In a recent article published in Catalyst, John Clegg and Adaner Usmani gesture at some of these questions, arguing that mass incarceration in the U.S. was a response to the increased crime of the 1960s, which was “incubated” by urban mid-century immiseration, itself “the result of two particular features of American modernization: first, the unique character of its agrarian transition; and second, its distinctive fiscal and political geography, which inhibited cross-place redistribution.” In other words, according to Clegg and Usmani, mass incarceration in the U.S. was the result of the massive post-World War II rural-to-urban migration which was exceptional in that it occurred during a period of deindustrialization. “In a sentence,” according to the authors, “the story of American mass incarceration is the story of the underdevelopment of American social democracy.”¹

Clegg and Usmani seek to correct what they describe as the “standard story” of mass incarceration. In doing so they make a number of mischaracterizations of prior scholarship in order to claim novelty status for their research. The result is a view from 35,000 feet, a correction to strawman arguments concocted by Clegg and Usmani in order to then “correct” them.²

https://spectrejournal.com/materializing-race/