Episode 18

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Published on:

25th Feb 2025

Why The Media Gets Incarceration Wrong

Suchitra, Bhakti, and Madhuri take on the media’s failure to accurately depict incarceration, tracing how language, imagery, and selective storytelling reinforce carceral logic. From Gaza to Guantanamo, they examine how imprisonment narratives are shaped by what is shown — and, more crucially, what is omitted. The hosts dissect how terms like prisoner, detainee, and hostage are selectively deployed to justify systemic violence, and how the very framing of incarceration distorts public perception.

The discussion moves beyond conventional notions of imprisonment, arguing that entire societies — Palestinians in Gaza, Kashmiris under curfew, and detainees in refugee camps — are subjected to incarceration beyond prison walls. They also expose how mass incarceration in the U.S. extends beyond bars, as formerly incarcerated individuals face lifelong stigma, exclusion, and economic precarity. From the use of prison labor in wildfire response to the privatization of detention centers, the episode unpacks the profit motives fueling the carceral state.

Key Takeaways

  • The media manipulates language to justify detention, torture, and oppression. Palestinians are “prisoners,” implying guilt, while Israelis are “hostages,” evoking sympathy. The same linguistic distortion extends to Guantanamo and U.S. prisons.
  • In the U.S., former prisoners face a de facto life sentence: denied jobs, benefits, and opportunities for reintegration. Incarceration follows them forever, reinforcing systemic exclusion.
  • From occupied Gaza to curfews in Kashmir, entire populations live under carceral control. The refugee camp, detention center, and military checkpoint function as open-air prisons.
  • Digital surveillance, AI policing, and biometric tracking have made imprisonment more insidious. Even everyday tech—Apple tags, facial recognition—normalizes constant monitoring.
  • Private prisons, immigrant detention centers, and forced prison labor generate billions. Wildfire responders, agricultural workers, and factory laborers in the U.S. prison system work for pennies while corporations profit.
  • Modern aid relies on detention: refugees are confined to camps, subjected to surveillance, and denied agency. Entire generations are born into stateless limbo, dependent on state-sanctioned control.
  • Tech billionaires like Sam Altman advocate for a future where people give up rights for AI-driven governance, accelerating the normalization of digital captivity.

Keywords

Incarceration, prison-industrial complex, Gaza, Guantanamo, Kashmir, surveillance capitalism, refugee camps, private prisons, carceral state, forced prison labor, Guantanamo Bay, digital surveillance, AI policing, language bias, Palestine, open-air prison, dehumanization, media complicity, policing, apartheid, humanitarian detention.

Hosted by Suchitra Vijayan, Bhakti Shringarpure, and Madhuri Sastry

A Podcast by The Polis Project https://www.thepolisproject.com/

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About the Podcast

It's Not You, It's The Media
Resist media gaslighting
It's Not You, It's The Media! unpacks the ways that the media manipulates narratives and makes you question your reality. You're being gaslighted. Suchitra Vijayan, Bhakti Shringarpure and Madhuri Sastry eviscerate the propaganda, set the record straight and offer moral clarity.

Suchitra Vijayan is a writer, photographer and activist. She is the founder and Executive Director of The Polis Project. For her first book, The Midnight's Border: A People's History of India, Suchitra traveled across the 9000-mile Indian border. A barrister by training, she previously worked for the United Nations war crimes tribunals in Yugoslavia and Rwanda before co-founding the Resettlement Legal Aid Project in Cairo, which gives legal aid to Iraqi refugees. She is the co-author of How Long Can the Moon Be Caged? Voices of Indian Political Prisoners (2023) which offers a lens into today's India through the lived experiences of political prisoners.

Bhakti Shringarpure is a writer and editor. She is the co-founder of Warscapes magazine which transitioned into the Radical Books Collective, a multi-faceted community building project that creates an alternative, inclusive and non-commercial approach to books and reading. Bhakti is the author of Cold War Assemblages: Decolonization to Digital (2019) and editor of Literary Sudans: An Anthology of Literature from Sudan and South Sudan (2017), Imagine Africa (2017) Mediterranean: Migrant Crossings (2018) and most recently, Insurgent Feminisms: Writing War (2023).

Madhuri Sastry is a former lawyer, specializing in international and human rights law. She was the publisher of Guernica Magazine. Her political writing, cultural criticism, interviews and essays have appeared in several publications including The Nation, Guernica, Slate, Bitch and New York Magazine. She is on the editorial board at the Polis Project.