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Paper Short Abstract:

This paper, existing at the intersection of penal politics and household anthropology, centres the 'toxic family' (Garbarino 1995), and the nuanced ways in which those 'caregivers' on the margins are systematically punished by state actors on account of their relationship to criminal offenders.

Paper Abstract:

This paper, existing at the intersection of penal politics and household anthropology, draws on Garbarino's (1995) conceptualisation of familial toxicity to suggest that 'caregivers' on the margins are systematically punished by state actors on account of their relationship to criminal offenders. Adopting an understanding of 'the state' as a violent means through which the most vulnerable are deemed deserving of punishment (Fassin 2015)––often on the basis of their own marginality––I contend that designated 'care workers' are rendered responsible for the crimes of their kin (O'Brien 2008). This includes populations who are merited protection solely on the basis of their own idealised innocence, including mothers and impoverished women (Garwood 2014).

Building on recent work by sociologist Imogen Tyler (2020), I offer a theoretical reconsideration of stigma as a political tool operated by state institutions to shame, other, and disappear those seen as threatening the social good. I further posit that, in creating folk devils out of offenders' mothers, those who perform the 'moral labour' of motherhood are rendered secondary criminals by the state itself.

Highlighting the myriad ways in which intersectional experiences of marginalisation shape vulnerable women's experiences with the carceral state, this paper considers the role of stigma in stratifying, excluding, and punishing the kin of offenders––often under the guise of state protection and paradoxical humanitarian logics.