The American dream: how belief in meritocracy impacts the U.S. prison system

The United States continues to unquestionably violate the human rights of incarcerated individuals. Further, the nation does so with a general disregard to whether or not U.S. prison policies effectively prevent crime or in fact exacerbate it. This paper posits that widespread American belief in radical individualism, ‘bootstraps theory,' or the myth of meritocracy in the ‘American Dream,' strengthens public favor for the draconian punishments of the U.S. prison system and perpetuates beliefs that discourage truly progressive discussion and legislation with reference to it. Alternatively, learning to see systems of crime and punishment through a more collectivist lens- perceiving it as a societal issue rather than an individual issue-could lead to two key outcomes. The first is less acceptance of excess punitiveness, because a ‘blame' narrative strengthens the human tendency to default to ‘just deserts' rationale, and thus reducing this may decrease the desire to think of ‘punishment' as the end goal of justice. The second is a reduction of excuses to avoid acknowledgement of the role of discrimination in the current American justice system. These outcomes could in turn invite an expansion of the discussions for reform or abolition to aspects of the U.S. justice system, an exploration that can ultimately lead to new possibilities to simultaneously better protect the human rights of the prosecuted and effectively decrease crime in American communities.

ABSTRACT The United States continues to unquestionably violate the human rights of incarcerated individuals. Further, the nation does so with a general disregard to whether or not U.S. prison policies effectively prevent crime or in fact exacerbate it. This paper posits that widespread American belief in radical individualism, ‘bootstraps theory,’ or the myth of meritocracy in the ‘American Dream,’ strengthens public favor for the draconian punishments of the U.S. prison system and perpetuates beliefs that discourage truly progressive discussion and legislation with reference to it. Alternatively, learning to see systems of crime and punishment through a more collectivist lens— perceiving it as a societal issue rather than an individual issue—could lead to two key outcomes. The first is less acceptance of excess punitiveness, because a ‘blame’ narrative strengthens the human tendency to default to ‘just deserts’ rationale, and thus reducing this may decrease the desire to think of ‘punishment’ as the end goal of justice. The second is a reduction of excuses to avoid acknowledgement of the role of discrimination in the current American justice system. These outcomes could in turn invite an expansion of the discussions for reform or abolition to aspects of the U.S. justice system, an exploration that can ultimately lead to new possibilities to simultaneously better protect the human rights of the prosecuted and effectively decrease crime in American communities. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ii INTRODUCTION 1 MERITOCRACY AND ‘JUST DESERTS’ RATIONALE 11 RADICAL INDIVIDUALISM OBSCURES DISCRIMINATION 21 CONCLUSION 32 BIBLIOGRAPHY 36 iii 1 INTRODUCTION The United States continues to unquestionably violate the human rights of incarcerated individuals. Further, the nation does so with a general disregard to whether or not U.S. prison policies effectively prevent crime or in fact exacerbate it. The year 2023 marks the 50th year since the beginning of the phenomenon of ‘mass incarceration’ in the U.S., an unprecedented climb in imprisonments. The U.S. prison population peaked in 2009 and has been on a general trend of decarceration for the last decade. 1 Sources disagree on whether or not the U.S. retains the highest worldwide incarcerated population and rate of incarceration, or if it has finally dropped below China in total its incarcerated population and below the developing-country-runners-up in incarceration rate per 100,000 individuals. Either way, the ‘land of the free’ remains a world leader in human caging, with between 1.6 2 and 1.9 3 million people behind bars in 2023. When U.S. Americans are confronted with their astonishing incarceration rates, which exceed those in Europe per/capita many times over, they tend to guess that this must simply be because the United States has more crime. Yet as Michael Tonry pointed out in The Handbook of Crime and Punishment, while the expansion of mass imprisonment was at a breakneck acceleration in the 1990s, “American punitiveness is Ashley Nellis, "Mass Incarceration Trends," The Sentencing Project, January 25, 2023, https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/mass-incarceration-trends/. 2 ”Countries with the most prisoners as of July 2021." Statista, accessed September 26, 2021, https://www.statista.com/statistics/262961/countries-with-the-mostprisoners/#:~:text=Incarceration%20rates%20worldwide,580%20prisoners%20per%20100%2C000%20inh abitants. 3 Wendy Sawyer and Peter Wagner, "Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2023," Prison Policy Initiative, March 14, 2023, https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2023/03/14/whole pie 2023/#:~:text=In%20total%2C%20roughly%20 1.9%20million million%20people%20are%20on%20probation. 