Carlisle native Emma Kaufman presented her research on the rise of all-foreign prison systems in the United Kingdom and the United States in “Prisons Built to Expel,” part of the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues’ new initiative, Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty.

Kaufman is a current researcher for the University of Oxford Border Criminologies Project. During her talk she explained the importance of the rise of the “all-foreign” prison system as well as its implications on the purpose of prisons. The event was held on Monday, Feb. 15 in Stern Center. It was co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund.

Kaufman spoke in depth about immigrant incarceration in the U.K. and the U.S. Kaufman then highlighted the fact that the number of prisoners in both the U.S. and the U.K. has increased drastically over the past 40 wyears, mainly due to a change in criminal prosecutions. Whereas traditionally illegal entry into the U.S. resulted in deportation, it has now become a criminal offense that results in incarceration in a federal prison.

For the past 15 years, both the British and American prison systems have worked with border control agencies to make penal institutions new sites of immigration enforcement. She reported that 11 percent of the prison population was a non-citizen in the British prison system, and almost 22 percent were foreign nationals in the United States. Britain currently maintains 10 “Criminal Alien Requirement” (CAR) prisons, compared with 14 in the US.

Kaufman noted that public information is much more available about the prison systems in Britain, but investigations of CAR prisons in the U.S. reveal that inmates are subject to abuse, mistreatment and discrimination by agents with the Bureau of Prisons (BOP). CAR facilities in the U.S. are also more likely than other prisons to be operated by for-profit contracting companies.

Kaufman is the author of Punish and Expel: Border Control, Nationalism and the New Purpose of the Prison, which synthesizes 14 months of research inside maximum and minimum security British prisons. She explained that during her research it was important for her to regard the inmates she interviewed as people, rather than immigrants who are defined by their journeys to the U.K. She says her nationality was a crucial factor as well, because coming from the U.S. it was easier for her to navigate the prison systems.

Approximately 70 students, faculty and community members attended the evening, including President Nancy Roseman and the Churchills.

During the question and answer session, Kaufman highlighted the fact that these “all-foreign” prisons are becoming part of the border agency. While the traditional purpose of the prison system is to punish the new system is aiming to expel the people it once wished to reincorporate into society.

Kaufman grew up in Carlisle and is a graduate of Carlisle High School. She received her bachelor’s degrees in Philosophy and Women’s and Gender Studies from Columbia University in 2008 and her M.Phil. in Criminology at the University of Oxford, where she was a Marshall Scholar. She completed her D.Phil. in Law at Oxford as a Clarendon scholar, and in 2015 graduated from Yale Law School with a J.D. She currently lives in Brooklyn and clerks for the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.