Politiche del diritto, povertà e prigioni negli Stati Uniti d’America oggi

Autori

  • Elisabetta Grande

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13136/2281-4582/2019.i14.315

Abstract

What is the purpose of prison in the United States today? It is about locking up the poor, as never happened before. That poor people abound in prisons is not a novelty of course. Anytime and everywhere, it is the poor who have been incarcerated. Yet today, in the United States of America, incarcerating them acquires the meaning of an end in itself. Poor people, who in a corporate capitalistic society are not profitable enough as free men and women, become profitable whenever incarcerated since they are transformed into forced consumers. It is not anymore about educating them to sell their labor power as it was in the nineteen century. Nor is it about making legal an otherwise declared illegal black slavery, as it happened after the U.S. civil war. It is instead about extracting profit from their very incarceration. Thus in the U.S. today, on the one hand the legal system produces the growth of extreme poverty, allowing the rich to become even richer by stealing from their weakest fellow. On the other hand, it incarcerates the poor in mass, allowing the rich to profit even more from them. In the era of corporate sovereignty therefore, when the force of the law turns into the law of the strongest, the endless circle of growing inequality converts poor people in perfect bodies to incarcerate for the sake of the rich. How this happens, i.e. how the legal system engenders the incarceration of the poor, it is the aim of this essay to investigate and explain.