1 2 not the result of higher crime rates or of a steeper increase in crime in recent years. For most serious crimes, America’s rates are not the highest among Western countries (Mayhew and van Dijk, 1997), and other countries experienced equally sharp increases in crime rates during the 1970s and 1980s (Tonry and Hatlestad, 1997, part 4). The difference is attributable to crime and punishment entanglement in American politics.” 4 In much more recent years, 2016 Pew Research surveys found that, “Despite double-digit percentage decreases in U.S. violent and property crime rates since 2008, most voters say crime has gotten worse during that span,” 5 and in 2022, Gallup polls agreed that, “Americans have for decades exhibited a marked tendency to say that crime is increasing rather than decreasing, year in and year out.” 6 The U.S. prison system gluts itself to remarkable excess not because the United States has more crime, but because of the role that crime as a construct plays in U.S. political and social life. The U.S. prison system is also unusually punitive. The United States is the only western country that has not abolished the death penalty at the federal level. 7 The nation also has aggressive mandatory minimum sentencing policies, and it allows for 17- year-olds to be tried and punished as adults, despite the fact that this arguably violates international law. The United States signed and ratified the “Standard Minimum Rules Michael Tonry, The Handbook of Crime and Punishment (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2000), Kindle, Introduction. 5 John Gramlich, “Voters' Perceptions of Crime Continue to Conflict with Reality,” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, November 16, 2016, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/16/votersperceptions-of-crime-continue-to-conflict-with-reality/. 6 : Frank Newport, “Crime, American Public Opinion and the Election,” Gallup.com, Gallup, November 18, 2022, https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/405371/crime-american-public-opinionelection.aspx. 7 : Tonry, The Handbook of Crime and Punishment, Introduction. 4 3 for the Treatment of Prisoners” at the U.N. conference in Geneva in 1955 8 and claimed to likewise adopt the 2015 “Nelson Mandela Rules,” 9 which expounded upon the 1955 international guidelines. This means that, ostensibly, the United States has agreed to parameters that establish that prisoners have human rights—these rights declare that prisoners must be kept in conditions that are dignifying, be given sufficient and nutritious food, have access to medical care, be informed if and for what reason they are going to face any increased disciplinary measures, and be protected against abuse by other prisoners and prison staff. They should also be permitted to educate themselves (the Mandela rules add that methods for such education should be directly offered by prison institutions), among the other basic rights to due process and legal counsel. The 1955 accords declared “Imprisonment and other measures which result in cutting off an offender from the outside world are afflictive by the very fact of taking from the person the right of self-determination by depriving him of his liberty. Therefore the prison system shall not, except as incidental to justifiable segregation or the maintenance of discipline, aggravate the suffering inherent in such a situation.” 10 Yet, in September of 2021, when New York State Assembly Member Emily Gallagher visited the New York City jail on Rikers Island, she stated that, “nothing prepared me for the level of abuse and neglect that I witnessed there.” 11 She saw men United Nations, Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, August 30, 1955, accessed May 9, 2023, https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b36e8.html. 9 United Nations, General Assembly, Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners: The Nelson Mandela Rules, A/RES/70/175, December 17, 2015, https://www.unodc.org/documents/justice-and-prisonreform/Nelson Mandela Rules-E-ebook.pdf. 10 United Nations, “Standard Minimum Rules,” 12. 11 Emily Gallagher, "Rikers Island Is a Human Rights Atrocity. New York Must Close It Immediately," Jacobin Magazine, September 24, 2021, https://jacobin.com/2021/09/rikers-island-shut-down-covid-19deaths-emily-gallagher. 8 4 who had been stuck in the intake center for days, sitting in temporary pens without toilets or overcrowded cells. They had no way to access their family or an attorney. Some families had tried to post bail, but there wasn’t anyone bringing detainees to court appearances so they could be released. Many of the men held there were guilty of small infractions, such as getting into a fight at a barbecue or missing a parole curfew. There were men with broken bones who had received no medical treatment. The floors in the cells across the prison were littered with cockroaches, garbage, urine, and human feces; many of the toilets were broken, and men were told to defecate in plastic bags. The men were frequently receiving only one meal a day, which they often had to beg for. There was very little access to water, and no air conditioning, resulting in oppressive, sweltering heat. During Gallagher’s visit, the jail staff tried to stow prisoners in the chapel and the gym to hide how overcrowded the cells were. She and her colleagues witnessed a man attempt suicide right in front of them with a noose tied to the bars. In 2022, at least 14 men detained at Rikers died in suspected suicides. New York City has ruled to close the jail, but the closure may be delayed until as late as 2029, depending on construction timeframes for the four jails aimed to inherit the Rikers inmates. 