The mass incarceration prison was built in part to respond to and make impossible the revolutionary upsurge that happened in prisons in the 60s and 70s.

And I think part of trying to think through the pandemic prison is like, okay, the pandemic ushers in a new era of prison governance that is equally, if not more, invested in the abandonment, but is, you know, more censorious, more repressive and more privatized.

And with the virus still circulating.

Yeah. and more privatized and with the virus still circulating. Welcome to the Dev panel.

Patrons, thank you so much for supporting the show.

We couldn't do any of this without you.

To support the show and get access to our second weekly bonus episode, become a patron at patreon.com slash death panel pod. And if you'd like to

help us out a little bit more, share the show with your friends, post about your favorite episodes,

pick up a copy of health communism at your local bookstore, or request it from your local library,

and follow us at death panel underscore. So today I am thrilled to be joined by returning guests and friend of the

panel, Dan Berger. Dan is an interdisciplinary historian, curator of the Washington Prison

History Project, and professor of Ethnic Studies at the University

of Washington at Baffle. His research focuses on critical race theory, 20th century U.S. social

movements, and critical prison studies. And he also has a new book coming out in January called

Stayed on Freedom, The Long History of Black Power through one family's journey that you can currently

pre-order from basic books. Dan, welcome back to the death panel. So nice to have you. Thanks. So

nice to be here again. I'm so glad to have you here today to talk about an essay that you recently

wrote that was a part of the Petrie Flam Center Symposium on Health Law and Policy in an era of mass suffering.

The piece was called the Pandemic Prison.

And this short essay that I'm excited to talk and think through together is really about how in response to the pandemic,

prisons doubled down on some of the worst features of incarceration, which ultimately

exacerbated both the spread of COVID and the alienation, isolation, and abandonment

...