In 2015, the US teetered on the apex of the age of mass incarceration. After four decades of imprisoning more people than any other country in the world, and than at any other time in its history, the US was, very slightly, beginning to reduce its prison population (Humphreys, 2016). A remarkable bipartisan consensus emerged that the policies that created mass incarceration had failed, producing a stream of public statements unimaginable even five years before. President Obama declared that “mass incarceration makes our country worse off, and we need to do something about it,” and became the first president to visit a correctional facility. Paul Ryan agreed that “I think criminal justice reform is probably the biggest [issue] we can make a difference on ... there’s a real way forward on that” (Sherman, 2016). But before starting on reform, the “incarceration generation” demanded a reckoning. “Taking a hard look at this recent past,” wrote Michelle Alexander, “is ... about whether the Democratic Party can finally reckon with what its policies have done to African-American communities” (Alexander, 2016). “It’s time,” conceded Bill Clinton, under whose administration incarceration rates grew by 60%, “to take a clear-eyed look at what worked, what didn’t, and what produced unintended, long-lasting consequences” (Clinton, 2015). In this context, over 700 students and others directly affected by incarceration embarked on an experiment to look at the past together, to build a broad public engagement in the past and what it tells us about the present and future. Together, they built States of Incarceration, a public history of mass incarceration that seeks to foster civic engagement in criminal justice reform. The experiment was organized by the Humanities Action Lab (HAL), a collaboration among 20 colleges and universities, each working with local justice issue organizations and public spaces to create national public history projects on contested contemporary issues. States of Incarceration includes a traveling exhibit, web platform, and curricula on the past, present, and future of incarceration, from the vantage point of 20 different communities. The exhibit is now traveling to each of the communities that created it, with public dialogues in each place. The project’s core experiment is to explore whether history curation can be activated as civic engagement, and whether public memory can be activated to shape public policy. What follows is an exploration of the project teams and their revelations in developing this project.

中文翻译：

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记住大规模监禁的时代

2015 年，美国处于大规模监禁时代的顶点。经过四年的监禁人数超过世界上任何其他国家，并且比其历史上任何时期都多，美国开始略微减少其监狱人口（Humphreys，2016 年）。两党达成了一项非凡的共识，即导致大规模监禁的政策失败了，产生了一系列甚至五年前都无法想象的公开声明。奥巴马总统宣称“大规模监禁让我们的国家变得更糟，我们需要为此做点什么”，并成为第一位访问惩教设施的总统。保罗瑞安同意“我认为刑事司法改革可能是我们可以改变的最大[问题]......在这方面有真正的前进方向”（Sherman，2016）。但在开始改革之前，“监禁一代”需要清算。“仔细审视最近的过去，”米歇尔·亚历山大写道，“是……关于民主党能否最终考虑其政策对非裔美国人社区所做的事情”（亚历山大，2016 年）。“是时候了，”比尔·克林顿承认，在他的政府监禁率增长了 60% 的情况下，“要清醒地审视哪些有效，哪些无效，以及哪些会产生意想不到的长期后果”（克林顿，2015 年） ）。在这种背景下，超过 700 名学生和其他直接受监禁影响的人开始了一项实验，共同回顾过去，建立广泛的过去公众参与以及它告诉我们现在和未来的信息。他们一起建立了监禁国家，大规模监禁的公开历史，旨在促进公民参与刑事司法改革。该实验由人文行动实验室 (HAL) 组织，该实验室由 20 所学院和大学合作，每所学院和大学都与当地司法问题组织和公共空间合作，针对有争议的当代问题创建国家公共历史项目。State of Incarceration 包括一个巡回展览、网络平台，以及从 20 个不同社区的有利位置关于监禁的过去、现在和未来的课程。该展览现在正在前往创建它的每个社区，并在每个地方进行公开对话。该项目的核心实验是探索历史策展是否可以作为公民参与被激活，以及公共记忆是否可以被激活以塑造公共政策。