The Growth of America's Carceral State

Lessons for Anti-Authoritarian Activism

The expansion of America's carceral state since the 1970s is not solely about prisons and policing—it represents the exercise of power and control in service of the preservation of unjust and anti-democratic hierarchies. As attacks on democracy accelerate, it is crucial to understand how the infrastructure of mass incarceration has laid the groundwork for broader authoritarian control, particularly over bodies and reproductive rights. These developments are not coincidental; they are components of an integrated system of social control that demands a unified response.

The Authoritarian Foundations of the Carceral State

The expansion of the carceral state normalized surveillance and control, making authoritarian policies easier to implement and harder to resist. For example, the war on drugs legitimized invasive policing in Black and brown communities while establishing legal precedents that eroded civil liberties for everyone. These precedents have not been confined to criminal law; they have spread into other areas of social control, including reproductive rights.

The connection between criminalization and bodily autonomy becomes clear when we examine their shared logic: both rely on the state’s claimed right to control bodies, particularly those of marginalized groups. Just as the carceral state disproportionately targets communities of color while impacting everyone’s rights, attacks on reproductive freedom most severely affect poor women and women of color while threatening the autonomy of all women.

Shared Features of Control Systems

These systems of control share several key features:

1. Surveillance:

   • The carceral state normalized widespread monitoring of targeted communities.

   • Anti-abortion forces seek to surveil women’s healthcare decisions and criminalize their choices.

2. Criminalization:

   • The carceral state transforms social issues into criminal matters.

   • Abortion opponents seek to criminalize healthcare decisions and prosecute providers.

3. Privatized Enforcement:

   • Private prisons profit from mass incarceration.

   • New abortion restrictions increasingly rely on private citizens to enforce laws through civil lawsuits.

4. Disproportionate Impact:

   • The prison system disproportionately incarcerates poor people and communities of color, but its expansion reduces civil liberties for everyone.

   • Similarly, abortion restrictions most severely harm poor women and women of color but threaten all women’s bodily autonomy.

Lessons for Anti-Authoritarian Activists

This analysis provides several critical lessons for those resisting authoritarianism:

1. Recognize Interconnected Struggles:

   • Criminal legal reform and reproductive rights are interconnected democratic issues. Separating these struggles overlooks their shared roots in authoritarian control.

2. Build Broad Coalitions:

   • Criminal justice reformers and reproductive rights advocates face common opponents. They should work together to develop shared strategies and strengthen their movements.

3. Dismantle Infrastructure of Control:

   • Focus on challenging the systems that enable control, such as surveillance networks, privatized enforcement mechanisms, and the broad criminalization of social issues.

4. Center Impacted Communities:

   • Prioritize the experiences of those most affected by these systems, such as communities of color and poor women, describing them as miner’s canaries warning of democratic backsliding and failures (thank Lani Guinier for the metaphor), and highlighting how these issues therefore threaten everyone’s rights. This approach builds broader coalitions and maintains a focus on racial and economic justice.

5. Frame Issues as Democratic Imperatives:

   • Present criminal legal reform and reproductive rights as fundamental democracy issues. This helps people understand what is at stake and galvanizes support for broader movements.

6. Develop Alternatives to Punitive Approaches:

   • Advocate for community-based solutions and preventative measures that address social issues without relying on criminalization and control.

A Path Forward

The path forward requires understanding these struggles as part of a larger fight for democracy and human dignity. Recognizing how the carceral state and attacks on bodily autonomy reinforce one another enables activists to resist both more effectively and build stronger movements for democratic change.

By connecting criminal legal reform with reproductive justice and framing both as democracy issues, we strengthen all these movements. This approach makes it harder for opponents to isolate and attack individual rights and helps people see these issues as part of a broader struggle for freedom and dignity.

Building Integrated Movements

The challenge now is to build movements capable of resisting these interconnected systems of control while advancing a positive vision of democratic renewal. This requires breaking down silos between movements, developing shared analysis and strategy, and creating coalitions capable of defending democracy on multiple fronts simultaneously.

The Urgency of Resistance

The stakes could not be higher. As authoritarianism gains ground globally, understanding and resisting these systems of control becomes increasingly urgent. Our response must be as sophisticated and integrated as the threats we face. By uniting our efforts, centering impacted communities, and advancing bold alternatives, we can defend democracy and create a more just and equitable future.