Carceral State Project

Carceral State Project The Carceral State Project is a scholarly and advocacy collaboration based at the University of Michigan.

Our research is focused in the multifaceted study of the historical and contemporary processes of criminalization.

In Part II, What They’re Telling Us, CSP researcher Ariana Kertsman asks: what if, instead of the narratives youth have ...
03/06/2026

In Part II, What They’re Telling Us, CSP researcher Ariana Kertsman asks: what if, instead of the narratives youth have been told, they are offered opportunities in which they recognize their own voice? Power? Agency? This report centers the voices and experiences of Black and Brown youth who’ve been part of Telling It, an organization offering marginalized youth opportunities to tell their own stories, take ownership over their own learning, and claim narratives about themselves that they haven’t yet been offered by limited systems of power and influence.
Check out the link in our bio to read the full story!

What They’ve Been Told is the first part of a two part series by Ariana Kertsman, an undergraduate researcher for the CS...
03/06/2026

What They’ve Been Told is the first part of a two part series by Ariana Kertsman, an undergraduate researcher for the CSP’s Conditions of Confinement Team. Part I examines how America’s educational and juvenile justice systems have long relied on racialized narratives—such as assumptions of criminality, the superpredator myth, and Zero Tolerance policies—to shape public perceptions of Black and Brown youth. This two-part series discusses societal and personal narrative construction and deconstruction, inviting viewers to question why youth and their voices are consistently left out, or silenced, in conversations concerning their own lives, identities, and futures.
Click the link in our bio to read the full story!

GalleryDAAS Presents:Archives of Resistance: Visuals and Voices from Carceral State Project ResearchOpening December 8, ...
12/02/2025

GalleryDAAS Presents:
Archives of Resistance: Visuals and Voices from Carceral State Project Research
Opening December 8, 2025 and running through January 2026
GalleryDAAS| Haven Hall| G648| Monday - Friday 10-4pm

This exhibit showcases stories of resistance, resilience, and hope, in the face of mass incarceration, police violence, immigrant detention, and systematic racial criminalization.

Archives of Resistance presents art, prisoner correspondence, research publications, and archival documentation produced by component projects of the Carceral State Project’s umbrella research initiative, Documenting Criminalization, Confinement, and Resistance. Featured work is curated from: The Reckoning Project, Immigrant Justice Lab, Black & Pink at SPH, ICE in the Heartland, Critical Carceral Visualities, Policing & Social Justice HistoryLab, and Confronting Conditions of Confinement and Resistance. Artwork made by people in prison through the Carceral State Projects campus partner, Prison Creative Arts Project is also on display.

New publication alert! “The Politics of Fear: How the 1990s Victims’ Rights Movement Justified Punitive Legislation in M...
12/01/2025

New publication alert! “The Politics of Fear: How the 1990s Victims’ Rights Movement Justified Punitive Legislation in Michigan,” a multimedia report authored by Madison Hammond, investigates how racialized narratives of crime and victimhood shaped Michigan’s punitive turn in the 1990s. White suburban victims became the public face of innocence and suffering, images that politicians such as Governor John Engler and Senator William Van Regenmorter mobilized to justify tougher punishments and expanded incarceration through “truth-in-sentencing” laws and harsh parole restrictions. Drawing on the Leslie Williams case and the activism of victim’s rights organizer Linda Clark, the report traces how political and media actors weaponized the moral authority of white victimhood to deepen racial inequality and help construct Michigan’s carceral state.

Mass deportation has begun, but so has mass resistance. While deportation has always been part of American history, so h...
11/04/2025

Mass deportation has begun, but so has mass resistance. While deportation has always been part of American history, so have community efforts to respond with resilience, creativity, and determination to keep their families safe, happy, and whole. What is your role in mass resistance? In this panel, we hear from Carolina Jones Ortiz—the artist, Darin Stockdill—the educator, and Irene Romulo—the journalist about how they use their roles in big and small ways to support the immigrant community. Moderated by CSP Faculty William Lopez, School of Public Health—the researcher.