Riferimenti bibliografici

Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: The
New Press, 2010.
Anderson, Sarah e Sam Pizzigati. “Report: Executive Excess 2019: Making Corporations Pay for Big Pay
Gaps.” Institute for Policy Studies settembre 2019. https://ips-dc.org/wpcontent/uploads/2019/09/EE19-Sept-2019.pdf. Visitato il 30 ottobre 2019.
Associated Press. “Texas Law Decriminalizes School Truancy.” The New York Times 20 giugno 2015.
www.nytimes.com/2015/06/21/us/texas-law-decriminalizes-school-truancy.html. (Salvo diversa
indicazione, tutti i siti sono stati visitati il 3 settembre 2019).
Aviram, Hadar. Cheap on Crime: Recession-Era Politics and the Transformation of American Punishment.
Oakland: University of California Press, 2015.
Bondgraham, Darwin. “California Governor Signs Ban on Private Prisons, Setting up Fight with Trump.” The
Guardian 12 ottobre 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/oct/11/california-privateprison-ban-courts?bblinkid=181797715&bbemailid=16513426&bbejrid=1200063492.
Brunker, Mike. “Unable to Pay Child Support, Poor Parents Land Behind Bars.” S. CTR. FOR HUM. RTS. 12
settembre 2011.
https://www.schr.org/action/resources/unable_to_pay_child_support_poor_parents_land_behind_bars.
Collins, Chuck e Josh Hoxie. “Report. The Billionaire Bonanza 2017, The Forbes 400 and the Rest of Us.”
Institute for Policy Studies 8 novembre 2017. https://ips-dc.org/report-billionaire-bonanza-2017/.
Davis, Angela. Are Prisons Obsolete? New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003.
Dewan, Shaila e Andrew W. Lehren. “No Money, No Mercy. After a Crime, the Price of a Second Chance.”
The New York Times 12 dicembre 2016.
Edelman, Peter. Not a Crime to Be Poor: The Criminalization of Poverty in America. New York: The New
Press, 2017.
Edin Kathrine J. e H. Luke Shaefer. $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt, 2015.
Executive Office of the President. Budget of the United States Government: Fiscal Year 2008. Washington,
DC: Office of the President, 2008.
Ferraresi, Mattia. “Stati Uniti. Abolire il carcere, un’idea anarcoide e mainstream.” Il Foglio 20 luglio 2019.
www.ilfoglio.it/giustizia/2019/07/20/news/abolire-il-carcere-un-idea-anarcoide-e-mainstream-265558/.
Finkel, Mack e Wanda Bertram. “More States are Signing Harmful ‘Free Prison Tablet’ Contracts.” Prison
Policy Initiative 7 marzo 2019. www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2019/03/07/free-tablets/.
Foucault, Michel. Sorvegliare e punire. 1975. Torino: Einaudi, 1993.
Fowler, Deborah, et al. “Class, Not Court Reconsidering Texas’ Criminalization of Truancy.” Texas
Appleseed, 2015.
www.texasappleseed.org/sites/default/files/TruancyReport_All_FINAL_SinglePages.pdf.
Gottschalk, Marie. Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2015.
Gould, Elise. “State of Working America. Wages 2018. Wage Inequality Marches on – and Is even
Threatening Data Reliability.” Economic Policy Institute 20 febbraio 2019.
www.epi.org/publication/state-of-american-wages-2018/.
Grande, Elisabetta. Il terzo Strike. La prigione in America. Palermo: Sellerio, 2007.
--- “Dances of Justice: Tango and Rumba in Comparative Criminal Procedure.” Global Jurist (Frontiers) 9.4
(2009). www.bepress.com/gj/vol9/iss4/art6.
--- “Destroy the Planet for the Sake of the Very Rich? A Plea for Fair Distribution as Common Sense.” E3S
Web of Conferences. Vol. 119 (2019b).
www.e3s-conferences.org/articles/e3sconf/pdf/2019/45/e3sconf_sf2018_00007.pdf
--- Guai ai poveri. La faccia triste dell’America. Torino: Ega, 2017. --- “Il diritto nordamericano ai tempi del populismo. Quali tutele per i lavoratori?” Questione Giustizia 1
(2019a): 174-180.
--- “Il dispositivo penale della paura. Diffusione di un’ideologia.” Democrazia e diritto 3 (2014): 17-32.
--- “I mobili confini della libertà di espressione negli Stati Uniti e il metro della paura.” Questione Giustizia 4
(2015): 47-61.
--- “La Corte Suprema degli Stati Uniti e l’ordine alla California di ridurre il numero dei prigionieri:
Humanitarianism o ‘Humonetarianism’?” Antigone IV.2-3 (2011): 13-25.
--- “Legal Transplants and the Inoculation Effect: How American Criminal Procedure Has Affected
Continental Europe.” The American Journal Of Comparative Law 64 (2016): 583-618.
Harcourt, Bernard E. Against Prediction: Policing, Profiling, and Punishing in an Actuarial Age. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2007.
Harivel Tara e Paul Wright, a cura di. Prison Profiteers. Who makes Money from Mass Incarceration. New
York: The New Press, 2007.
Harris, Alexes. A Pound of Flesh: Monetary Sanctions as Punishment for the Poor. New York: Russell Sage
Foundation, 2016.
Human Rights Watch. “Profiting from Probation America’s ‘Offender-Funded’ Probation Industry.” Febbraio
2014. www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/us0214_ForUpload_0.pdf.
Ingraham, Christopher. “The Richest 1 Percent Now Owns More of the Country’s Wealth Than at any Time in
the Past 50 Years.” The Washington Post 6 dicembre 2017.
www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/06/the-richest-1-percent-now-owns-more-of-thecountrys-wealth-than-at-any-time-in-the-past-50-years/.
Isidore, Chris. “Buffett Says he's Still Paying Lower Tax Rate Than His Secretary.” CNN 4 marzo 2013.
money.cnn.com/2013/03/04/news/economy/buffett-secretary-taxes/.
Kelling, George L. e James Q. Wilson. “Broken Windows: The Police and Neighborhood Safety.” Atlantic
Monthly marzo 1982: 29-38.
Kopf, Dan. “America's Peculiar Bail System.” Priceonomics 26 maggio 2015. priceonomics.com/americaspeculiar-bail-system/.
Leonhardt, David. “The Rich Really Do Pay Lower Taxes Than You.” The New York Times 6 ottobre 2019.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/06/opinion/income-tax-rate-wealthy.html.
