Introduction

The criminalization of poverty has been central to the rise of mass incarceration in the United States. Due to its size, scope, and most likely target population, carceral expansion has been alternatively labeled mass imprisonment, racialized mass incarceration, hyper-incarceration, the prison industrial complex, the new Jim Crow, or neoliberal penality. The carceral techniques of the current age, however, are not new. Since the birth of the prison, penal institutions have been used to manage poverty (Wacquant, 2009). From its humble origins as the Poor House, Work House, and the House of Corrections in Europe, to the development of its more magisterial, if foreboding, structures erected to ensure the penitence of dishonored and criminalized populations, the penal state has attempted to correct the “rogues,” “sturdy beggars,” and “hardened criminals” it houses. These stigmatized groups were believed to have bypassed the formal economy, choosing to live a life of crime, vice, and dependence. Mirroring contemporary practices, there are long-standing racial disparities in the arrest and incarceration of supposed “offenders” even with the helping institutions of the welfare state imbricated in the punishment of these groups (Miller, 2013).