Join us at 6PM for the reception of ICE in the Heartland in the Lane Hall Exhibit Space (first floor). Refreshments provided. The panel begins at 6:45.

Exhibition on display at Lane Hall now! ICE in the Heartland showcases a multifaceted project that gathers and dissemina...
11/03/2025

Exhibition on display at Lane Hall now! ICE in the Heartland showcases a multifaceted project that gathers and disseminates the stories of communities impacted by immigration worksite raids with the aim of bringing underrepresented narratives to news media, classroom, and public discourse. This project comprises qualitative public health research conducted in impacted communities and visual arts generated from the research outcomes. Research teams of graduate and undergraduate students from the University of Michigan, led by CSP Faculty Professor William Lopez, and the University of Iowa, led by Professor Nicole Novak, collaborated with a range of community members and organizers at sites of six large-scale immigration worksite raids that occurred in 2018 in Iowa, Nebraska, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas. The researchers visited these sites, spoke to advocates, detainees, their families, and other community members. In conversation with the seventy-seven interviews, artists Dalia Harris and Carolina Jones Ortiz generated ten images that comprise ICE in the Heartland. On display with the artworks are community member testimonies, analysis on the public health detriments to immigration worksite raids and deportation, insights to the artists’ methods, and the curricular materials used in public outreach programs.

You’re invited to the Carceral State Project 2025 Symposium Saturday March 29th from 10:30-4:30 at the Trotter Multicult...
02/18/2025

You’re invited to the Carceral State Project 2025 Symposium Saturday March 29th from 10:30-4:30 at the Trotter Multicultural Center (428 S State St, Ann Arbor). RSVP at the link in our bio.

Join us for an engaging, day-long symposium on the evolving landscape of criminal-legal reform in Michigan. Attendees can expect to learn about the historical context and current struggles against harsh criminalization, surveillance, and incarceration in Michigan and hear directly from some of the state’s leading advocacy organizations about their ongoing legislative and grassroots efforts. Each organization will detail recent achievements and current campaigns around ending mass incarceration in Michigan.

Following the panels, attendees will have the opportunity to participate in workshops and learn directly from those working on the ground. Community advocates across Michigan will offer tools and techniques for effective grassroots activism.

All are invited to attend a Closing Reception with refreshments and tour the PCAP Annual Exhibition of Artists in Michigan Prisons at the Duderstadt Center Gallery.

As the United States is a prison nation, Michigan can aptly be described as a prison state. Throughout its history, Mich...
02/10/2025

As the United States is a prison nation, Michigan can aptly be described as a prison state. Throughout its history, Michigan has housed more than 90 state-run carceral facilities incarcerating adults, and the State’s incarceration rates have mirrored national trends of mass incarceration. In this story by our researcher Lawson Schultz, “Postcards, Prison Camps, and Politics”, Lawson Schultz combs through the planning archives to demonstrate that the prison landscape of Michigan was not an inevitable product of history but a consequence of active and intentional planning.

Join us now in the Michigan League for the Michigan Against Solitary Confinement Summit, we’ll be here all day!
01/11/2025

Join us now in the Michigan League for the Michigan Against Solitary Confinement Summit, we’ll be here all day!

As of 2024, the ACLU reports that Michigan has the17th highest youth incarceration rate in the United States; for every ...
10/24/2024

As of 2024, the ACLU reports that Michigan has the17th highest youth incarceration rate in the United States; for every 100,000 people, 217 youths are in confinement. Our new story, “Silenced Voices: Surviving and Resisting Youth Incarceration in Michigan” by Adler Fritz, spotlights the problematic conditions of youth confinement and pervasive cruelty within Michigan’s juvenile justice system, this story further aims to inspire important dialogue and action by examining the transformative powers of self expression and community collaboration in creative arts programs. Click the link in our bio to read the full story.

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500 S. State St
Ann Arbor, MI
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