Why Mass Incarceration Matters: Rethinking Crisis, Decline, and Transformation in Postwar American History
Abstract
As the twentieth century came to a close and the twenty-first began, something occurred in the United States that was without international parallel or historical precedent. Between 1970 and 2010 more people were incarcerated in the United States than were imprisoned in any other country, and at no other point in its past had the nation's economic, social, and political institutions become so bound up with the practice of punishment. By 2006 more than 7.3 million Americans had become entangled in the criminal justice system. The American prison population had by that year increased more rapidly than had the resident population as a whole, and one in every thirty-one U.S. residents was under some form of correctional supervision, such as in prison or jail, or on probation or parole. As importantly, the incarcerated and supervised population of the United States was, overwhelmingly, a population of color. African American men experienced the highest imprisonment rate of all racial groups, male or female. It was 6.5 times the rate of white males and 2.5 times that of Hispanic males. By the middle of 2006 one in fifteen black men over the age of eighteen were behind bars as were one in nine black men aged twenty to thirty-four. The imprisonment rate of African American women looked little better. It was almost double that of Hispanic women and three times the rate of white women.1
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Most recent police historians have been influenced by the foundational work of Heather Thompson (2010) and Khalil Muhammad (2010).
“Most recent police historians have been influenced by the foundational work of Heather Thompson (2010) and Khalil Muhammad (2010).”
From To Protect and to Serve: Police, Power, and the Production of Inequality in the United States (2024) · cites this paper as Thompson 2010
Cited by
Sorted by citations
The growth of incarceration in the United States: exploring causes and consequences
Travis, J., Western, B., & Redburn, F. (2014) · National Academies Press eBooks · doi:10.17226/18613 · Cited by 1,095 · see citing works
“12 That sympathy dissipated, however, as civil rights opponents continued to link concerns about crime with anxieties about racial disorder; the transformation of the racial status quo; and wider political turmoil, including the wave of urban riots in the 1960s and large-scale demonstrations against the Vietnam War (s…”
BackgroundInfluentialThe Mass Criminalization of Black Americans: A Historical Overview
Hinton, E., & Cook, D. (2021) · Annual Review of Criminology · doi:10.1146/annurev-criminol-060520-033306 · Cited by 247 · see citing works
Theoretical advances and problems in the sociology of punishment
Garland, D. (2018) · Punishment & Society · doi:10.1177/1462474517737274 · Cited by 78 · see citing works
“For an influential manifesto, see Thompson (2010).”
BackgroundCleve, N. G. V., & Mayes, L. (2015) · Law & Social Inquiry · doi:10.1111/lsi.12113 · Cited by 118 · see citing works
Incarceration, Community Health, and Racial Disparities
Dumont, D. M., Allen, S., Brockmann, B. W., Alexander, N. E., & Rich, J. D. (2013) · Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved · doi:10.1353/hpu.2013.0000 · Cited by 117 · see citing works
Demolition as urban policy in the American Rust Belt
Hackworth, J. (2016) · Environment and Planning A Economy and Space · doi:10.1177/0308518x16654914 · Cited by 107 · see citing works
“homeless people and policy interventions to fight crime (Smith, 1996; Thompson, 2010).”
BackgroundWoodly, D. R., Brown, R. H., Marin, M., Threadcraft, S. A., Harris, C. P., Syedullah, J., & Ticktin, M. (2021) · Contemporary Political Theory · doi:10.1057/s41296-021-00515-8 · Cited by 104 · see citing works
“Heather Ann Thompson (2010) argues that the rise of the carceral state – – a phenomenon worthy of our attention as it has been central to the decline of the power of organized labor, the recent rightward drift in our politics and to our mid20th century urban crises – was driven by the criminalization of urban space, s…”
BackgroundInfluentialReiter, K. (2014) · Qualitative Inquiry · doi:10.1177/1077800413515831 · Cited by 90 · see citing works
“Today, 35 years after Jacobs worked as a sociologistactuary and published his classic sociological study Stateville, qualitative prison studies are significantly more unusual, especially in the United States (Rhodes, 2001; Simon, 2000; Thompson, 2010; Wacquant, 2002).”
