Jenae Carpenter is a PhD student in Sociology. Her dissertation project combines historical and ethnographic methods to parse hyperincarceration in settler colonies, where different mechanisms and forces have produced similar spikes in criminal confinement (eg, Aboriginals in Australian, Native Americans in the US, métis in Canada). As part of this project, she is midway through an ethnographic study of a small town on the Northern tip of Australia, following public defenders and using the court as a window into the penal state. As a BELS fellow, she will present a paper tracing the historical genesis of Australian hyperincarceration which has been driven disproportionately by mandatory sentencing provisions for domestic violence. Ultimately it will connect these logics to wider processes of settler colonialism, in particular the ways in which colonial Australia’s treatment of Aboriginal people has been marked by the peculiar interrelationships between misguided protection and intense repression. Hailing from Melbourne, Australia, Jenae holds a BA from the University of Melbourne and a MPhil in Criminology from the University of Cambridge.
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