ABSTRACT
Chapter 5, “The pains of imprisonment,” emphasizes the psychological and personal toll—the trauma—of pretrial detention on detained people and their families. In so doing, this chapter adds important nuance to existing scholarship on the collateral consequences of incarceration by showing how even relatively brief detentions, including those that do not result in a felony conviction, are emotionally and psychologically damaging to the individuals who are detained and to their families. In addition to the trauma of being detained and associated depression, anger, and anxiety, this chapter also shows the toll of pretrial detention on people’s faith in the criminal justice system. Drawing on the scholarship on procedural justice, this chapter explores the ways in which the injustices that detained people face undermine people’s belief in the legitimacy of the justice system more generally.