BackgroundMaking Immigrants Illegal in Small‐Town USA
Dick, H. P. (2011) · Journal of Linguistic Anthropology · doi:10.1111/j.1548-1395.2011.01096.x · Cited by 85 · see citing works
Golash‐Boza, T. (2016) · Journal of World-Systems Research · doi:10.5195/jwsr.2016.616 · Cited by 82 · see citing works
Beckett, K., & Francis, M. M. (2020) · Annual Review of Law and Social Science · doi:10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-110819-100304 · Cited by 79 · see citing works
Public Health and Prisons: Priorities in the Age of Mass Incarceration
Cloud, D. H., Garcia-Grossman, I. R., Armstrong, A., & Williams, B. A. (2022) · Annual Review of Public Health · doi:10.1146/annurev-publhealth-071521-034016 · Cited by 75 · see citing works
Criminalizing Poverty: The Consequences of Court Fees in a Randomized Experiment
Pager, D., Goldstein, R., Ho, H., & Western, B. (2022) · American Sociological Review · doi:10.1177/00031224221075783 · Cited by 48 · see citing works
“In the four decades since the early 1980s, police, prisons, and the courts have expanded their influence in poor communities in response to social problems linked to poverty and racial inequality (Garland 2001; Thompson 2010; Wacquant 2009).”
BackgroundFracturing the penal state: State actors and the role of conflict in penal change
Rubin, A., & Phelps, M. S. (2017) · Theoretical Criminology · doi:10.1177/1362480617724829 · Cited by 67 · see citing works
“…Weaver and Lerman, 2010), geography (e.g. Peck, 2003), anthropology (e.g. Gilmore, 1999), history (e.g. Hernández et al., 2015; Lichtenstein, 2011; Thompson, 2010; Thompson and Murch, 2015), gender studies (e.g. McKim, 2014), and philosophy (e.g. Nichols, 2014).2 Although primarily used to…”
BackgroundGender and Critical Drug Studies
CAMPBELL, N. D., & Herzberg, D. (2017) · Contemporary Drug Problems · doi:10.1177/0091450917738075 · Cited by 64 · see citing works
“…States’ ongoing legacy of racialized criminalization and mass incarceration, a vibrant body of historical, sociological, and anthropological scholarship now explores the racial dimensions of drugs and crime in America (Alexander, 2010; Lusanne, 1991; Mauer, 1999; Murch, 2015; Thompson, 2010).”
BackgroundWriting a Global History of Convict Labour
Vito, C. G. D., & Lichtenstein, A. (2013) · International Review of Social History · doi:10.1017/s0020859012000818 · Cited by 54 · see citing works
Ruiz, D. S., & Kopak, A. M. (2014) · The Journal of Pan-African Studies · Cited by 49 · see citing works
Progress or More of the Same? Electronic Monitoring and Parole in the Age of Mass Incarceration
Kilgore, J. E. (2012) · Critical Criminology · doi:10.1007/s10612-012-9165-0 · Cited by 40 · see citing works
“Only recently have a cohort of writers and activist organizations (Perkinson 2010; Thompson 2010; Alexander 2009; Wacquant 2009a, b, 2007; Loury et al. 2008; Marable et al. 2007; Western and Wildeman 2007; Gottschalk 2007; Gilmore 2007; Davis 2003, 2005) begun to try to place this issue on the…”
BackgroundThe Disciplining Effect of Mass Incarceration on Labor Organization
Reich, A. D., & Prins, S. J. (2020) · American Journal of Sociology · doi:10.1086/709016 · Cited by 35 · see citing works
Nosrati, E., Ash, M., Marmot, M. G., McKee, M., & KING, L. P. (2017) · International Journal of Epidemiology · doi:10.1093/ije/dyx243 · Cited by 38 · see citing works
The New Asylums: Madness and Mass Incarceration in the Neoliberal Era
Rembis, M. A. (2014) · Palgrave Macmillan US eBooks · doi:10.1057/9781137388476_8 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
Racial Innocence: Law, Social Science, and the Unknowing of Racism in the US Carceral State
Murakawa, N. (2019) · Annual Review of Law and Social Science · doi:10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-101518-042649 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
“For scholars of the carceral state, this entails rejecting professional investments in race-free crime statistics and nonracial legal variables; measures and methods are freighted to an unfolding history in which race matters (Muhammad 2010, Thompson 2010, Ward 2015, Zuberi 2001).”
BackgroundThe symbiotic tensions of the regulatory–carceral state: The case of cannabis legalization
Aaronson, E., & Rothschild‐Elyassi, G. (2021) · Regulation & Governance · doi:10.1111/rego.12394 · Cited by 30 · see citing works
“An important strand of the carceral state literature goes beyond the confines of formal state institutions and examines how discourses and technologies of crime governance shape the fabric of community life and govern everyday experiences in schools (Rios 2017), workplaces (Satz 2020), and families (Suk 2006).”
