colour born into ghettoisation, in Child Protective Services, in failing schools; they are ‘the others’ we allow to exist in the periphery of our own imagination.” Michelle Alexander, in Part 1 of Time: The Kalief Browder Story (2017)

Browder and Beyond The Prison

The episode ‘Part 1—The System’ introduces the critical topic of this essay: Browder’s environment.

The first topic is carceral logic beyond the prison, in which the carceral state’s influence goes beyond the physical confines of the jail; moreso, Shabazz (2015) develops on this by proposing that “for carceral power to be exercised, it had to function through a system of enclosure and order. Like the school … which [is] physically segregated through walls and controlled through surveillance and containment … [which was] needed to ensure the dissemination of carceral power.” (Shabazz, 2015, p.58).

The second topic is the mass incarceration of Black people, which refers to the high rate of incarceration, specifically how “the vast majority of young black men are currently under the control of the criminal justice system or branded criminals for life.” (Alexander and West, 2012, p.176). Finally, the use of stop-and-frisk or the umbrella term broken window policing, which was the environment Kalief Browder had grown up in, which treated mainly Black people as “enemy combatants.” (Kelley, 2016, p.24).

Through racist policing in Black urban communities like the Bronx, where Kalief Browder lived, many police forces adopted an aggressive approach, including surveillance techniques. Additionally, the “broken windows” policing attributed the decline of urban areas to the social attitudes and behaviours of primarily Black individuals living in poverty. The argument argued that criminals thrived in decaying, chaotic neighbourhoods and that a lack of regard for one’s community resulted in a lack of respect for authority and the legal system.

So, when all of this is contextualised, the docu-series tells the story of a Black male teenager (Kalief Browder) who lived in a poor, urban area (Bronx, New York) and was stopped and frisked by corrupt and racist police who were surveilling the area (like correctional officers in prison) because he looked like a person of interest in a crime-ridden area but was not the criminal they were looking for. At this moment, we can see how broken window policing and carceral logic are stepping out of the physical carceral state into the front doors of urban and Black communities, making Browder the perfect victim for this predatory system.

This same predatory system exploits poor Black men, and the system allows “the presumption of guilt based on racial profiling [as] an essential component of broken windows policing.”(Kelley, 2016, p.19) thus feeds Black men to prisons, introducing the mass incarceration of Black men in the carceral state system with the flawed bail system (which frequently results in the incarceration of poorer individuals) as the final push that sends them further into the system and the periphery of regular people’s mind. As Kelley (2016) states, “none of this brutality is new.” (Kelley, 2016, p.20). 

Developing from Kelley’s argument that this police terrorism is a recurring stain in American society, it takes us to the past, where the historical legacies of racism and racial violence have shaped the carceral state. Precisely how “prisons … are entwined with the legacy of slavery and generations of racial and social injustice.” (Vera Institute of Justice Report, 2024, p.1)

Developing on this, McKittrick (2011) writes on how “the logical extension of the plantation and acts of racial violence, as well as urbicide, is the prison industrial complex.” (McKittrick, 2011, p.955). For McKittrick, the carceral logic observed in jails and other state institutions in urban areas is also apparent in the manifestations of spatial dominance that are closely associated with the roots of racial colonial capitalism, such as the plantation and the reservation.

She argues that the plantation is the historical antecedent of both the contemporary prison system and the destruction of Black urban neighbourhoods, which she labels as “urbicide”. McKittrick analyses the spatialised subjugation and aggression that were inherent in transatlantic slavery, with a particular focus on its deliberate targeting of Black folks and its goal of eradicating any feeling of belonging or location for them.

This system was centred around the plantation and included many architectural components, such as the slave ship, the auction block, the main house, the fields and crops, the slave quarters, and the transit routes to and from the plantation (McKittrick, 2011, p.948). Ergo, this predatory system plays a crucial role in creating and maintaining racial hierarchies that are necessary for racial colonial capitalism. It achieves this by allowing specific individuals to move freely while imposing restrictions on the movement of others. 

Kalief Browder was restricted; he was not allowed to return home after the party, nor was he allowed to return home after bail, nor was he allowed to return to the general population after solitary confinement, and finally, Browder was not allowed to return to his old self before he was incarcerated. 

