Mass incarceration functions as a management system for surplus labor.

Evidence

In the context of an economy that was driven by an unprecedented pursuit of profit, no matter what the human cost, and the concomitant dismantling of the welfare state, poor people’s abilities to survive became increasingly constrained by the looming presence of the prison. The massive prison-building project that began in the 1980s created the means of concentrating and managing what the capitalist system had implicitly declared to be a human surplus. — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 244

Categorization

• SEED: The framing of prisoners as ‘human surplus’ managed by the prison could anchor an essay on incarceration as economic governance rather than crime control.
• XREF: connects to: California prison expansion responded to surpluses of capital, land, labor, and state capacity — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 25; Prison disciplined workers for industrial capitalism — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 115; The prison boom was a way to concentrate and manage a capitalist human surplus (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• The prison boom was a way to concentrate and manage a capitalist human surplus #corroborates (0.90)
• California’s prison boom absorbed surpluses of capital, land, and labor #expands (0.75)
• The prison disciplined convicts into an industrial labor force #expands (0.70)
• Post-slavery prisons reabsorbed emancipated black labor through the convict lease system #exemplifies (0.60) — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 253