MAPPING CARCERAL CAPITALISM IN AMERICA
May, 2023
Since colonial America, the state has carefully curated a mythos of law and order to bolster public support for a monopolistic and violent carceral state. Columbus used weapons to subjugate, slaughter, and displace Indigenous Americans in the so-called new world, but his organization and use of language “legitimized” the colonists’ use of force (Patel and Moore 2017, 181). The modern state employs the three supposedly separate but equal branches of government as organizational tools to shift the borders of criminality, empower and protect a monstrous and increasingly militarized police force, and oversee the arrest and detention of millions of people in an archipelago of prisons, jails, and immigrant detention centers.
AMERICAN SYSTEMS OF (IN)JUSTICE
December 2021
Originally published by Boston University during graduate studies
The United States’ systems and mechanisms for law enforcement, incarceration and punishment, post-conviction supervision, and social support are unique in all the wrong ways.
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If policing does not prevent crime and carceral punishments do not rehabilitate, what is the function of mass incarceration but the preservation of White supremacy and domination? The suffering of Black children and adults in America is etched deeply onto every bloodied page of our history that it should be known and felt by every living person.
REENTRY OF FORMERLY INCARCERATED PEOPLE INTO SOCIETY
October 2021
Originally submitted to Boston University during graduate studies
Piecemeal reform measures and the deployment of insulated new programs are ineffective vehicles for meaningful change. Addressing high recidivism rates among formerly incarcerated people requires a complete reformation in American thinking about how we support each other, how we criminalize and punish behavior, and how we treat those whom we have punished.
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Effective reform will depend on bold and sweeping changes to the American system and a complete reframing of crime and criminality among the American populace.