Carceral democracy: prisons, race, and the punitive turn in Wisconsin, 1940-1971

“Carceral Democracy: Prisons, Race, and the Realignment of Politics in Wisconsin, 1940-1971,” analyzes how the intertwined development of penal reform, anti-black racism, and metropolitan politics undermined democratic governance in the postwar United States. I argue that a political movement for prisoner rehabilitation laid the foundation for mass incarceration. This movement of policymakers, politicians, and white middle-class homeowners in Wisconsin was part of a nation-wide vanguard that championed prison expansion and individualized treatment as solutions for modernizing and humanizing the country’s criminal justice system. My work is one of the first to examine how liberals and moderates at the grassroots, inspired by postwar notions of meritocratic individualism, racial equality, and pro-growth development policies, helped build a crucial component of the carceral state: the state correctional system. The term carceral state refers to a set of political actors, policies, and institutions—prosecutors, border patrol officers, correction guards, sentencing guidelines, parole programs, jails, prisons, and immigration centers—that exert the punitive power of the state over citizens and non-citizens alike. “Carceral Democracy” challenges both popular and scholarly narratives that the carceral state emerged from a grassroots political movement led by conservative national political figures, such as Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. My research, which draws on records from the Wisconsin Division of Corrections and the Department of Public Welfare, constituent letters, and local newspapers, reveals that moderates and liberals living in the suburbs of Milwaukee, Green Bay, and Madison, championed medium-security prisons as the ideal locations for rehabilitating prisoners. They argued that a system of correctional facilities rather than just two penitentiaries would allow officials to classify and separate prisoners, and then subsequently create individualized treatment programs. However, the concept of classification and individualized rehabilitation were based on racist, classist, and gendered notions about the incarcerated that reified economic and social inequality. In time, moderates and liberals found themselves working alongside conservative state legislators to advocate for new prisons that would house an ever-increasing number of incarcerated individuals and provide economic support for economically struggling rural communities. Ultimately, “Carceral Democracy” shows that postwar penal reform efforts resulted in prisons becoming necessary components of the welfare state and pro-growth economic development in an age of colorblindness.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

History

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2022

Author dc:creator

• Toller-Clark, Ian Thomas

Contributors dc:contributor

• Barrett, Marsha E
• Hoganson, Kristin
• Oberdeck, Kathryn J
• McDuffie, Erik S
• Lassiter, Matthew D

• Prisons
• Prison Reform
• Rehabilitation
• Public Policy
• Political History Since 1940
• Wisconsin
• Modern Conservatism
• Law and Order Politics
• Postwar Liberalism
• Social and Racial Politics

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2022 Ian Thomas Toller-Clark

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115582

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F115582