Abstract
The complex relationship that exits between punishment and freedom is steeped in a rich theoretical history. This history is useful for interpreting contemporary social problems. This article examines the punishment‐freedom association, especially in the context of the prison industrial complex. The documentary film, Torture: America’s Brutal Prisons, is reviewed as a basis to explore how transgressions (violence enacted by guards, cover‐ups perpetrated by prisons officials, and passive consumption of both by the general public) are the result of freedom’s limits rather than its excesses. These failures and harms are linked to capitalism’s status quo message surrounding the culture of control in ultramodern society.
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