Dædalus coming up in Dædalus: the economy Robert M. Solow, Benjamin M. Friedman, Lucian A. Bebchuk, Luigi Dædalus Zingales, Edward L. Glaeser, C.A.E. Goodhart, Barry Eichengreen, Nolan McCarty, Keith T. Poole, Thomas Romer, Howard Rosenthal, Peter Temin, Jeremy C. Stein, Robert E. Hall, and others Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Summer 2010 the meaning of Gerald Early, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Glenda R. Carpio, David A. minority/majority Hollinger, Jeffrey B. Ferguson, Hua Hsu, Daniel Geary, Lawrence Summer 2010: on mass incarceration Jackson, Farah Grif½n, Korina Jocson, Eric Sundquist, Waldo Martin, Werner Sollors, James Alan McPherson, Robert O’Meally, Jeffrey B. on mass Glenn C. Loury Introduction 5 Perry, Clarence Walker, Wilson Jeremiah Moses, Tommie Shelby, and incarcer- & Bruce Western others ation Bruce Western Incarceration & social inequality 8 & Becky Pettit race, inequality Lawrence D. Bobo, William Julius Wilson, Michael Klarman, Rogers Robert J. Sampson Punishment’s place: the local concentration & culture Smith, Douglas Massey, Jennifer Hochschild, Martha Biondi, Roland & Charles Loeffler of mass incarceration 20 Fryer, Cathy Cohen, James Heckman, Taeku Lee, Pap Ndiaye, Alford Candace Kruttschnitt The paradox of women’s imprisonment 32 Young, Marcyliena Morgan, Richard Nisbett, Jennifer Richeson, Jeffrey Fagan The contradictions of juvenile crime Daniel Sabbagh, Roger Waldinger, and others & punishment 43 Marie Gottschalk Cell blocks & red ink: mass incarceration, plus the modern American military, protecting the Internet as a the great recession & penal reform 62 public commons, public opinion &c. Loïc Wacquant Class, race & hyperincarceration in revanchist America 74 Jonathan Simon Clearing the “troubled assets” of America’s punishment bubble 91 Nicola Lacey American imprisonment in comparative perspective 102 what Mark A.R. Kleiman Toward fewer prisoners & less crime 115 Robert Weisberg The dangers of Pyrrhic victories & Joan Petersilia against mass incarceration 124 Glenn C. Loury Crime, inequality & social justice 134 poetry Etheridge Knight A Wasp Woman Visits a Black Junkie in Prison 141 Lucille Clifton cruelty. don’t talk to me about cruelty & what spells raccoon to me 143 U.S. $13; www.amacad.org Cherishing Knowledge · Shaping the Future Inside front cover: Inmates housed in a gymnasium at California State Prison in Los Angeles, August 8, 2006. Decades of tough sentencing laws and a lack of funding for rehabilitative programs have led to acute overcrowding in U.S. prisons. In California, where third-strike offenders face minimum sen- tences of twenty-½ve years to life, the state’s pris- ons are among the most crowded in the nation. Photograph © California Department of Correc- tions & Rehabilitation. Glenn C. Loury and Bruce Western, Guest Editors D Phyllis S. Bendell, Managing Editor and Director of Publications Micah J. Buis, Associate Editor Erica Dorpalen, Editorial Assistant Board of advisers Steven Marcus, Editor of the Academy Rosanna Warren, Poetry Adviser Committee on Publications Jerome Kagan, Chair, Jesse H. Choper, Denis Donoghue, Gerald Early, Linda Greenhouse, Jerrold Meinwald; ex of½cio: Leslie Berlowitz Dædalus is designed by Alvin Eisenman. Dædalus Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Nineteenth-century depiction of a Roman mosaic labyrinth, now lost, found in Villa di Diomede, Pompeii Dædalus was founded in 1955 and established as a quarterly in 1958. The journal’s namesake was renowned in ancient Greece as an inventor, scien- tist, and unriddler of riddles. Its emblem, a maze seen from above, symbol- izes the aspiration of its founders to “lift each of us above his cell in the lab- yrinth of learning in order that he may see the entire structure as if from above, where each separate part loses its comfortable separateness.” The American Academy of Arts & Sciences, like its journal, brings togeth- er distinguished individuals from every ½eld of human endeavor. It was chartered in 1780 as a forum “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honour, dignity, and happiness of a free, inde- pendent, and virtuous people.” Now in its third century, the Academy, with its nearly ½ve thousand elected members, continues to provide intellectual leadership to meet the critical challenges facing our world. Dædalus Summer 2010 Subscription rates: Electronic only for non- Issued as Volume 139, Number 3 member individuals–$41; institutions–$108. Canadians add 5% gst. Print and electronic © 2010 by the American Academy for nonmember individuals–$46; institu- of Arts & Sciences tions–$120. Canadians add 5% gst. Outside Cell blocks & red ink: mass incarceration, the great the United States and Canada add $23 for recession & penal reform postage and handling. Prices subject to change © 2010 by Marie Gottschalk without notice. Class, race & hyperincarceration in revanchist America Institutional subscriptions are on a volume- © 2010 by Loïc Wacquant year basis. All other subscriptions begin with A Wasp Woman Visits a Black Junkie in Prison the next available issue. © 1986 by Etheridge Knight Single issues: current issue–$13; back issues cruelty. don’t talk to me about cruelty and for individuals–$16; back issues for institu- what spells raccoon to me tions–$32. Outside the United States and © 1987 by Lucille Clifton Canada add $6 per issue for postage and han- Editorial of½ces: Dædalus, Norton’s Woods, dling. 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Loury & Bruce Western The challenge of mass incarceration in America The proper role for the social scientist criminology, sociology, political science, in discussions of social policy is not self- economics, and law–and reflect differ- evident because the most challenging ing ideological predispositions. However, policy problems are not merely techni- all hold the common conviction that cal. Nor is policy discourse only instru- this newly emergent punishment regime mental; it is also expressive and constitutive. constitutes a formation of fundamental It sets an agenda for action, frames key signi½cance for American society; that moral judgments of a citizenry, marks its roots in the political culture are varied the boundary between civic and com- and intricate; and that there is no easy munal responsibility, conveys a narra- or straightforward path out of the policy tive of justi½cation, and establishes the ½x that we have gotten ourselves into. signi½cance of a nation’s history for The empirical contours of American in- its present-day course of public action. carceration are assessed in the four pieces Whether intended or not, public debate that begin this issue. Bruce Western of over the most basic issues (implicitly) Harvard University and Becky Pettit of answers the question, what manner of the University of Washington examine people are we Americans? This outcome the class and racial dimensions of incar- is surely true for public debate about ceration and its impact on social inequal- what may be the preeminent domestic ity. Robert J. Sampson and Charles Loef- policy issue of our time: that mass incar- fler, both of Harvard University, look at ceration is now, de facto, a central ele- data on the spatial concentration of im- ment of American social policy. prisonment in the large American city of The essays gathered in this issue of Chicago. Two subsequent essays focus on Dædalus explore the empirical contours, particular subsectors of the prison uni- the political underpinnings, and the pros- verse: Candace Kruttschnitt of the Uni- pects for reform of America’s incarcera- versity of Toronto surveys the social con- tion complex.