Explorations in Intersectional Policymaking

2020 ◽  
pp. 119-146
Author(s):  
Beth Reingold
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Urban Communities ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Women Of Color ◽  
Mass Incarceration ◽  
State Legislators ◽  
Small Subset ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Boys Of Color ◽  
Policy Arenas

Chapter 5 explores the concept of intersectional policymaking further by examining closely the content of legislation sponsored by a small subset of Democratic state legislators serving majority-minority constituencies in California, New Jersey, and Texas in 1997 and 2005. What might intersectional policymaking look like and who practices it? The analysis uncovers a wide variety of intersectional proposals, spanning multiple policy arenas and addressing many different problems arising from multiple, intersecting forms of inequality and marginalization. Particularly notable are measures concerning the health and welfare of women of color, immigrants, and others often disproportionately located within low-income communities, as well as criminal justice measures taking on issues of over-policing and mass incarceration that disproportionately affect men and boys of color in similar low-income, urban communities. Most lawmakers in this subsample sponsor at least one intersectional bill, but women of color stand out as the most reliable practitioners of intersectional advocacy.

Neoliberalism, mass incarceration, and the US debt–criminal justice complex

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 248-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dillon Wamsley
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Economic Restructuring ◽  
Mass Incarceration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Consumer Debt ◽  
Early 19Th Century ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
The Us ◽  
Economic Landscape

While debtors’ prisons in the United States were outlawed in the early 19th century, recent reports indicate that a growing number of people across the US are currently imprisoned for debt. This process typically occurs in two ways: debtors are found in contempt of court for non-appearance after being pressured into repaying consumer debt, or offenders are incarcerated for unpaid legal financial obligations (LFOs) incurred in the criminal justice system. While numerous legal scholars have examined these practices, little scholarship has situated this phenomenon within the politico-economic landscape of neoliberalism. Seeking to chart the intersections between economic restructuring and the expansion of the carceral state over the past 40 years, this article situates the modern debt–criminal justice complex within the broader historical trajectories of debt, incarceration, and institutional racism within the US. Emphasizing the centrality of US state reforms implemented under neoliberalism, this article examines the transformation of the federal welfare system toward ‘workfare’, as well as bankruptcy reforms implemented in the context of rising consumer debt during the 1990s and early 2000s. I maintain that these overlapping transformations, alongside the expansion of the criminal justice apparatus, were central historical processes that shaped the modern debt–criminal justice complex in the US, which continues to criminalize low-income and racialized populations across the country.

“Let Me Be Bill-free”: Consumer Debt in the Shadow of Incarceration

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (6) ◽  
pp. 978-1001
Author(s):  
Annie Harper ◽  
Tommaso Bardelli ◽  
Stacey Barrenger
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Financial Stability ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Mass Incarceration ◽  
New Haven ◽  
People With Mental Illness ◽  
The City

Low-income U.S. households are increasingly burdened by unaffordable debt, with profound long-term economic and health consequences. Households of color are disproportionately negatively affected. This article examines the nexus of this rising indebtedness and mass incarceration through the experiences of a particularly marginalized group, people with mental illness. Drawing on qualitative research with 31 individuals with mental illness and recent incarceration in the city of New Haven, Connecticut, we show how carceral institutions and predatory financial practices intersect to create complex entanglements for poor and vulnerable people. While a growing body of scholarship focuses on criminal justice fines and fees, we highlight other types of debt that add to the overall burden, describing how incarceration deepens people’s existing debts of poverty and adds new debts from in-prison costs and identity theft. After release, those debts complicate the search for housing, employment, and financial stability, leading to further debt, stressing social relationships and reproducing social and economic inequality. The experiences of people with mental illness illuminates structures of marginalization and disadvantage that affect many others involved with the criminal justice system.

URBAN DISPLACEMENT AND LOW-INCOME COMMUNITIES: THE CASE OF THE AMERICAN CITY FROM THE LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 06 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Knight ◽  
Mohammad Gharipour
Keyword(s):  
Urban Communities ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Urban Redevelopment ◽  
Minority Populations ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Cultural Connections ◽  
American Cities ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

How can urban redevelopment benefit existing low-income communities? The history of urban redevelopment is one of disruption of poor communities. Renewal historically offered benefits to the place while pushing out the people. In some cases, displacement is intentional, in others it is unintentional. Often, it is the byproduct of the quest for profits. Regardless of motives, traditional communities, defined by cultural connections, are often disrupted. Disadvantaged neighborhoods include vacant units, which diminish the community and hold back investment. In the postwar period, American cities entered into a program of urban renewal. While this program cleared blight, it also drove displacement among the cities’ poorest and was particularly hard on minority populations clustered in downtown slums. The consequences of these decisions continue to play out today. Concentration of poverty is increasing and American cities are becoming more segregated. As neighborhoods improve, poorer residents are uprooted and forced into even more distressed conditions, elsewhere. This paper examines the history of events impacting urban communities. It further reviews the successes and failures of efforts to benefit low-income communities.

