In recent decades, phrases such as “mass incarceration” and “prison industrial complex” have become part of our national vocabulary, indicating a growing awareness about the cost (in lives and dollars) of maintaining the world’s largest prison population. Indeed, 2019 has seen increased attention to issues of incarceration and justice from both conservative and liberal media sources; yet even as public discourses increasingly criticize the criminal justice system, we maintain the fiction of “crime and punishment” that serves as its basis.
A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric