Carceral capitalism

By Kathryn Medien. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2020

116 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Carceral Capitalism is a timely book that provides a nuanced and far-reaching analysis of the political economy of the US carceral state. The book incorporates multiple forms and genres – autobiographical (the author’s brother is incarcerated in Florida), poetry, academic essay – and draws on numerous disciplines and traditions – legal analysis, Marxism, political economy, biopolitics, black studies and political theory – in order to illuminate various dimensions of racial capitalism as understood through the predatory industrial prison complex. The essays collected in the book span a wide range of topics including, the political economy of fees and fines, juvenile delinquency, algorithmic policing, and cybernetic governance. The result is a beautifully curated book that, in the context of the hostile environment, the building of US-style “mega-prisons”, and the NHS migrant fee and debt regime, has pressing relevance to debates in Britain today. Below I focus on three key themes that arise throughout the essays.

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