Social Control, Punishment, and Disability in the United States

Abstract

Abstract This chapter explores the intersections between social control, punishment, and disability, focusing on the lived experiences of people with disabilities within these systems and institutions. In the sphere of social control in the United States, disability represents a challenge to the processes, procedures, and policies of the agents and institutions tasked with custody and control. As individuals traverse the continuum of contact, from police interactions to court adjudication to incarceration, the role of both visible and invisible disabilities is salient to the experiences within the systems of social control as well the barriers to a successful reentry. The chapter engages with the expansive literature on social control and punishment, as well as the growing scholarship on the consequences of police and legal system contact and incarceration. Such involvement with the legal system has the potential to increase inequality by limiting access to essential markers of economic and social mobility and stability, from employment and housing to health and civil participation. Building on the theoretical traditions of intersectionality, crip theory, and critical race and feminist frameworks, this chapter takes an intersectional approach, investigating these relationships through the lens of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, and gender identity to more fully understand the ways in which disability in the legal and prison systems complicates the narrative of punishment. Analyzing disability along the continuum of contact is essential to a broader understanding of the stratifying effects of these systems, and the creation and maintenance of entrenched and enduring inequalities.