BackgroundCops at War: How World War II Transformed U.S. Policing
Schrader, S. (2021) · Modern American History · doi:10.1017/mah.2021.12 · Cited by 27 · see citing works
Hillyer, R. (2019) · Journal of Civil and Human Rights · doi:10.5406/jcivihumarigh.5.1.0001 · Cited by 25 · see citing works
Austin, M. K., White, I. I., & Kim, A. W. (2021) · American Journal of Human Biology · doi:10.1002/ajhb.23691 · Cited by 28 · see citing works
“…racial and socioeconomic disadvantage as strong determinants parental incarceration due to cultural and historical antecedents of mass incarceration such as the War on Drugs, mandatory minimum sentences, and long-standing inequities in arrests and sentencing (Alexander, 2010; Thompson, 2010).”
BackgroundReclaiming the Power to Punish: Legislating and Administrating the California Supermax, 1982–1989
Reiter, K. (2016) · Law & Society Review · doi:10.1111/lasr.12204 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
Collingwood, L., Morín, J., & El‐Khatib, S. O. (2018) · Race and Social Problems · doi:10.1007/s12552-018-9241-5 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
THE RACIAL HISTORY OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN AMERICA
Thompson, H. A. (2019) · Du Bois Review Social Science Research on Race · doi:10.1017/s1742058x19000183 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
“Of course guards acted like overseers using everything from “Black Annie” (a thick strapped whip) to the notorious “Tucker Telephone” (with live electric wires to be attached to inmates’ genitals) to keep their captive workforce in line (Murton and Hyams, 1969; Thompson 2010b).”
BackgroundInfluentialSelf-citationThe Carceral State and the Crucible of Black Politics: An Urban History of the Rockefeller Drug Laws
Fortner, M. J. (2013) · Studies in American Political Development · doi:10.1017/s0898588x13000011 · Cited by 22 · see citing works
Normativity is not a replacement for theory
Rubin, A. T. (2025) · Theory and Society · doi:10.1007/s11186-025-09633-3 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
Locked into Emissions: How Mass Incarceration Contributes to Climate Change
McGee, J., Greiner, P., & Appleton, C. E. (2020) · Social Currents · doi:10.1177/2329496520974006 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
“Beginning in the mid-1990s, a number of private corporations and politicians began to benefit financially and politically from the existence of large prison populations (Elk and Sloan 2011; Gilmore 2007; Hallinan 2003; Herival and Wright 2007; Thompson 2010, 2012).”
BackgroundWarren, M. R. (2021) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780197611500.001.0001 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
Chard, D. S. (2012) · The Sixties · doi:10.1080/17541328.2012.679049 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
Detroit Fifty Years After the Kerner Report: What Has Changed, What Has Not, and Why?
Farley, R. (2018) · RSF The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences · doi:10.7758/rsf.2018.4.6.10 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
“This finding is certainly consistent with Thompson’s powerful arguments about the consequences of the racialized wars on crime and drugs (Bobo and Thompson 2010).”
ResultRosen, C. (2023) · Journal of Policy History · doi:10.1017/s0898030622000288 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
Mass Incarceration: Examining and Moving Beyond the New Jim Crow
Kilgore, J. E. (2014) · Critical Sociology · doi:10.1177/0896920513509821 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
“Build the Wall!”: Post‐Truth on the US–Mexico Border
Dick, H. P. (2019) · American Anthropologist · doi:10.1111/aman.13189 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
McCann, B. J. (2014) · Western Journal of Communication · doi:10.1080/10570314.2014.901552 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
“Criminal justice was now a federal issue and its chief object was the unruly acts taking place in predominantly minority urban sectors that allegedly posed an existential threat to civil (read: White) society (Pager, 2007; Thompson, 2010).”
