Why Mass Incarceration Matters: Rethinking Crisis, Decline, and Transformation in Postwar American History

Fracturing the penal state: State actors and the role of conflict in penal change

“…1 Use of both terms has increased dramatically, becoming staples of the contemporary punishment and society literature. These terms have spread beyond interdisciplinary journals for punishment studies to law and society (e.g., Comfort, 2008; Gottschalk, 2009; Kaufman et al 2016; Schoenfeld, 2010; Simon, 2013), sociology (e.g., Wacquant, 2009c, 2010; Lacey, 2010; Bernstein, 2012), political science (e.g., Gottschalk, 2008; Grasso, 2017; Walker, 2014; Weaver and Lerman, 2010), geography (e.g., Peck, 2003), anthropology (e.g., Gilmore, 1999), history (e.g., Hernández et al 2015; Lichtenstein 2011; Thompson 2010; Thompson and Murch 2015), gender studies (e.g., McKim, 2014), and philosophy (e.g., Nichols, 2014). 2 Although primarily used to describe the US context, the terms have been used to discuss Canada (Nichols, 2014), England (Garland, 1996), Europe (Wacquant 2009a), Norway (Shammas, 2016), and Latin American countries (Müller, 2012), among others (see also Garland, 2013; Gottschalk, 2009), even as some scholars question its applicability outside the US (Lacey, 2010; Zedner, 2016: 5).…”

Khalil Gibran Muhammad, The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America

“…Although they opposed racial integration at the local level, they supported national candidates who were pro-civil rights. This split political personality became less tenable as crime and disorder 'became the fulcrum points at which the local and national intersected', thus weakening the New Deal coalition (Flamm, 2007: 10; Thompson, 2010).…”

Colour me father: Lived experiences of incarcerated fathers in northern British Columbia.

“…In the years between 1970 and 2010 more American citizens became inmates of prisons than all the imprisoned citizens of all other countries in the world (Thompson, 2010). Mainly, mass incarceration ideology was formed through criminalizing urban centers which housed many individuals of colour; this was coupled with repressive drug laws and punitive sentencing (Thompson, 2010).…”

“…Mainly, mass incarceration ideology was formed through criminalizing urban centers which housed many individuals of colour; this was coupled with repressive drug laws and punitive sentencing (Thompson, 2010). In the US 53% of those incarcerated are there for drug related offenses (Bewley-Taylor et al, 2009, p. 6).…”

“…In the US, the Black American prisoner is targeted for racist actions that also result in over incarceration for these men of colour (Thompson, 2010). Across Canada, these racist ideologies, overlapping with colonial genocidal policies, represent strong iron bars difficult to dislodge.…”