Ann Cammett, "Queer Lockdown: Coming to Terms with the Ongoing Criminalization of LGBTQ Communities"
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Prison Nation: Homeland of America's Poor and Disenfranchised

The prison state looms large in the United States and exacts a wildly disproportionate impact on the poor. In 2007, there were nearly 2.3 million people living directly under the auspices of the criminal justice system, and that number grows daily.[5] This renders the U.S. the world's number one jailer, both in total number of incarcerated and in prisoners per capita. This dubious distinction is not a coincidence but rather a trend thirty years in the making. While it is tempting to link the exponential use of incarceration to an increase in crime over time, such a claim is simply not supported by the facts.[6] Violent crime has not increased commensurate with the rise in the prison population. However, in a politically conservative era, punitive lawmaking has held sway pursuant to "tough-on-crime" polices that target much of the population engaged in low-level property and drug crimes. Consequently, prisons have devolved into a warehouse for generations of poor people trapped by the so-called "war on drugs," mandatory minimum sentences, and aggressive policing of low-income communities, which puts them at risk of increased criminal justice involvement.[7]

From an economic standpoint, the proliferation of the penal state has become the primary avenue for policymakers to address the depth and complexity of social problems—in particular, the lack of job opportunities for a large percentage of the population unprepared for employment in the post-industrial age.[8] The fact that the overwhelming majority of incarcerated people are poor makes the continuation of this system possible, owing to their lack of political currency. That two-thirds are people of color makes it acceptable as a political matter, due to the persistence of racism in America and the historical correlation between race and servitude.[9]

No broad examination of economic justice for low-income people, queer or otherwise, can proceed without confronting this prison crisis and analyzing the economic foundation upon which our prison culture is built. Incarceration, operating now at an unprecedented level, is a direct expression of capitalism in its most crass iteration. What has come to be broadly referred to as the "prison industrial complex" references the fact that the prison boom is not a reflection of increased criminal activity but rather the manifestation of a complex web of economic interests that has made prison construction a cornerstone of economic development in the last three decades.[10] Corporate (if not government)[11] wealth from prison construction skyrocketed, along with the various industries required to effect the administration and servicing of this system. The people inside the prisons can be said to provide a source of raw material, both for the cheap production of goods by prison labor and for the consumption of basic goods required by the burgeoning population of inmates themselves.[12]

Incarceration and post-incarceration stigma takes a huge toll on communities. Siphoning off enormous human resources from the low-income communities that need them most has become the touchstone of resistance to the expansion of the prison system. As a pragmatic reaction to mass incarceration, government, NGOs, and community-based organizations have focused on prisoner "reentry," a term that has become part of the criminal justice lexicon. Prisoner reentry, at its core, focuses on the reintegration of prisoners (typically returning to their communities of origin) after a term of incarceration. As a practical matter, release from prison should coincide with social and economic support, such as assistance with employment, housing, drug treatment, family reunification, and other priorities.[13] However, reentry policy and practice do not focus on stemming the tide of mass incarceration but rather analyze and advocate for economic and social service resources to assist the formerly incarcerated in avoiding re-arrest and creating a tide of cyclical incarceration.[14]

There are special difficulties faced by those released from prison that are more hidden and less well understood. These are civil barriers associated with criminal convictions that present legal obstacles to reintegration.[15] These "collateral consequences" of conviction include restricted access to employment, bars to public and private housing, public benefits, family reunification, and restrictions on many of life's necessities that invariably create an environment inhospitable to successful reintegration.[16] Much has been written about voter disenfranchisement and the impact it has on political deterioration in poor communities,[17] but many typical sanctions also create barriers on a more immediate and fundamental level. These roadblocks derive from a patchwork of federal, state, and regulatory frameworks that limit participation in critical areas of life and are difficult to address under a unified legal framework because their impact varies from state to state. Advocates have recently focused more attention on dismantling legal collateral sanctions to assist in reentry.[18]

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