Crime and Punishment in America

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the American criminal justice system—its massive extremes in number of prisons and prisoners, its extension from socioeconomic disparities, its foundation in racism, its inevitable bias extending from a flawed court system, its raw concealed display in appalling prison conditions, its ambivalent shadow of the death penalty, and its perpetuation through inevitable astronomical rates of recidivism. The chapter begins with a mytho-historical description of antecedents in ancient Western cultures before turning the gaze to the United States and its specific historical attitude regarding justice and, in particular, the institution of prisons serving as a form of retribution, purification, and banishment at the same time. In looking for the reasons why American justice is so geared toward punishment for so many and yet concealed from public view for the most part, the author focuses on three fundamental aspects of American culture—capitalism, racism, and its roots in the Puritan/Protestant religious orientation toward the essentially Fallen nature of humankind. Finally, the author explores the contemporary American judicial system and prison through the lens of the ongoing brutality of racism affecting the entire black community in different forms since slavery.