R Joshua Scannell
R Joshua Scannell is a PhD candidate in sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center. His current research looks into “Big Data” driven predictive policing practices and urban informatics studies in New York City. His work focuses on the intersection of theories of the body, carceral racial capitalism and contemporary political economy. He is the author of Cities: Unauthorized Resistances and Uncertain Sovereignties in the Urban World.
Collected Work
The Carceral Surround
Drawing on digital media theory, science and technology studies, critical race and ethnic studies, and carceral theory, The Carceral Surround reveals how twenty-first-century policing is less about managing crime than about governing possibility. Carceral power now operates across every register of daily life through predictive analytics, risk modeling, and algorithmic systems that track, sort, and preempt. From social media archives and facial recognition software to satellite mapping and radiation sensors, Scannell charts how seemingly disparate media converge into an environment of control that links technocratic governance to the maintenance of racial hierarchy and capitalist order. Tracing today’s technoauthoritarian regime from the NYPD’s assault on Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020 to the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition’s campaign to end predictive policing contracts, The Carceral Surround is a rare hybrid of critique and refusal, illuminating the digital logic of US authoritarianism while imagining pathways for collective resistance beyond its grasp.