Prison Hashtags

In Prison Hashtags, Jan Haldipur and Calvin John Smiley tell the story of incarceration and reentry in America as seen through the images, videos, audio, and words of a group of people trying to make sense of it all on social media. For over six years, Haldipur and Smiley conducted a digital ethnography of the social media carceral landscape. They take an in-depth look at what they call the “social media-incarceration cycle,” and how folks both in prison and returning to society post-incarceration utilize social media. Platforms like Instagram are often used to create community and network, as a public-facing digital journal and archive of their carceral odyssey, as well as a means to become entrepreneurs, activists, and so much more.