- Between weeks 8 and 12, each student should provide a weekly reflection (500 words) on the data you have collected to date.
- What data did you collect?
- What is your initial impression of the data?
- How have the data you have collected this week changed/progressed your thinking about your research project?
- What challenges did you encounter while collecting the data?
- What are your next steps?
This week I worked on an outline for my paper, and continued reading sources. Making the outline was very helpful to me because it allowed me to lay out what I want to focus my research on.
Final Paper – Outline
Intro: why is incarceration a topic worthy of study? (2 page)
- Introduce with story…
- #s (& comparison to other countries)
- Racism… but neoliberalism is also a player (even if it was only the white prison population #’s would still be very high…)
- Increase in mass incarceration aligns with the rise in neoliberal politics (1980s)
- This paper will examine …
- Part 1 road map
- Part 2 road map
- Part 3 road map
Part 1. How neoliberal policies created the socio-economic conditions that give rise to mass incarceration (8 pages)
- Neoliberal rationality –> privatization of public goods
- Cutbacks in welfare services – increasing economic gap
- Harsh policing and criminalization (war on drugs)
- Neoliberalism views the individual as responsible for their conditions so incarceration is seen as justified
- History of profit from prisons (convict lease system)
- The privatization of prisons and the prison industrial complex
Part 2. How neoliberal incentives reinforce mass incarceration (6 pages)
- Prison industrial complex as a market for production
- Giant corporations benefit from mass incarceration & encourage policies that lead to it
- Private interest groups (prison guard unions, law enforcement, etc.) have interest in the growth of the incarceral state
Part 3. The paradox (4 pages)
- Mass incarceration is actually incredibly expensive and it does not save money
- Efforts on criminal justice reform argue that prison reform is necessary because it is so expensive (which reinforces neoliberal ideals)
Conclusion:
- What is the purpose of punishment? It does not dissuade “crime”… it is about money.
- Rhetoric espoused by those in power seeing crimes as individual problems & about $ in the system reinforce the focus on neoliberalism. not only does neoliberalism –> mass incarceration, but mass incarceration –> neoliberalism. It is a reinforcing cycle
Do you think this arrangement makes sense? I did also do more research this week. I read particularly about how mass incarceration is very costly for the state and how arguments for prison reform use a neoliberal argument to argue that levels of imprisonment should be reduced.
http://bostonreview.net/books-ideas/marie-gottschalk-neoliberal-prison-reform-caught
Comments:
This outline looks good, Natalie. One quick question: in which part are you planning to talk about the rationality behind the privatization of prison? ( the point that you raised last week) 1st or 2nd?
It is indeed interesting that the arguments for prison reform is using cost-benefit analysis to justify themselves (instead of, for instance, “social justice”). Like, does this mean that it if was not expensive, it would be ok? I think this shows the pervasiveness and adaptability of neoliberal ideology. It can shape opposite views.