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The Prison Boom and the Decline of American Citizenship

  • Symposium: What Do We Owe Each Other?
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Abstract

The US imprisonment rate increased fivefold in the three decades from 1975 to 2005. Growth in the scale of criminal punishment was linked partly to a more punitive politics that repudiated the goal of rehabilitation, and partly to the collapse of economic opportunity for young unskilled men in inner cities. The growth of the penal system produced extraordinary rates of incarceration among recent cohorts of young black men with little schooling. We can understand the growth of incarceration to produce and erosion of citizenship among young black men, weakening the web of mutual obligation that defines full membership in American society.

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Further Reading

  • Beck, A., & Glaze, L. (2004) “Correctional populations in the United States.” [corr2. wk1]. Washington DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics. [Accessed May 2005].

  • Bound, J., & Freeman, R. B. (1992). “What went wrong? The erosion of relative earnings and employment among young black men in the 1980s.” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 107, 201–232.

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  • Garland, D. (2006). Introduction: The meaning of mass imprisonment. In D. Garland (ed.), Mass imprisonment: Social causes and consequences (pp. 1–3). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

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  • Maguire, K., & Pastore A. L. (2003). The sourcebook of criminal justice statistics. Washington DC: U.S. Department of Justice.

  • Pettit, B., & Western, B. (2004). Mass imprisonment and the life course: Race and class inequality in U.S. incarceration. American Sociological Review, 69, 151–169.

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  • Rothman, D. (2002). Conscience and convenience: The asylum and its alternatives in progressive America. New York: Aldine DeGruyter (1980, first edition).

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  • Western, B. (2006). Punishment and inequality in America. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

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  • Whalen, C., & Whalen, B. (1985). The longest debate: A legislative history of the 1964 civil rights act. Cabin John, MD: Seven Locks Press.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA

    Bruce Western

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  1. Bruce Western
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Correspondence to Bruce Western.

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Western, B. The Prison Boom and the Decline of American Citizenship. Soc 44, 30–36 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-007-9000-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-007-9000-5

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