Law Commons^™

This paper argues that there is a new neoliberal penality emerging in the United States that exhibits four primary characteristics: (1) the death of rehabilitation, (2) the de-individualization of the criminal, (3) the emergence of a market for deviance, and (4) the managerialistic approach. The prison-industrial complex in the United States illustrates these characteristics, but the characteristics are not limited to the prison-industrial complex.

The paper draws on Foucault's concept of the prison as an institution primarily of individual normalization, but notes that it presupposes rehabilitation as the primary goal of the institution. Using Foucault's work in Discipline and Punish …

Today in the United States, mandatory immigration detention imposes extraordinary deprivations of liberty following ordinary crimes—if the person convicted is not a U.S. citizen. Here, I explore that disparate treatment, in the first detailed examination of mandatory detention during deportation proceedings for U.S. crimes. I argue that mandatory immigration detention functionally operates on a “noncitizen presumption” of dangerousness. Mandatory detention incarcerates noncitizens despite technological advances that nearly negate the risk of flight, with that risk increasingly seen as little different regarding noncitizens, at least those treated with dignity. Moreover, this “noncitizen presumption” of danger contravenes empirical evidence, and diverges from …