12 Rikers is an extreme example, but a 2020 article by sociologist Heather Schoenfeld claims, in no uncertain terms, that “there is an ongoing humanitarian crisis in U.S. prisons.” 13 She illustrates how conservative backlash in the wake of the election of Barack Obama led to a mass decrease in funding for state agencies and programs across Kimberly Gonzalez, Sara Dorn, and Sahalie Donaldson, "A timeline on the closure of Rikers Island," City & State New York, March 14, 2023, https://www.cityandstateny.com/politics/2023/03/timelineclosure-rikers-island/376662/. 13 Heather Schoenfeld, "Sociologist Says There's an Ongoing Humanitarian Crisis in U.S. Prisons," The National Interest, July 23, 2020, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/sociologist-says-theres-ongoinghumanitarian-crisis-us-prisons-165431. 12 5 the country, and how this has only served to exacerbate the already damaging conditions in U.S. prisons. In addition to the proven cruelty of solitary confinement, 14 regular use of excessive force, 15 and commonplace occurrence of sexual harassment and assault of prisoners by both other prisoners and prison staff, 16 prison conditions have deteriorated further to include the near or total absence of medical staff in some facilities, a further increase in violence due to instability and understaffing, and continued decrease in necessary resources for imprisoned individuals. 17 In light of the modern realities of U.S. prisons, the original purpose of their invention seems a bit ironic. In its inception around the time of the American revolution, the U.S. penitentiary was developed as a reform, intended to make the punishment of criminals more humane. And in many ways it was a vast improvement over the tradition of extreme and macabre corporal and capital punishments that the colonies had inherited from Europe. 18 The word ‘penitentiary’ is visibly derivative of the word ‘penitence.’ As this implies, the hope was that an incarceration period would enable the imprisoned individual to perform ‘penitence,’ reflecting on their sins and their soul to better themselves before God and man. Ideally, they would be released back into society newly reformed and restored. 19 Yet, as the political Juan Méndez, "Solitary confinement should be banned in most cases, UN expert says," UN News, October 18, 2011, https://news.un.org/en/story/2011/10/392012. 15 Lauren-Brooke Eisen, "The Violence Against People Behind Bars That We Don’t See," Time, September 1, 2020, https://time.com/5884104/prison-violence-dont-see/. 16 Human Rights Watch, All Too Familiar: Sexual Abuse of Women in U.S. State Prisons (New York: Human Rights Watch, December 1996), 1, quoted in Angela Y. Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? (New York, NY: Seven Stories Press, 2011), Kindle, chapter 4. 17 Schoenfeld, “Sociologist Says.” 18 It is worth noting that prior to this time, jails had been utilized for temporary incarceration until an arrested individual could face trial—it was the idea that incarceration itself could function as the punishment that was new. 19 Angela Y. Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? (New York, NY: Seven Stories Press, 2011), Kindle, chapter 2. 14 6 activist and scholar Angela Davis points out in her book, Are Prisons Obsolete?, “What was once regarded as progressive and even revolutionary represents today the marriage of technological superiority and political backwardness.” She discusses the particular cruelties of solitary confinement and the modern ‘supermax’ prisons, stating that, “No one […] would try to argue today that absolute segregation, including sensory deprivation, is restorative and healing.” 20 In this modern age of U.S. ‘mass incarceration,’ Davis aptly summarizes that, “there is no pretense that rights are respected, there is no concern for the individual, there is no sense that men and women incarcerated in supermaxes deserve anything approaching respect and comfort.” 21 How is it that ‘criminals’ have been deemed a class of their own, and specifically “a class of human beings undeserving of civil and human rights accorded to others”? 22 This dehumanization of certain individuals who break the law—but notably, not all who break the law, as there are some demographics that consistently escape prosecution—is by no means an inevitability. Prisons in Germany and the Netherlands provide a drastic contrast to the cold, hard cells of concrete and metal in the United States. In 2015, Maurice Chammah traveled with an assorted group of U.S. American criminal justice professionals (attorneys, corrections officials, activists and academics) on a trip organized by the Vera Institute to visit a German prison. Many on the trip found it a strange and shocking experience. They saw inmates in rooms with real beds, decorated to the preference of the prisoners; they Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete?, chapter 3. Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete?, chapter 3. 22 Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete?, chapter 6. 20 21 7 reportedly looked more like college dorms than the typical American cell. Privacy was afforded and respected—corrections officers would knock before entering. The prisoners were permitted to wear their own clothing, cook their own meals, have opportunities to interact with the community and visit their families, gain education, and learn new skills. Additionally, they received significantly better wages for work than their U.S. counterparts, and they were required to set some of said wages aside so that they would have savings upon their release. The corrections officers themselves were primarily social workers, lawyers, or mental health professionals, who received more training and better pay than a standard American corrections officer. The purpose of these corrections officers was to support a therapeutic environment which was as dignifying and normalizing as possible to make the transition back into society a natural one. The maximum punishment for solitary confinement was eight hours. They found that there was little to no violence, and they discovered that the ratio of doctors-to-inmates in Berlin was one doctor for about 127 prisoners. A contemporary count in Virginia had found that in the Virginia state system, there was roughly one doctor for 750 inmates. 23 What those American criminal justice professionals found in Germany was a possibility for a justice system that was not based primarily on retribution and which was inarguably more humanizing than the conditions faced by those incarcerated in the United States. Metadata analysis has concluded that recidivism rates between countries cannot yet be effectively compared due to the sparse and inconsistent Maurice Chammah, “German Prisons Are Kinder, Gentler, and Safer than the Ones in America,” VICE, July 10, 2015, https://www.vice.com/en/article/exqbgn/german-prisons-are-kinder-gentler-and-safer-thanthe-ones-in-america-617. 23 8 nature of recidivism studies thus far and the varying qualifications for recidivism used across said studies. 24 Yet, after examining the conditions in U.S. prisons, it isn’t difficult to agree with Charles Dickens’s reflection after visiting a prison in Pennsylvania: “[t]hose who have undergone this punishment MUST pass into society again morally unhealthy and diseased.” 25 The trauma of incarceration in U.S. prisons cannot possibly better prepare imprisoned individuals to reenter society than programs which treat them humanely. Clearly, there are alternative options for the U.S. justice system which would reduce violations of human rights and improve the condition of the prosecuted for their reintegration with society. And reform is not the only possibility; Angela Davis and others compellingly argue for methods of decarceration, coupled with social reform, which would ultimately end in the abolition of the prison system in the U.S. entirely. Many U.S. Americans initially struggle to fathom this end due to the centrality of the prison in the landscape of their worldview—I myself had never questioned my prison-centric mentality until reading Davis’s work. It had rarely occurred to me that many historical societies operated without prisons. I took the very idea of prisons for granted, as if they were a social inevitability, rather than one of any number of options to address crime in society. By addressing crime at its Seena Fazel and Achim Wolf, “A Systematic Review of Criminal Recidivism Rates Worldwide: Current Difficulties and Recommendations for Best Practice,” PLoS ONE 10, no. 6 (2015), https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0130390. 25 Gustave de Beaumont and Alexis de Tocqueville, On the Penitentiary System in the United States and its Application in France (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press), 1964 [1833] quoted in Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete?, chapter 3. 24 9 roots and exploring options for alternative sentencing, this end is a legitimate and feasible dream. Yet the U.S. seems stunted in conversations and policies to explore the possibilities of either reform or abolition. One major barrier to these conversations, which differentiates the U.S. from Europe and other developed countries, is the prevalence of a hyper-individualist tradition. It is as a result of this mentality that ‘criminals’ in the United States are held in lower social esteem, which leads many U.S. voters and legislators to lack empathy for imprisoned individuals. When one is considered entirely responsible for the outcomes of one’s life, there is a failure to recognize that social dynamics and systemic barriers are relevant as well. For example, if poverty and crime are strongly interrelated, 26 but the realities of the poverty cycle are treated as myth, then it becomes a narrative of ‘blaming’ the impoverished for their poverty, and relationally, for any involvement they may have in crime. It is the ‘fault’ of those who perform crime that they have chosen to do so; crime is entirely an issue of ‘bad individuals’ rather than the mark of dysfunctional elements in the society as a whole. This paper posits that widespread American belief in radical individualism, ‘bootstraps theory,’ or the myth of meritocracy in the ‘American Dream,’ strengthens public favor for the draconian punishments of the U.S. prison system and perpetuates beliefs that discourage truly progressive discussion and legislation with reference to it. Alternatively, learning to see systems of crime and punishment through a more Patrick Oakford et al., Investing in Futures: Economic and Fiscal Benefits of Postsecondary Education in Prison (Washington D.C.: Vera Institute of Justice, 2019), accessed April 23, 2023, https://www.vera.org/downloads/publications/investing-in-futures.pdf. 26 10 collectivist lens—perceiving it as a societal issue rather than an individual issue—could lead to two key outcomes. The first is less acceptance of excess punitiveness, because a ‘blame’ narrative strengthens the human tendency to default to ‘just deserts’ rationale, and thus reducing this may decrease the desire to think of ‘punishment’ as the end goal of justice. The second is a reduction of excuses to avoid acknowledgement of the role of discrimination in the current American justice system. These outcomes could in turn invite an expansion of the discussions for reform or abolition to aspects of the U.S. justice system, an exploration that can ultimately lead to new possibilities to simultaneously better protect the human rights of the prosecuted and effectively decrease crime in American communities. 11 MERITOCRACY AND ‘JUST DESERTS’ RATIONALE Before proceeding to the question of the relationship between the U.S. prison system and radical individualism, it is important to clarify the definition of ‘radical individualism’ in this paper. The term ‘radical individualism’ generally refers to the libertarian shift toward what one may call a ‘hyper-masculine’ individualism that gained mainstream significance during the Reagan administration, one which prioritizes “maximum individual liberty, minimal government, and an unfettered free market.” 27 This is seen as a shift that contrasted with the ‘common good’ ethos of the New Deal, the unity of postwar consensus, and the ‘Great Society’ under Lyndon B. Johnson. This post1980 ‘radical individualism’ was characterized by the expanding acceptance of self-help platitudes and ego-centric fanaticism that were once considered fringe. 28 For the purposes of this paper, this definition is simplified to refer to any individualism which declares an individual entirely responsible for their success in society. This is the underlying framework inevitably informs beliefs of ‘bootstrap theory’ and the myth of meritocracy. Since such beliefs are identifiable in U.S. history long before the Reagan era, this definition here applies beyond the typical timeframe of the term. The purpose of altering this definition, of bothering to utilize ‘radical individualism’ at all, is to avoid condemning the notion of ‘individualism’ itself. Jack Turner, in his book Awakening to Race: Individualism and Social Consciousness in America,” argues that individualism which discounts the reality of systemic issues such Natalie L. Anderson-Patch, “Square-Jawed & Self-Determined: Masculinity and America’s Libertarian Turn Toward Radical Individualism, 1943-1980” (PhD diss., ProQuest LLC, 2020), 1. 28 Anderson-Patch, “Square-Jawed & Self-Determined,” 3. 27 12 as racism is ultimately antithetical to the messages of democratic individualist thinkers like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thorough, Ralph Ellison, Frederick Douglass, and James Baldwin. 29 He argues that authentically practicing what he terms “democratic individualism” would actually require acknowledgement of the complex relationship between an individual and the social, historical, and economic system they exist in. He argues that individualist beliefs which fail to do this appropriate and pervert the messages of these scholars. Turner claims, rather, that individualism is not mutually exclusive with an understanding of how social positioning influences opportunity. Olga Thierbach-McLean’s arguments in “From Emerson to Trump: Capitalism, Meritocracy, and the Virtue of Money” support Turner’s defense of Emersonian individualism; she argues that while individualism is responsible for many of the aspects of U.S. American culture which are “vapid and money-driven,” it is also the root of the “vibrant tradition of idealistic civic activism” in the United States. 30 She states that the complex and multifaceted ideas of Emerson’s individualism has been diluted into simplicity almost beyond the point of recognition, 31 and that the “truncated and vulgarized versions of Emerson’s philosophy as they have been adopted into the cultural mainstream are as far from the rich and complex fabric of his ideas as Trump is from being the ideal independent personality that the Bard of Concord once envisioned.” 32 Jack Turner, Awakening to Race: Individualism and Social Consciousness in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), quoted in P. J. Brendese, "Awakening to Race: Individualism and Social Consciousness in America," Contemporary Political Theory 16, no. 4 (2017): 580, https://doi.org/10.1057/s41296-017-0089-z. 30 Olga Thierbach-McLean, “From Emerson to Trump: Capitalism, Meritocracy, and the Virtue of Money,” Amerikastudien / American Studies 63, no. 1 (2018): 29-43, http://www.jstor.org/stable/45340531, 31. 31 Thierbach-McLean, “From Emerson to Trump,” 34. 