ABSTRACT
Few social dynamics have altered the landscape of communities in the United States as profoundly as the buildup of a Prison Nation and the expansion of the carceral state. In this chapter, we will use the terms “carceral expansion,” “carceral state,” and “buildup of a Prison Nation” interchangeably. As the discussion will show, these concepts refer to the ways that ideology, economic policy, and legal/legislative initiatives have supported the growth of legal apparatuses associated with punishment. We have witnessed dramatic shifts in how this country understands, uses, responds to, and, in some sense, creates “crime” in contemporary society, from massive financial investments in law enforcement and surveillance technology; the amplification of deep ideological commitments to retributive justice; aggressive punishment regimes (including preemptive arrests); the swell in the number of the facilities that imprison over 7 million people (for longer periods of time, in harsher conditions) to the co-optation of major reform efforts, these shifts are comprehensive and well-documented. The impact of this shift affects the communities that have been the focus of social work attention for decades; those that have been the most disadvantaged by historical patterns of discrimination and social policies of exclusion.
