The challenge of mass incarceration in America

Loïc Wacquant of the University of California, Berkeley, emphasizes the interconnectedness of penal policy (for poor urban minority men) and welfare policy (for poor urban minority women), arguing that both reflect structural changes characteristic of late-capitalist society in relations between socially marginal populations and the state. Nicola Lacey of the London School of Economics discusses American penal policy in international comparative perspective, identifying distinguishing features of the political economy of the United States that may account for its striking penal dissimilarity.