heidi_'s review against another edition
5.0
Rarely have I read such a lucid concentration of critiques against the carceral system and all in its web. Wang addresses the subject from a range of perspectives, teasing out every insidious justification used to mask the antiblack racism which lies at the core of mass incarceration. The myriad forms of dehumanization linked to prison and policing systems operate in tandem with the dynamics of late capitalism — they can be truly challenged only in the context of abolition. Bandaid solutions are meaningless when they are applied to a gaping wound that grows larger by the day.
"[T]he parasitic state and predatory credit system must keep people alive in order to extract from them, in [confinement and gratuitous violence] it must kill to maintain the current racial order... black racialization, then, is the mark that renders subjects suitable for — on the one hand — hyper-exploitation and expropriation, and, on the other hand, annihilation."
With direct, unassuming prose, she targets overlapping players in the game: the extortion behind the credit system which renders so many perpetually indebted, the politics of innocence and safety as they protect white civil society, the systemic biases coded into algorithmic policing, and the baseless moralizing which disguises racist and sexist legacies under individual shortcomings.
"[T]he prison itself is a problem for thought that can only be unthought using a mode of thinking that does not capitulate to the realism of the present."
Let this account serve as a clarion call to speak out against all who conspire to perpetuate this cruelty. Ourselves included.
"[T]he parasitic state and predatory credit system must keep people alive in order to extract from them, in [confinement and gratuitous violence] it must kill to maintain the current racial order... black racialization, then, is the mark that renders subjects suitable for — on the one hand — hyper-exploitation and expropriation, and, on the other hand, annihilation."
With direct, unassuming prose, she targets overlapping players in the game: the extortion behind the credit system which renders so many perpetually indebted, the politics of innocence and safety as they protect white civil society, the systemic biases coded into algorithmic policing, and the baseless moralizing which disguises racist and sexist legacies under individual shortcomings.
"[T]he prison itself is a problem for thought that can only be unthought using a mode of thinking that does not capitulate to the realism of the present."
Let this account serve as a clarion call to speak out against all who conspire to perpetuate this cruelty. Ourselves included.
historicalmaterialgirl's review against another edition
challenging
informative
slow-paced
5.0
If you're interested in abolition and/or anti-capitalism, and you're past reading the 101 stuff over and over again, you need to read this. I did not expect a book about cops and capitalism to talk about debt, mortgages, fine farming, juvenile law, algorithmic policing or poetry, let alone to understand in-depth analysis of these topics. But Jackie Wang's approach was helpful in breaking down core concepts and then applying them to real life scenarios and tying it back to an overall analysis of racial capitalism.
I feel like I learned so much about what is actually going on with the economy, police and race; like that debt and fine farming assist in capitalism's "primitive accumulation" to help keep itself running or who gets left behind and hurt when we base our politics on innocence and comfort. My perception of the world is honestly altered after reading this.
There's so much more I could say! But you should just be reading this instead lmao
I feel like I learned so much about what is actually going on with the economy, police and race; like that debt and fine farming assist in capitalism's "primitive accumulation" to help keep itself running or who gets left behind and hurt when we base our politics on innocence and comfort. My perception of the world is honestly altered after reading this.
There's so much more I could say! But you should just be reading this instead lmao
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism and Violence
abigailwleung's review against another edition
Super dense and academic. May come back to it later
supernumeraryemily's review against another edition
5.0
I read this book after years of hearing my friend reference it. In this moment of ongoing collective uprising against the racist system of policing, I dove back into it. In Carceral Capitalism, Wang both reveals the mechanisms of the carceral state--the racist debt economy, municipial financing through feeds and fines, predictive policing algorithms, militarized police forces--and describes the impact they have on the American ways of thinking--from the "superpredatorization" of Black children, to the worship of science and fact and "objective" and "neutral" policing, to the ways innocence and safety are constructed even in the lives of activists working against the violence of the carceral state.
Wang's incorporation of personal stories and poetic/artistic work throughout brings a visceral aspect to understanding prisons that one who is not incarcerated may not typically understand--the ways prisons stop time for people inside while loved ones outside must deal with it marching onward while tied to a person frozen in amber, the ways the spirit is able to soar and imagine while the body is physically restricted to 5 sq meters.
I appreciated Wang the academic's tying of our carceral system to theory, weaving ways of understanding into a conceptual framework, though at times I could not follow her theoretical references. I learned from Wang the artist that one must humbly open space for collective creativity that can go beyond any one scholar's detailing.
There are pieces in here especially within "Beyond Innocence" that I am eager to share and discuss with friends--in what ways are we upholding the carceral state by rallying around "perfect victims?" What are the possibilities for feminism beyond centering whiteness and innocence? How is my innocent suburbia bubble hometown implicated as a parasitic actor in a racist system?
Wang's incorporation of personal stories and poetic/artistic work throughout brings a visceral aspect to understanding prisons that one who is not incarcerated may not typically understand--the ways prisons stop time for people inside while loved ones outside must deal with it marching onward while tied to a person frozen in amber, the ways the spirit is able to soar and imagine while the body is physically restricted to 5 sq meters.
I appreciated Wang the academic's tying of our carceral system to theory, weaving ways of understanding into a conceptual framework, though at times I could not follow her theoretical references. I learned from Wang the artist that one must humbly open space for collective creativity that can go beyond any one scholar's detailing.
There are pieces in here especially within "Beyond Innocence" that I am eager to share and discuss with friends--in what ways are we upholding the carceral state by rallying around "perfect victims?" What are the possibilities for feminism beyond centering whiteness and innocence? How is my innocent suburbia bubble hometown implicated as a parasitic actor in a racist system?
claremd's review against another edition
4.0
Feel like some bits went over my head bc of a lack of economic understanding on my behalf so deserves a re-read. Otherwise it was so great, the prison abolition imagination section to finish it off was particularly fantastic
rustypumpkin's review against another edition
5.0
This is a very important, dense book about abolition, policing, and the way the rich make money off of the poor via predatory lending etc. Throughly researched and articulated beautifully, this is more urgent than ever.
srishti21's review against another edition
4.0
A little too much academic theory for me at times (or rather, I didn’t always know what I was supposed to be getting from the theory), but interesting points on debt, credit scores, police fines, and algorithmic policing.
casey_robertson's review against another edition
5.0
This is the most essential work I've ever read.
Read this book.
Read this book.