BackgroundWallace, R., & Fullilove, R. E. (2014) · Structural Change and Economic Dynamics · doi:10.1016/j.strueco.2014.07.002 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
Borders and badges: Arizona’s children confront detention and deportation through art
Vega, S. R. (2018) · Latino Studies · doi:10.1057/s41276-018-0132-0 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
Carandiru: os usos da memória de um massacre
Borges, V. T. (2016) · Revista Tempo e Argumento · doi:10.5965/2175180308192016004 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
Kajeepeta, S., Bates, L. M., Keyes, K. M., et al. (2024) · Aggression and Violent Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.avb.2024.101947 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Punitive Social Policy and Vital Inequality
Nosrati, E., & KING, L. P. (2021) · International Journal of Health Services · doi:10.1177/00207314211024895 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
“Evidence suggests that aggressive policing tends to target activities such as public urination, rough sleeping, or begging for food.(32) At the same time, whereas rates of homelessness are 21 per 10 000 population for the general public, for those who have been imprisoned once or more than once, the corresponding numb…”
Background“OCCUPIED TERRITORY”: POLICE REPRESSION AND BLACK RESISTANCE IN POSTWAR MILWAUKEE, 1950–1968
Balto, S. (2013) · The Journal of African American History · doi:10.5323/jafriamerhist.98.2.0229 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Keels, M. (2023) · Annual Review of Criminology · doi:10.1146/annurev-criminol-022222-040148 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Millett, C. M. (2020) · ETS Research Report Series · doi:10.1002/ets2.12299 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Williams, M. B. (2021) · Modern American History · doi:10.1017/mah.2020.23 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
New Directions in the Historiography of Psychiatry
Doroshow, D. B., Gambino, M., & Raz, M. (2018) · Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences · doi:10.1093/jhmas/jry040 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Martin‐Breteau, N. (2011) · Transatlantica · doi:10.4000/transatlantica.5469 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Tynan, E., & Warren, M. R. (2025) · International Journal of Adolescence and Youth · doi:10.1080/02673843.2024.2435270 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
“There is no evidence that this kind of racialized fear was caused by any real increase in violent crime (Thompson, 2010).”
Caldas, S. V., Turkel, R., Nelson, A. R., Pandey, S., Wu, Y., Broaddus-Shea, E. T., Beebe, M., Rivera, G., & WINCH, P. J. (2017) · The Police Journal Theory Practice and Principles · doi:10.1177/0032258x17694373 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
“The highly publicised civil rights activism led to the introduction of armed police in Baltimore schools in 1967, and increased police targeting of youth (Thompson, 2010).”
BackgroundLloyd, A., & Whitehead, P. (2018) · International journal of law, crime and justice · doi:10.1016/j.ijlcj.2018.09.005 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
“…justice literature identifies a continuum between our first example and second, namely the continuation of forms of state control over African American bodies from slavery, through Jim Crow, to the ghetto and prison (Wacquant, 2001; Blackmon, 2009; Thompson, 2010; Alexander, 2011; Hinton, 2016).”
BackgroundInfluentialAn examination of sentencing outcomes in rural and urban locations
Ruhland, E. L., & Holmes, B. (2022) · American Journal of Criminal Justice · doi:10.1007/s12103-022-09678-5 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
“However, into the early 2000’s, scholars, legislators, and policymakers began to call for a reduced reliance on mass incarceration (Thompson, 2010).”
BackgroundWomen’s History for the Future: Gerda Lerner’s Last Agenda-Setting
MacLean, N. (2014) · Journal of women's history · doi:10.1353/jowh.2014.0001 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Bullard, A. R. (2018) · Contemporary Drug Problems · doi:10.1177/0091450918789415 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
“…the identification of some drugs (e.g., opium, cocaine, and cannabis) as deserving of prohibitionist responses due to their connection with racial minorities (Alexander, 2010; Helmer, 1975; Lusane, 1991; Manderson, 1999; Mauer, 1999; Murch, 2015; Musto, 1991, 1999; Provine, 2007; Thompson, 2010).”
