Coal, Cages, Crisis: Judah Schept

A Professor in the School of Justice Studies at Eastern Kentucky University, the work of Judah Schept, Ph.D. is grounded in the interdisciplinary field of Critical Prison Studies. His work examines the history, political economy, and cultural logics of the carceral state. He is the author of Coal, Cages, Crisis: The Rise of the Prison Economy in Central Appalachia (New York University Press, 2022) and Progressive Punishment: Job Loss, Jail Growth, and the Neoliberal Logic of Carceral Expansion (NYU Press, 2015). He is co-editor of The Jail is Everywhere: Fighting the New Geography of Mass Incarceration (Verso Books, 2023). His writing can also be found in journals such as Radical Criminology, Punishment & Society, the Boston Review, and others.

A PhD student in environmental studies at University of California, Santa Cruz, the research of Abby Cunniff focuses on the role of prison labor within climate-induced disaster response and mitigation, resting between the fields of climate justice and prison studies.

Based in Chicago, Jarrod Shanahan is a writer, activist, and educator. He is an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at Governors State University in University Park, Illinois, and is the author of Captives: How Rikers Island Took New York City Hostage (Verso 2022); coauthor of States of Incarceration: Rebellion, Reform, and the Future of America’s Punishment System (Reaktion Books 2022); a co-editor of Treason to Whiteness Is Loyalty to Humanity (Verso 2022), a Noel Ignatiev reader; and an editor of Hard Crackers: Chronicles of Everyday Life.