Tamara Z. Jamil

This project investigates the rise in jail construction in rural California amidst shifting dynamics of mass incarceration. While US prison populations have decreased by 25% in the last decade, rural jail populations have increased by 27% nationwide. The role of policies in this shift, such as Proposition 36, are fairly straightforward. Less clear, however, is where new facilities to accommodate these population shifts will be sited and why. “Jail Expansion, Aesthetics of ‘Blight,’ and Rural Landscapes” applies innovative methodologies like “Situated Testimony” along archival research across three rural California counties. The study sheds light on the social and material consequences of the ongoing silent shift in US carceral geographies, rendering visible the conditions that make certain places eligible for, or vulnerable to, this wave of carceral expansion.