MS-13, Moral Panics, and Forced Migrations: Theorizing Deportability and Carceral Studies

• In Event: 2333 - Latino/as

Abstract

Using interview data from gang experts interviewed as part of a multi-year federally-funded study on MS-13, we demonstrate how deportability discourse is manifested at the level of local law enforcement. Building on Jonathan Simon’s (2007) Governing Through Crime Control and Mary Bosworth’s (2008) Governing Through Migration Control, we offer a sociolegal analysis of emergent trends in carceral net widening. We focus on how the framing of MS-13 has served to advance a) the conflation of Latino migration with dangerousness and insecurity; and b) the expansion and net widening of carceral infrastructure.

Authors

• Kenneth Sebastian Leon, Rutgers University

• Maya P-Money Barak, University of Michigan - Dearborn