City Time: Life as Political Prisoners on Rikers with Jarrod Shanahan and David Campbell

April 13, 2025

We join David Campbell and Jarrod Shanahan to discuss their new book: an ethnography of Rikers Island based on the author’s experiences as inmates there.

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Isaac and Jack are joined by David Campbell and Jarrod Shanahan to discuss their new book City Time: On Being Sentenced to Rikers Island, an ethnography of Rikers Island based on the author’s experiences as inmates on Rikers. We discuss the unwritten social codes that order life on Rikers, the social function of jails (and some surprising similarities to the New Deal), the differences between urban jails and rural prisons, the relationship between inmates and jail staff, and the labor struggles that play out in jails and prisons.

Resources:

NY’s Prison Guard Strike Has Roots in Decades of Racialized Deindustrialization

Andrea R. Morrell - Prison Town Making the Carceral State in Elmira, New York

Truthout interview about the Wildcat Strike Hard Crackers

"Stick-Up on Rikers Island" piece by David Campbell.

Kim Kelly - Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor

Revolutionary Affinities: Toward a Marxist-Anarchist Solidarity

https://stopcop.city/

https://www.abcf.net/

https://intlantifadefence.wordpress.com/

https://x.com/ab_dac

https://www.patreon.com/davidcampbelldacere

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