From Private Violence to Mass Incarceration: Thinking Intersectionally About Women, Race, and Social Control

Abstract

The structural and political dimensions of gender violence and mass incarceration are linked in multiple ways. The myriad causes and consequences of mass incarceration discussed herein call for increased attention to the interface between the dynamics that constitute race, gender, and class power, as well as to the way these dynamics converge and rearticulate themselves within institutional settings to manufacture social punishment and human suffering. Beyond addressing the convergences between private and public power that constitute the intersectional dimensions of social control, this Article addresses political failures within the antiracism and antiviolence movements that may contribute to the legitimacy of the contemporary punishment culture, both ideologically and materially.

About the Author

Kimberlé W. Crenshaw is Professor of Law at UCLA and Columbia Law Schools.

By uclalaw