Criminalization and the Vulnerability of Bodies. A. Carcerality as Biopolitical Policy There has been significant and far-reaching investigation into the ramifications of the recent increase in the carcerality of on the people, families, and communities affected, as well as on the nation as a whole (Pager 2003, Uggen and Manza 2002, Western 2002, Western and Xxxxxxxx 2009, Xxxxxxxx 2009) – though there has yet to be a full social “ledger” compiled that pits real gains against these losses (Xxxxxxx 2011). The literature on the effects of individuals’ criminal justice system interaction on future wages, educational trajectories, and the attainment of life course milestones, for example, shows the clear import of arrest, conviction, and incarceration for life outcomes (Xxxxxxx and Xxxx 1992, Xxxxxxx and Xxxx 1995, Western 2002, Pager 2003, Xxxx 2006). Similarly, there has been considerable treatment of the ways in which the costs of incarceration have affected poor communities disproportionately (Clear 2007, Xxxxx and Xxxxx 2004), as well as the families of the incarcerated (Western and Xxxxxxxx 2009). Additionally, there is compelling evidence that the carceral regime is classed, gendered, and racialized – with poor men of color bearing the overwhelming burden of the state’s relatively recent focus on the deprivation of liberty as a mechanism of social control (Xxxxxx and Western 2004, Wacquant 2009). Research on the effects of carcerality that reverberate beyond the individual arrestee or convict have been largely focused, whether explicitly or not, on the African-American community. As of 2013, 2.8% of the adult population of the United States was under the supervision of various criminal justice and correction agencies (Glaze and Kaeble 2014). Nearly 1% of adults, or approximately 2.2 million Americans, were inmates in a jail or prison (Glaze and Kaeble 2014). In global comparative terms, the United States jails its citizens at between 5 and 8 times the rate of other developed nations (Xxxxxxx 2006, Xxxxx 2003). Levels of incarceration have ascended to a point at which they merit concern on both sides of the US political aisle, with political figures as ideologically diverse as Xxxx Xxxx (Xxxxx 2016), Xxxx Xxxxxxxx (Xxxxxxxx and Xxxxx 2011) and Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxx (Clinton 2016) proclaiming the need to de-escalate the criminalization of communities of color. Certainly, the surge of incarceration as a method of social control and the sheer scale of the bodies resultantly warehoused makes the United States un...
