RT Article
T1 The submerged prison state: Punishment, private interests, and the politics of public accountability
JF Punishment & society
VO 26
IS 1
SP 91
OP 108
A1 D Berk, Christopher
LA English
YR 2024
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1871896584
AB Much of penal policy is “submerged,” in the sense that Suzanne Mettler uses the term. There are networks of rules and regulations that link public funds, services, and institutions to various private interests with far reaching consequences. These networks are largely a stealth presence in the lives of citizens and their subterranean status, I argue, warps the wider politics of punishment. Resources are circulated along this network in such a way revenue is generated for some, costs cut for others, all in the shadow of public law. To the extent that this kind of redistribution lacks citizens’ consent and approval, it also represents a potentially undemocratic development. Here, I show how the obscured visibility of these public–private connections distorts public attitudes about, and public support for, the US prison state. The final pages draw out the normative implications of that distortion.
K1 Democratic theory
K1 politics of punishment
K1 Regulation
K1 Privatization
K1 carceral state
K1 tax expenditures
K1 Civil Law
K1 access to justice
DO 10.1177/14624745231181093