ABSTRACT
Coercive mobility is a theoretical model of the social impact of high rates of incarceration on impoverished communities. There is a mounting body of research supporting various aspects of the coercive mobility thesis. The coercive mobility thesis was first published during the decade of the 1990s, on the heels of the most extraordinary growth of the US prison system in the nation’s history. The tipping point for coercive mobility remains a theoretical idea rather than an established data point, and it would be imprudent to speculate about an exact rate at which the effects switch. The national decline in imprisonment masks considerable variability in state level and local level imprisonment patterns. The prison population is entirely determined by two numbers: how many people are placed in prison, and how long they stay. The decision to focus on recidivism-reducing prison programs is equally political, and equally destined to have little impact.
