Violence and the Carceral State

• In Event: The Concept of the Penal State

Abstract

What is a carceral state? The term is regularly utilized but rarely explained as a social science concept. Theories of the carceral state seem to be mostly about the carceral, with considerably less theorizing about the (democratic) state, specifically in relation to its dual role in limiting state violence while constraining predatory violence. In the Weberian ideal, the state’s monopoly on violence within a geographic area is its defining quality, yet the carceral state literature is often untethered from the conditions of unconstrained violent crime in which the state’s punitive practices expand or contract. Such realities are themselves a function of state policies and practices. The vast expanse of punitive functions of the state in contemporary context is interconnected to a wider range of state practices and functions, which are themselves conditioned by political institutions. By widening the lens of the carceral state to understand how democratic states function more broadly, I argue that America’s carceral state is a symptom of a “racialized state failure,” which produces high rates of predatory violence and carceral expansion. In this view, the concept of the carceral state may have limited utility on its own for understanding punishment and its ancillary consequences across countries.

Author

• Lisa Miller, Rutgers University