Who Benefits from Mass Incarceration? A Stratification Economics Approach to the “Collateral Consequences” of Punishment

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Authors: Tasseli McKay and William A. Darity Jr.

Journal: Annual Review of Law and Social Science

Abstract: A rich empirical literature documents the consequences of mass incarceration for the wealth, health, and safety of Black Americans. Yet it often frames such consequences as a regrettable artifact of racially disproportionate criminal legal system contact, rather than situating the impetus and functioning of the criminal legal system in the wider context of White political and economic domination. Revisiting a quarter century of mass incarceration research through a stratification economics lens, we highlight how mass incarceration shapes Black–White competition for education, employment, and financial resources and contributes to Black–White disparities in well-being. Highlighting persistent research gaps, we propose a research agenda to better understand how mass incarceration contributes to systematic White advantage. To address mass incarceration’s consequences and transform the conditions of White political and economic domination under which it arose, we call for legislative and judicial intervention to remedy White hyper-enfranchisement and reparations to eliminate the Black–White wealth gap.

Key Findings

  • Stratification economics casts in a new light the mass incarceration-related policy recommendations that have arisen from theoretically agnostic empirical work on mass incarceration’s consequences.
  • It suggests that criminal legal system reforms that occur in the context of ongoing White political-economic dominance are likely to be superficial or to shift its form (but not its function) in racial resource transfer.
  • To end mass incarceration, the authors write, “the fundamental remaking of US public safety systems must be accompanied by judicial intervention to address White hyper-enfranchisement and the systematically White-favoring political decision making that is its logical result.

Citation: McKay, T, Darity, WA. Who Benefits from Mass Incarceration? A Stratification Economics Approach to the “Collateral Consequences” of Punishment. Annual Review of Law and Social Science. Pre-print. doi:10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-041922-033114

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