Inventing the Savage: The Social Construction of Native American Criminality

by Luana Ross

Luana Ross writes, "Native Americans disappear into Euro-American institutions of confinement at alarming rates. People from my reservation appeared to simply vanish and magically return. [As a child] I did not realize what a 'real' prison was and did not give it any thought. I imagined this as normal; that all families had relatives who went away and then returned." In this pathfinding study, Ross draws upon the life histories of imprisoned Native American women to demonstrate how race/ethnicity, gender, and class contribute to the criminalizing of various behaviors and subsequent incarceration rates. Drawing on the Native women's own words, she reveals the violence in their lives prior to incarceration, their respective responses to it, and how those responses affect their eventual criminalization and imprisonment. Comparisons with the experiences of white women in the same prison underline the significant role of race in determining women's experiences within the criminal justice system.

Genres: Nonfiction, Indigenous, History, Politics, Race

326 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Vanessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s so much to unpack with this book, so I’ll do my best to summarize it as best I can, but I don’t think my review will do it any justice about how good it is and how much I HIGHLY recommend it. This book is so good that I implemented it into one of my papers for a criminal justice course.

Inventing the Savage by Luana Ross discusses the mass incarceration of Native Americans that has been practiced since the start of colonialism. Ross perfectly dissects how America transformed its cruel and oppressive treatment towards Native Americans into more subtle forms which are practiced today. It begins with the historical colonialism and how the Euro-centric systems painted Indigenous people as “lawless” and “savages” that needed discipline and how laws were made specifically to target Native people. Ross discusses several other topics: mistreatment of Native Women in prison, Rehabilitation control, Heavily medicating Native women, Non-consensual hysterectomies, Native Motherhood in prison, Religious oppression, and subtle forms of assimilation.
In the next slide you will see how I underlined “must select from a pre-approved roaster”. Let’s dissect this, shall we?:
So let’s start with WHO decides one is “legally” a Native American. According to our government, one is only Native if one is part of a “federally recognized tribe”. Meaning, if you are from a tribe that is not federally “recognized” by our Government, then you are NOT Native American. It doesn’t matter if you grew up in a reservation, if its not federally recognized, you are not eligible to get a spiritual leader from your community to come and give you spiritual guidance. Prisons give extremely easy access to Christianity and even have group Bible studies, but make it extremely hard for other religions to be practiced. This is a subtle form of assimilation of ‘Kill the Indian, Save the Man’.

From deciding who is Native American to all the other topics Ross discusses, it is clear that our system uses subtle forms to oppress Native Americans. The mass incarceration of Native Americans has been an ongoing issue that has long been abandoned. We must revisit this issue and find solutions.

[As3 Na70 · Rating 5 out of 5]

More than two decades later and still issues analyzed in this book remain relevant and important. It is time we rethink about prison, as the prison abolitionists, particularly those of Black women and women of color have been constantly demanding.

[Case K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very academic, worth while read about how; no the system ISN’T broken, it’s working as designed.

[Jacob · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been reading a lot of recent books on prisons and abolition lately. When I put this on my to-read list, I assumed it was a recent publication too. I only discovered this book was actually from the late 1900s when I checked it out from the library. It holds up remarkably well. Most books I've been reading about this subject have focused on prisons generally. Some have focused on Black people and prisons but this one obviously focuses on indigenous women and prisons, which is a perspective I hadn't encountered yet. This is definitely worth reading.