Richie uses prison nation to “[refer] to those dimensions of civil society that use the power of law, public policy, and institutional practices in strategic ways to advance hegemonic values and to overpower efforts by individuals and groups that challenge the status quo” (Richie 2012:3). Those who would use “the power of law, public policy, and institutional practices” (3) would be police officers and the laws they enforced , city planners, such as the mayor or a board in charge of an aspect of the city, and the remaining notions of racial superiority and inferiority. Those who challenge the “status quo” (3) are the people who did not conform to the prevalent cultural norms, which includes teenage pregnant women and prisoners. According