BackgroundRacializing Discourses of Illegality
Dick, H. P. (2020) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190845995.013.21 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
“Detroit under STRESS”: The Campaign to Stop Police Killings and the Criminal State in Detroit
McCoy, A. (2021) · Journal of Civil and Human Rights · doi:10.5406/jcivihumarigh.7.1.0001 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Democracy Dispossessed: Land, Law and the Politics of Redistribution in South Africa
Alexander, A. S. (2015) · doi:10.7916/d8h70ff9 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Clio and the Compound Republic
Cebul, B., Tani, K. M., & Williams, M. B. (2017) · Publius The Journal of Federalism · doi:10.1093/publius/pjx019 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
“given the longstanding role of state and local governments in the policy areas of criminal justice and policing. The advent of the War on Crime and the War on Drugs in the 1960s and 1970s, these scholars are finding, unsettled older divisions of authority, but in complex and sometimes counterintuitive ways. Recent wor…”
BackgroundThe great cat mutilation: sex, social movements and the utilitarian calculus in 1970s New York City
Pettit, M. (2017) · BJHS Themes · doi:10.1017/bjt.2017.1 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Harshest in the Nation: The Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Widening Embrace of Punitive Politics
Neptune, J. (2012) · The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs · doi:10.1086/shad26020170 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
To Protect and to Serve: Police, Power, and the Production of Inequality in the United States
Felker-Kantor, M. (2024) · Crime and Justice · doi:10.1086/732194 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Federal Policies and Mass Incarceration in America
Ly, L. (2023) · Policy Perspectives · doi:10.4079/pp.v30i0.03 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Schumacher, J. E., Ahsan, A., Simpler, A. H., Natoli, A. P., & Cain, B. J. (2025) · Addiction Science & Clinical Practice · doi:10.1186/s13722-025-00550-5 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
“States has consistently occurred since the country’s inception [1], the evolving social acceptance, criminalization, and increased potency of select drugs have contributed to the nation’s current drug epidemic and carceral crisis [2–5].”
Schools and Delinquency in the Early 20th Century: Rethinking the Origins of School Policing
Burton, C. S. (2016) · The British Journal of Criminology · doi:10.1093/bjc/azw013 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Young, S., & Bruzzone, M. (2018) · Urban Geography · doi:10.1080/02723638.2018.1452399 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
A protracted war for order: P olice violence in the twentieth century United States
Ponton, D. (2018) · History Compass · doi:10.1111/hic3.12453 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Punishment Beyond Bars: Pursuing Higher Education with the Degree of Incarceration
Fretwell, M. D., & Scarritt, A. (2018) · ScholarWorks (Boise State University) · Cited by 3 · see citing works
From the Vagrancy Law Regime to the Carceral State
Agee, C. L. (2018) · Law & Social Inquiry · doi:10.1111/lsi.12376 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Klee (2021) · Agricultural History · doi:10.3098/ah.2021.095.4.633 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Choosing the Points of Entry: Strategic Framing and the Problem of Hyperincarceration
Gandy, O. (2014) · Atlantic Journal of Communication · doi:10.1080/15456870.2014.859977 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
“Identifying the factors that combine to limit their opportunities for employment (Hallett, 2012; Pager, Western, & Sugie, 2009; Thompson, 2010), housing (Clement, Schwarzfeld, & Thompson, 2011), social services (Lopes et al.”
BackgroundMuñiz, J. O., Corcoran, F., Camper, M., et al. (2024) · Youth Justice · doi:10.1177/14732254241248619 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
“Crime and policies were redefined to support the large-scale imprisonment of Black Americans (Alexander, 2020 [2010]; Thompson, 2010).”
Price, M. J. (2013) · Politics Groups and Identities · doi:10.1080/21565503.2013.842787 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Merton, J. (2016) · Journal of Policy History · doi:10.1017/s0898030616000373 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
The Work: Dealing and Violence in the War on Drugs Era
Cooley, W. (2018) · Labor Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas · doi:10.1215/15476715-4353704 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Przybyla, S., & Kruger, J. S. (2021) · Pedagogy in Health Promotion · doi:10.1177/23733799211003908 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
“Consequently, our country witnessed high rates of incarceration for people convicted of drug offenses, comprising nearly two thirds of all federal inmates by 1997 (Thompson, 2010).”
BackgroundThe Political Ecology of James and Grace Lee Boggs
Bartell, B. (2021) · Rethinking Marxism · doi:10.1080/08935696.2021.1923184 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
“On incarceration’s effects on Detroit at large and the Black labor movement specifically, especially in relation to prison labor, see Thompson (2010). 410 Bartell”
BackgroundRowell‐Cunsolo, T. L., Mkuu, R. S., Bellerose, M., et al. (2021) · The Journal of Sex Research · doi:10.1080/00224499.2021.2004083 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
“Also, although over 90% of NY prisons are located in rural upstate communities, due in large part to the impact of drug war legislation, the vast majority of prisoners upstate are from New York City (Thompson, 2010).”
BackgroundInfluentialCorradi, A., & Baumer, E. P. (2022) · Justice Quarterly · doi:10.1080/07418825.2022.2060284 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
“Appeals to reducing fear through law-and-order policies emerged during the last half of the 20th century in America within both major government parties during an era of intense political and electoral realignment (Simon, 2007; Thompson, 2010).”
