New York — The images are as fresh now as they are a century old: people in detention, sometimes behind bars, sometimes in shackles, under the watchful eyes of officials. Sometimes in the backgrounds, sometimes in the foreground, always based on the decision of someone in power.
It has been a hallmark of President Donald Trump’s administration, part of his agenda to crack down on immigration and carry out mass deportations. They can be seen in ads that aired in cities across the country as part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s recruiting efforts and in social media posts from the White House and federal government agencies.
A particularly clear example was what happened earlier this year, when Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem He visited the notorious high-security prison in El Salvador, where the Trump administration sent some Venezuelan migrants.
Dozens of shirtless men with shaved heads lined up in front of the sweltering bars of a cell in the notorious Salvadoran prison, while cameras captured video footage. Standing in front of them, Noem warned other immigrants in the United States They could be next in line For deportation.
The photos, taken in March, sparked anger and fury, and some derided them as propaganda that punishes detainees further.
But the rules of the game are not new.
Such images have been used for more than a century to demonstrate political power and the power of the criminal justice system.
-Photos of convict men working in the sewing room at Alcatraz federal prison in the mid-20th century.
– Photos of black men carrying farm implements under the watchful eyes of a guard at Mississippi’s oldest prison, Parchman Farm, which dates back to the early 1900s.
– A 1988 presidential campaign ad created by supporters of Republican candidate George H. W. Bush against Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis, which used the image and criminal history of Willie Horton, a convicted felon, to portray Dukakis as soft on crime.
Displaying images of people in custody or the criminal justice system has served multiple purposes over the years, says Ashley Rubin, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Rubin cited “wanted” posters and photos documenting executions.
Some were about sending a bigger message.
“Historically, we’ve used images of various kinds, whether it’s photographs or actual paintings, woodtypes, sketches, that sort of thing, to indicate either the operation of authority or the operation of a well-organized state,” Rubin said. She pointed to prison tours organized by the authorities to emphasize the quality of conditions inside prisons, and to present suspects before the media to highlight successful law enforcement efforts.
Images are powerful because humans “believe what we see,” and sometimes what we are told, says Renita Coleman, who researches optics and ethics as a professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin.
“We know that photographs are powerful. They reach our brains in a different way than words. They are processed faster. They have an emotional component,” she said. “You see an image, and you feel something before you think about it, and that colors everything.”
The observer’s opinions can also influence how they understand what they see, Coleman said. Regarding images of detainees, “political ideology will influence how people interpret these images.” For some people, “law and order is good,” and others will see people…being used to deliver political messages.”
When detainees are photographed, they are generally neither asked if they are willing nor are they in a position to refuse, according to Tara Pixley, an assistant professor of journalism at Temple University. Being imprisoned goes hand in hand with being considered less than human and being dehumanized for breaking the law. The officials who run things are the ones who decide.
“But consent and permission, permission from a person in authority and the consent of the person being photographed, are two completely different things,” she added.
Prejudice and bigotry have gone some way toward making images of prisoners and criminal justice effective in the tough-on-crime rhetoric of electoral politics over the decades, said Ed Chung, vice president of initiatives at the Vera Institute, a criminal justice-focused organization that advocates against mass criminalization.
“Historically, this type of political advertising has been successful in winning elections,” he said, citing the ad featuring Willie Horton, a black man who committed crimes while outside a Massachusetts prison through a furlough program. Dukakis was governor at the time.
Joseph Becker, a professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at East Tennessee State University, says the issues of race and class that run through American society are part of our feelings about those arrested or imprisoned and how they are treated.
“There’s a heavy class dimension, but there’s also a racial, ethnic dimension. That’s a big part of why people feel like it’s okay. Because we’re punishing these people who don’t look like me or don’t look like me or anything like that, and that kind of allows them to think, ‘Oh, you know, well, get these bad people out of here,'” Baker said.
Chung’s organization attempts to educate elected officials and the public about the prison system and advocate for the dignity and humanity of prisoners. He hopes these efforts have had some positive successes in areas such as pushing for more and better resources for former prisoners returning to their communities, as well as how to talk about crime and safety.
“When you are able to step back from political rhetoric, it creates change,” he said.