Americas “fear of crime” has developed an incarceration binge, resulting in a disparity within America’s prisons, largely, affecting the underclass; dishonored groups caught in a symbiosis of the ghetto and prison, meaning, that ghettos have become more like prisons, and so undermined the inmate society, as such, turned prisons more like ghettos; hence, has redefined citizenry via racialized criminal vilification, and therefore, developed a state wherein the criminal justice system is the instrument to control the poor (L. Wacquant, 2010). Largely, because of socioeconomic forces manufactured by powerful elites through purposeful institutional arrangements that are pivotal to the prison disparity. Inevitably, because of societal isolation,
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generally poor black neighborhoods), as the apparatus of crime. In this sense, crime emanates from the poor, and so helps to perpetuate hostility towards the poor, as such. As a result, draconian policing policies (e.g., “zero tolerance,” “get tough on crime”, and the War on Drugs) that target the poor perpetuates formal social control (i.e. prison). Impoverished minorities, disproportionately black and Latino, therefore, are convicted and funneled into state prisons ten times more than their white counterparts; although, whites are six times more likely to use and sell drugs, half of inmates charged with drug offenses are black (R. Sheldon, 87). Upon their release are socially ostracized, subsequent to a second-class life of continuous legal discrimination, and yet, most return to prison because of a “revolving door” that cycles these under-castes in and out of correctional control; the majority are rearrested for property and drug offenses because of strict punitive laws; and selective enforcement and heavy parole supervision ensures two-thirds of parolees return to prison. In this view, the system is not really broken, it is doing what it was designed to do: confine America’s poor in surrogate ghettos, that is, the American prison complex. In this paper I argue: that socially isolated ghettos are not only spaces to constrain poor minorities, but an urban “black belt,” an instrument of caste containment that is fused with prison, thus provides the “system” a surplus of future offenders whose plight generates
generally poor black neighborhoods), as the apparatus of crime. In this sense, crime emanates from the poor, and so helps to perpetuate hostility towards the poor, as such. As a result, draconian policing policies (e.g., “zero tolerance,” “get tough on crime”, and the War on Drugs) that target the poor perpetuates formal social control (i.e. prison). Impoverished minorities, disproportionately black and Latino, therefore, are convicted and funneled into state prisons ten times more than their white counterparts; although, whites are six times more likely to use and sell drugs, half of inmates charged with drug offenses are black (R. Sheldon, 87). Upon their release are socially ostracized, subsequent to a second-class life of continuous legal discrimination, and yet, most return to prison because of a “revolving door” that cycles these under-castes in and out of correctional control; the majority are rearrested for property and drug offenses because of strict punitive laws; and selective enforcement and heavy parole supervision ensures two-thirds of parolees return to prison. In this view, the system is not really broken, it is doing what it was designed to do: confine America’s poor in surrogate ghettos, that is, the American prison complex. In this paper I argue: that socially isolated ghettos are not only spaces to constrain poor minorities, but an urban “black belt,” an instrument of caste containment that is fused with prison, thus provides the “system” a surplus of future offenders whose plight generates