Article
What’s violence got to do with it? Inequality, punishment, and state failure in US politics
Punishment & Society 2015, Vol. 17(2) 184–210 ! The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1462474515577153 pun.sagepub.com
Lisa L Miller Rutgers University
Abstract This paper offers a reframing of the dynamics of crime and punishment in the United States by exploring lethal violence and situating both violence and punishment within the larger capacity of the US political system to shield citizens from a range of social risks. I argue that security from violence is an important state obligation and then illustrate the exceptionally high rates of lethal violence in the US, relative to other rich democracies, and their clustering with a range of other racialized social risks, including poverty and imprisonment. I then provide a framework for understanding the exceptional status of the US by exploring the fragmented, racialized and legalistic institutions of American politics and the role they play in producing a range of socioeconomic insecurities. I argue that both violence and punishment in the US can be seen as limited forms of state failure, particularly with respect to African-Americans. Keywords violence, punishment, inequality, race, institutions, state failure
Introduction Few pathologies of the US state have garnered as much scholarly attention in recent years as US exceptionalism in imprisonment (e.g. Barker, 2009; Campbell and Schoenfeld, 2013; Garland, 2001; Gottschalk, 2006; Simon, 2014; Western, 2006). The United States is the world leader in incarceration, with over two million people in federal or state jails and prisons – roughly one in 108 Americans
Corresponding author: Lisa L Miller, Department of Political Science, Rutgers University, 89 George Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA. Email: miller@polisci.rutgers.edu
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