Invisible Torture: American Incarceration and Immigration Detention

Abstract Chapter 3 argues that the American correctional and immigration detention systems (which include prisons, jails, and immigration detention centers) are torturous institutions in which marginalized people are made vulnerable to conditions that amount to torture, including solitary confinement, overcrowding, exposure to sexual violence, and deprivation of decent food, warmth, and shelter. As with the cases of American torture discussed in Chapter 2, the use and toleration of torture within the American correctional and immigration detention systems expresses and reinforces the moral, political, and social exclusion of those subjected to it, who are disproportionately people of color.