Tight packing was a method for storing as many enslaved people in the hold of slave ships as possible theoretically to maximize profit at the auction block. The horrific practice made slave vessels breeding grounds for disease and death as a result of the lack of ventilation and overcrowding. I have re-appropriated the term here to link the history of the trans Atlantic trade with the overcrowded conditions in the prison industrial complex. The sardine is a visual trigger that references the warehousing of Black men in U.S. prisons.