Crack and Criminal Justice in Canton, Ohio, 1987–1999: “The Drug Problem has Created a Monster”

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-182
Author(s):  
WILL COOLEY
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Crack Cocaine ◽  
Mass Incarceration ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
Drug Problem ◽  
Industrial City ◽  
The City

AbstractThe rise of crack cocaine in the late 1980s propelled the war on drugs. The experience of Canton, Ohio, shows how the response to crack solidified mass incarceration. A declining industrial city of 84,000 people in northeast Ohio with deep-seated racial divides, it was overwhelmed by aggressive, enterprising crack dealers from outside the city. In response, politicians and residents united behind the strategy of incessant arrests and drastic prison sentences. The law-enforcement offensive worsened conditions while pursuing African Americans at blatantly disproportionate rates, but few people engaged in reframing the drug problem. Instead, a punitive citizenry positioned punishment as the principal remedy. The emergency foreclosed on more comprehensive assessments of the city’s tribulations, while the criminal justice system emerged as the paramount institution.

scholarly journals Adapting the Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) to engage poor urban communities in Ghana: protocol for a participatory action research study

BMJ Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. e049564
Author(s):  
Mary Abboah-Offei ◽  
Akosua Gyasi Darkwa ◽  
Andrews Ayim ◽  
Adelaide Maria Ansah-Ofei ◽  
Delanyo Dovlo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Participatory Action Research ◽  
Urban Communities ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Health Planning ◽  
Phase 1 ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Key Stakeholders

IntroductionWith rapid urbanisation in low-income and middle-income countries, health systems are struggling to meet the needs of their growing populations. Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) in Ghana have been effective in improving maternal and child health in rural areas; however, implementation in urban areas has proven challenging. This study aims to engage key stakeholders in urban communities to understand how the CHPS model can be adapted to reach poor urban communities.Methods and analysisA Participatory Action Research (PAR) will be used to develop an urban CHPS model with stakeholders in three selected CHPS zones: (a) Old Fadama (Yam and Onion Market community), (b) Adedenkpo and (c) Adotrom 2, representing three categories of poor urban neighbourhoods in Accra, Ghana. Two phases will be implemented: phase 1 (‘reconnaissance phase) will engage and establish PAR research groups in the selected zones, conduct focus groups and individual interviews with urban residents, households vulnerable to ill-health and CHPS staff and key stakeholders. A desk review of preceding efforts to implement CHPS will be conducted to understand what worked (or not), how and why. Findings from phase 1 will be used to inform and co-create an urban CHPS model in phase 2, where PAR groups will be involved in multiple recurrent stages (cycles) of community-based planning, observation, action and reflection to develop and refine the urban CHPS model. Data will be managed using NVivo software and coded using the domains of community engagement as a framework to understand community assets and potential for engagement.Ethics and disseminationThis study has been approved by the University of York’s Health Sciences Research Governance Committee and the Ghana Health Service Ethics Review Committee. The results of this study will guide the scale-up of CHPS across urban areas in Ghana, which will be disseminated through journal publications, community and government stakeholder workshops, policy briefs and social media content. This study is also funded by the Medical Research Council, UK.

scholarly journals Amnesty or Abolition?

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 54-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly Lytle Hernández
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Control Systems ◽  
Undocumented Immigrants ◽  
Mass Incarceration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Immigration Control ◽  
The Social

Convicts and undocumented immigrants are similarly excluded from full social and political membership in the United States. Disfranchised, denied core protections of the social welfare state and subject to forced removal from their homes, families, and communities, convicts and undocumented immigrants, together, occupy the caste of outsiders living within the United States. This essay explores the rise of the criminal justice and immigration control systems that frame the caste of outsiders. Reaching back to the forgotten origins of immigration control during the era of black emancipation, this essay highlights the deep and allied inequities rooted in the rise of immigration control and mass incarceration.

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