Knight, David Jonathan. “Contesting the State: Embodied Threat and the Emergence of Prisoner Mobilization.” American Sociological Review 90, no 4 (August 2025), pp. 658-689. https://doi.org/10.1177/00031224251340401

Abstract: Prior studies cast U.S. imprisonment as politically demobilizing. This article complicates that proposition by exploring when, and how, threat under penal confinement leads people to mobilize. Using interviews with currently incarcerated and recently released men across three states, I show that although imprisonment generally fosters political inaction, collective mobilization does arise under certain conditions. First, people in prison mobilize in response to embodied threats—fundamental threats eliciting visceral reactions that signal future harm (i.e., premature death or permanent incapacitation). Second, to collectively mobilize, a subpopulation of similarly threatened prisoners must be present and see the threats as a shared problem. Collective prisoner mobilization is more likely when both conditions are present; mobilization is unlikely when neither condition is present; and individual political contention is more likely when conditions are partially present. This range of political responses among incarcerated people is more dynamic than previously reported. Imprisonment has selective political effects, mobilizing the most repressed individuals within prison to devise new strategies to contest their repression.

Recognition: Winner, 2026 Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Article Award, ASA Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements; Winner, 2026 Distinguished Article Award, ASA Sociology of Law Section; Runner-Up/Honorable Mention, 2026 Distinguished Article Award, ASA Section on Crime, Law, and Deviance; Runner-Up/Honorable Mention, 2026 Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Article Award, ASA Political Sociology Section

Link: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00031224251340401