Lopez, German. “The First Step Act, Explained. The Measure, Which Trump Signed into Law, is the Most
Significant Criminal Justice Reform Legislation in Years.” Vox 5 febbraio 2019. www.vox.com/futureperfect/2018/12/18/18140973/state-of-the-union-trump-first-step-act-criminal-justice-reform.
Melossi, Dario e Massimo Pavarini. Carcere e fabbrica. Alle origini del sistema penitenziario. Bologna: Il
Mulino, 1977.
Menon, Rajan. “The Wages of Poverty in America.” Common Dreams 16 luglio 2018.
www.commondreams.org/views/2018/07/16/wages-poverty-america.
Portelli, Alessandro. “Tra i dannati di Supermax.” Il Manifesto 25 maggio 2001.
Rabuy, Bernadette e Peter Wagner. “Screening Out Family Time: The For-Profit Video Visitation Industry in
Prisons and Jails.” Prison Policy Initiative gennaio 2015.
static.prisonpolicy.org/visitation/ScreeningOutFamilyTime_January2015.pdf.
Raher, Stephen. “Report on Release Cards.” Prison Policy Initiative 18 marzo 2015.
www.prisonpolicy.org/releasecards/.
---. “Paging Anti-Trust Lawyers: Prison Commissary Giants Prepare to Merge.” Prison Policy Initiative 5 luglio
2016b. www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2016/07/05/commissary-merger/.
---. “The Company Store: A Deeper Look at Prison Commissaries.” Prison Policy Initiative maggio 2018.
www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/commissary.html.
---. “The Wireless Prison: How Colorado’s Tablet Computer Program Misses Opportunities and Monetizes
the Poor.” Prison Policy Initiative 6 luglio 2017. www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2017/07/06/tablets/.
---. “You’ve Got Mail: The Promise of Cyber Communication in Prisons and the Need for Regulation.” Prison
Policy Initiative 21 gennaio 2016a. www.prisonpolicy.org/messaging/report.html.
Re, Lucia. Carcere e globalizzazione. Il boom penitenziario negli Stati Uniti e in Europa. Roma: Laterza
Editori, 2006.
Rusche, Georg e Otto Kirchheimer. Pena e struttura sociale. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1978. Saez, Emmanuel e Gabriel Zucman. The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make
Them Pay. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2019.
“San Francisco vuole cambiare le parole con cui si parla di carcere.” Il Post 25 agosto 2019.
www.ilpost.it/2019/08/25/parole-san-francisco/.
Santo, Alysia. “How to fight Modern-Day Debtors’ Prisons? Sue the Courts.” The Marshall Project 10 gennaio
2015. www.themarshallproject.org/2015/10/01/how-to-fight-modern-day-debtors-prisons-sue-thecourts.
Sargent, Greg. “There’s Been Class Warfare for the Last 20 Years, and my Class Has Won.” The
Washington Post 30 settembre 2011. www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/theres-beenclass-warfare-for-the-last-20-years-and-my-class-has-won/2011/03/03/gIQApaFbAL_blog.html.
Sawyer, Wendy. “Punishing Poverty: The High Cost of Probation Fees in Massachusetts.” Prison Policy
Initiative 8 dicembre 2016. www.prisonpolicy.org/probation/ma_report.html.
Sawyer Wendy e Peter Wagner. “Report. Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2019.” Prison Policy Initiative
19 marzo 2019. www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2019.html.
“Seattle ha scelto di non combattere la guerra alla droga.” Il Post 2 settembre 2019.
www.ilpost.it/2019/09/02/seattle-contro-guerra-alla-droga/.
Simon, Jonathan. Governing Through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and
Created a Culture of Fear. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
---. Mass Incarceration on Trial: A Remarkable Court Decision and The Future of Prison in America. New
York: The New Press, 2014.
Simon, Morgan. “New York Could Become First State to Be Completely Done with Private Prisons.” Forbes
28 giugno 2019. forbes.com/sites/morgansimon/2019/06/18/new-york-to-become-first-state-to-becompletely-done-with-private-prisons/#25de6851725b.
Starr, Sonja B. “Evidence-Based Sentencing and The Scientific Rationalization of Discrimination.” Stanford
Law Review 66 (2014): 803-872.
Subramanian, Ram, et al. “Incarceration’s Front Door. The Misuse of Jails in America.” Vera Institute for
Justice febbraio 2015. www.safetyandjusticechallenge.org/wpcontent/uploads/2015/01/incarcerations-front-door-report.pdf.
U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights. “Civil Rights Data Collection: Data Snapshot: School
Discipline.” Marzo 2014. https://ocrdata.ed.gov/Downloads/CRDC-School-Discipline-Snapshot.pdf.
United States Census Bureau. “Historical Poverty Tables: People and Families – 1959 to 2017, Table 5.
Percent of People by Ratio of Income to Poverty Level: 1970 to 2017” (aggiornato all’8 agosto 2018).
www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-poverty-people.html.
Wacquant, Loïc. Les prisons de la misère. Parigi: Raison d’agir, 2015.
---. Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity. Durham: Duke University Press,
2009.
Wagner, Peter e Alexi Jones. “State of Phone Justice: Local Jails, State Prisons and Private Phone
Providers.” Prison Policy Initiative febbraio 2019.
www.prisonpolicy.org/phones/state_of_phone_justice.html.
Wagner, Peter e Bernadette Rabuy. “Following the Money of Mass Incarceration.” Prison Policy Initiative 25
gennaio 2017. www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/money.html.
Whiting, Amanda. “75 Percent of All Suspended Drivers in Virginia Are in a Debtor’s Prison Scenario.”
Washingtonian 21 luglio 2016. www.washingtonian.com/2016/07/21/75-suspended-drivers-virginiadebtors-prison-scenario/.
Zeng, Zhen. “Jail Inmates in 2017.” U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice
Statistics aprile 2019. www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/ji17.pdf.

Pubblicato

2019-12-01

Fascicolo

Sezione

Articoli: sezione monografica