Article
Mapping the shadow carceral state: Toward an institutionally capacious approach to punishment
Theoretical Criminology 16(2) 221–244 © The Author(s) 2012 Reprints and permission: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1362480612442113 tcr.sagepub.com
Katherine Beckett and Naomi Murakawa University of Washington, USA
Abstract The expansion of the US carceral state has been accompanied by the emergence of what we call the ‘shadow carceral state’. Operating beyond the confines of criminal law and justice institutions, the shadow carceral state expands penal power through institutional annexation and legal hybridity, including: (1) increased civil and administrative pathways to incarceration; (2) the creation of civil ‘alternatives’ to invalidated criminal statutes; and (3) the incorporation of criminal law into administrative legal processes in ways that enhance state carceral power. Although legal doctrine deems civil and administration sanctions to be ‘not-punishment’, we call for a broad understanding of penal power and the carceral state. Keywords administrative detention, banishment, carceral state, civil detention, immigration, punishment
Introduction A significant body of literature calls attention to the unparalleled growth of the US penal system and analyzes the causes and consequences of its expansion. In this literature, the penal state is typically conceived as the criminal justice institutions that adjudicate and sanction criminal wrong-doing. This research also pays particular attention to the Corresponding author: Katherine Beckett, Department of Sociology Law Societies & Justice Program, Box 353340, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-3340, USA Email: kbeckett@u.washington.edu