Work

Editorial

Year: 2023

Type: editorial

Abstract: More than freedom: addressing the limits of decarceration without sufficient structural support Depopulation or decarcerationThe USA relies on systems of punishment to warehouse poor, racialized communities, incarcerating people at a higher rate than any other country in the world (Alexander, 2020;Simon, 2007).Critics of this phenomenonknown as mass incarcerationoften locate the crisis in the oppressive and punitive presence of the system itself -the loss of legal freedom.However, this analysis obfuscates its social, political and economic origins: the deeper crisis of mass incarceration lives outside the jail and prison walls.Mass incarceration was driven by concentrated poverty, racial oppression, violence and labor market exclusion (Alexander, 2020;Simon, 2007).In the context of poor Black communities, carceral systems built upon centuries of targeted, punitive exploitation originating in chattel slavery (Wacquant, 2001).The privatization of social services and austerity-driven public spending agendas of neoliberal governments over the last half century have only served to reinforce and deepen social and economic inequalities (Nabarun et al., 2018).

Source: International Journal of Prisoner Health

DOI: 10.1108/ijph-12-2023-120

Authors: Tali Ziv, Ruth Shefner, Carolyn Sufrin

Institutions: Johns Hopkins University, Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, Columbia University, Johns Hopkins Medicine

Language: Spanish

Topic: Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Peace, justice, and strong institutions, Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: bronze

Funders: National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse