Breaking the Rules the Right Way: Resisting Parole Logics and Asserting Autonomy in the USA

Abstract

Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this chapter explores how individuals experience the complex socio-legal position of ‘the parolee’ and navigate parole regulation. It traces a seeming paradox wherein individuals frequently violated rules and sometimes committed crimes, yet perceived themselves as ‘doing parole the right way’ and as embodying virtuous citizenship. This reflects the ways in which individuals challenged the logics of parole, in particular, the construction of the paroled subject as dangerous and incapable of ethical self-governance. Individuals rejected these assumptions and called for—and exercised—autonomy vis-à-vis parole, even if this meant subverting formal rules. While reflecting resistance to penality, this dynamic was at the same time undergirded by the productivity of penal and social power writ large.