Furthermore, the broader connections of urbicide explain the environment of Kalief Browder. The criminal justice system has a multifaceted function in either prolonging or alleviating urban deterioration and socioeconomic problems. Urban populations, especially communities of colour, have been disproportionately targeted by policies such as harsh policing methods, the war on drugs, and mass imprisonment.

The excessive presence of law enforcement and the implementation of severe punishment methods can sustain patterns of poverty and create instability within communities by dividing families, breaking social connections, and impeding economic prospects. The impact of “urbicide” meant that individuals like Kalief Browder, who become caught up in the criminal justice system, frequently originate from underprivileged homes and encounter institutional obstacles to receiving equitable treatment.

Kalief Browder’s case brought attention to the harmful consequences of extended pretrial imprisonment, isolation, and insufficient legal counsel on anyone, especially young Black people, involved in the criminal justice system. Browder’s experience highlights the necessity of implementing extensive reforms in the criminal justice system, namely focusing on areas like bail reform, juvenile justice, and the use of solitary confinement (Carter & Weinstein, 2017).

The Artistic Expression

While conventional methods like academic research, statistical analysis, and legal scholarship are crucial for understanding the structural dynamics of the carceral state, documentaries such as Kalief Browder offer an additional approach that emphasises individual experiences, emotions, and activism. By combining these approaches, individuals may develop a thorough and sophisticated understanding of the prison system and its impact on society. Furthermore, analysing the carceral state through the lens of the documentary on Kalief Browder provides a nuanced and empathetic perspective that enhances traditional methods of understanding the criminal justice system. 

This method humanises criminal justice statistics and policy with a personal narrative. Kalief Browder’s account helps viewers empathise with carceral state victims and understand its human effects. Academic study and policy analysis are essential for understanding the carceral state’s structural features, but films like Kalief Browder’s give a visceral critique of institutional shortcomings. Viewers may witness the effects of institutional failures by seeing Browder’s system abuses. 

Lastly, documentaries may evoke emotions and garner support in ways that conventional methods cannot. Browder’s story has generated public indignation, mobilisation, and policy changes, demonstrating films’ power to change society.

Final Thoughts

As I watched the documentary, I could not help but think that whilst some elements are individual to Browder, his experience of institutional and anti-black racism is not just subjective to him.  Thousands, if not millions, of Black people, had faced the same as he felt when he realised that nobody could save them but himself since the start of slavery and the Jim Crow era in which we saw mass [and unjustified] incarceration of Black people. 

Even though this discussion focuses on the American carceral system, the UK is just as difficult for Black people, but more covertly and subtly. My previous article on the policing of Black men contextualised how racism has infiltrated the policing by linking it back to colonialism and racist stereotypes, as well as the intersection of gender and race.

In ending this research and discourse, I want to emphasise Kalief Browder’s experience and what he endured. No person should ever go through what he went through, and we as a society need to do better in advocating for not just rehabilitation for former prisoners but also for improving the justice system globally.

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Bibliography

Alexander, M. and West, C., 2012. The new Jim Crow: mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. Revised edition ed. New York: New Press.

Carter, S., Weinstein, H., & Glasser, D. (Executive Producers). (2017). Time: The Kalief Browder story [Docuseries]. Roc Nation; The Weinstein Company; Cinemart.

Kelley, R.D.G., 2016. Thug Nation: On State Violence and Disposability.” In Jordan T. Camp and Christina Heatherton, eds. Policing the Planet: Why the Policing Crisis Led to Black Lives Matter London. Verso.

McKittrick, K., 2011. On plantations, prisons, and a black sense of place. [online] Available at: <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/14649365.2011.624280?needAccess=true> [Accessed 17 March 2024].

Shabazz, R., 2015. Spatializing Blackness: Architectures of Confinement and Black Masculinity . Chapter 3 (Carceral Interstice: Between Home Space and Prison Space). [online] University of Illinois Press. https://doi.org/10.5406/illinois/9780252039645.003.0004.

Vera Institute of Justice Report, 2024. American History, Race, and Prison. [online] Vera Institute of Justice. Available at: <https://www.vera.org/reimagining-prison-web-report/american-history-race-and-prison> [Accessed 17 March 2024].