In this excerpt from the first Shelter & Solidarity* episode, Johanna Fernández, a historian at Baruch College and most recently the author of The Young Lords, A Radical History (UNC Press 2020), explains the history of mass incarceration. She traces it to the anti-imperialist uprisings in the Global South and with the United States. The reactionary, harsh “law and order” response from the state – to lock up the working class and especially its black and brown ranks explain the phenomenon we now call, “Mass Incarceration.” With the decline of U.S. economic power and industrialization, sections of the white working class are also drawn into the phenomenon, both as the jailers and the jailed. (Further excerpts to follow.)
* Shelter & Solidarity is a joint project of S&D, Hardball Press, LaborPress.org, and encuentro5.