Background“Angela's psych squad”: Black psychology against the American carceral state in the 1970s
Pettit, M. (2022) · Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences · doi:10.1002/jhbs.22216 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
DARE to Say No: Police and the Cultural Politics of Prevention in the War on Drugs
Felker-Kantor, M. (2022) · Modern American History · doi:10.1017/mah.2022.19 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Scott, R. F. (2018) · American studies · doi:10.1353/ams.2018.0001 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
The Prison of Democracy: Race, Leavenworth, and the Culture of Law
Benson, S. M. (2018) · University of California Press eBooks · doi:10.1525/luminos.66 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Between the Market and the State
Pehl, M. (2019) · Labor Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas · doi:10.1215/15476715-7323746 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Puerto Rico, Colonialism, and the U.S. Carceral State
LeBrón, M. (2019) · Modern American History · doi:10.1017/mah.2019.17 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Warren, M. R. (2021) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780197611500.002.0006 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
The Rise of the Carceral State: Foundations and Contours of a Rapidly Changing Criminal Legal System
Wakefield, S., & Turney, K. (2025) · RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences · doi:10.7758/rsf.2025.11.3.04 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
“…apart is that most other wealthy democracies pursued paths of shoring up their welfare states, increasing regulation of labor markets, and enhancing rights-based protections in the postwar period, while the United States largely did not (Garland 2023; Gottschalk 2008; Khan 2022; Thompson 2010).”
InfluentialMass incarceration and consumer financial harm: Critique of rent‐seeking by the carceral state
Rockwell, C., Crockett, D., & Davis, L. M. (2020) · Journal of Consumer Affairs · doi:10.1111/joca.12316 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Trash Transformations: Litter, Volunteer Labour, and Care in Philadelphia
Hankins, K. (2023) · Antipode · doi:10.1111/anti.13007 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Anumba, N. M. (2025) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-90279-6_4 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Incarcération de masse et démobilisation politique chez les Afro-Américains
Diamond, A., Duvoux, N., & Minonzio, J. (2013) · Informations sociales · doi:10.3917/inso.177.0086 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Greene, C. (2015) · The Journal of African American History · doi:10.5323/jafriamerhist.100.3.0428 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Michael Rogin on American Empire: A Retrospective
Klausen, J. C. (2016) · Project Muse (Johns Hopkins University) · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Family, Housing, and the Political Geography of Gay Liberation in Los Angeles County, 1960-1986
Baldwin, I. M. (2020) · Digital Scholarship - UNLV (University of Nevada Reno) · doi:10.34917/9112024 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Urban Upheaval and the Enduring Appeal of Law and Order
Flamm, M. W. (2017) · Labor Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas · doi:10.1215/15476715-4209302 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
My Old Kentucky Home: Black History in the Bluegrass State
Adams, L. J. (2015) · The Register - Kentucky Historical Society/The register of the Kentucky Historical Society · doi:10.1353/khs.2015.0041 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Getting Tough or Rolling Back the State? Why Neoliberals Disagreed on a Guaranteed Minimum Income
Coleman, D. (2022) · Modern Intellectual History · doi:10.1017/s1479244322000257 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Reckoning With the Rise of the Carceral State
Cloud, D. H. (2017) · American Journal of Public Health · doi:10.2105/ajph.2016.303579 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Vann, M. (2019) · Urban Social Work · doi:10.1891/2474-8684.3.1.5 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
“The criminalization of urban spaces contributed to the rise of the carceral state (Thompson, 2010).”
Background
- Authors
- Thompson, H. A.
- Affiliations
- Temple University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Thompson, H. A.
- Venue
- Journal of American History
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2010-12-01
- Volume
- 97
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 703-734
- ISSN
- 0021-8723 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2070823389
- Semantic Scholar
- f0690036aa0a311e66d31de408e977edc9003be0
- Cited by
- 204
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 20 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 31 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 19 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 5 · 2014: 14 · 2013: 14 · 2012: 7
- FWCI
- 26.05
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of American History (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis
- Social Sciences › Law › Criminal Justice and Penology
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Race, History, and American Society
- Keywords
- mass incarceration, prison population growth, criminal justice system, racial disparities in incarceration, African American men, African American women, punishment, correctional supervision
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