32 Thierbach-McLean, “From Emerson to Trump,” 40. 29 13 I am persuaded by the case Turner and Thierbach-McLean present on behalf of individualism. And so, for purposes of this project, I will be using the term ‘radical individualism’ in a simplified definition to avoid condemning the possibilities for a ‘democratic individualism,’ which can be compatible with collectivist understandings. The terms ‘radical individualism,’ ‘bootstrap theory,’ and ‘meritocracy’ will be used interchangeably because the first begets the others. The term ‘’ will be included as interchangeable with these, only because the sources referenced herein clearly use the term as synonymous with ‘meritocracy.’ However, the last definition clarification necessary here is that the concept of the ‘American dream’ can likewise be pursued with or without social accountability, just as individualism can. It is by no means an inherent problem to dream of a society where effort is fairly rewarded, and societal contribution is effectively incentivized by opportunities to advance. The issues arise if we begin to believe that this pursuit is already fair, and that opportunities for said reward and advancement are already equal from one individual to the next. Additional issues present when there is an acceptance of ideas that suggest that if one ‘fails’ by the society’s standards, it is then possible for them to forfeit what we have already deemed ‘unalienable’—and therefore, ‘un-forfeit-able’—rights. Meritocracy is a myth in the United States because it suggests that merit alone determines societal success, thus denying that there are unequal relationships between each individual and the sociohistorical system in which they exist. This ignores systemic, collectivist accountability, and dismisses the responsibility to change unequal or inhumane structures—a pursuit which would actually advance egalitarian ideals and the hopes of the ‘American dream.’ 14 With all necessary clarifications made, what then is the relationship between the U.S. prison system and the radical individualist belief in meritocracy? How does this contribute to the perpetuation of inhumane treatment, when clearly there are alternative solutions? One answer lies in the emotional inclination to see ‘punishment’ enacted against those that we perceive as deserving of retribution for social or moral failings. This is referred to as ‘just deserts’ rationale. This fixation on ‘what one deserves’ in retribution for their acts is based on personal judgements and is not inherently aligned with the outcomes or solutions that are most effective for preventing crime. A study performed at Princeton University33 found that those within the sample were more motivated by punishment as ‘just deserts’—or a deserved retribution—than they were by punishment for purposes of deterring further crime, even when they claimed the opposite to be true. They studied this by presenting a short vignette that described a theft for which the criminal was apprehended. They then asked each respondent to recommend a sentence for the thief. They found that as they changed the vignette to include factors altering deterrence justifications (such as whether or not the thief was easy or difficult to detect), there was little change in the severity of sentence recommendations. But as they altered the ‘just deserts’ factors for the criminal (how much harm they did to others, or if the theft was for something needed or not), sentencing recommendations altered dramatically to punish those who were seen as having done a greater moral wrong. It must be noted here that the sample was taken from the Princeton Kevin M. Carlsmith, John M. Darley, and Paul H. Robinson, “Why Do We Punish? Deterrence and Just Deserts as Motives for Punishment,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83, no. 2 (2002): 284– 99, https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.83.2.284. 33 15 student body, so it can be assumed that the large majority of respondents were wealthy Americans. This is important because it can’t be assumed that, had the study been performed on a sample group where the majority was of a different socioeconomic status or from a different country, the results would be the same. However, the study is valuable as evidence that Americans specifically appear to be more motivated by making sure a criminal ‘gets what they deserve’ than they are with effectively preventing or reducing crime. In light of this, the more ‘blame’ is assigned to an individual for the crime they commit, the greater sense that they should be made to suffer for their actions. This connection is further illustrated by Rafael Di Tella and Juan Dubra in their research entitled “Crime and Punishment in the ‘American Dream.’” 34 Using both survey data and complex economic and statistical modeling, they observed that “countries where belief in the ‘American dream’ (i.e., effort pays) prevails also set harsher punishment for criminals.” 35 They develop two calculative models, which they refer to as the ‘American’ equilibrium and the ‘French’ equilibrium. They characterize the first by stating that “belief in the ‘American dream’ is commonplace, workers exert effort, there are high powered contracts (and income is unequally distributed) and punishments are harsh.” In the ‘French’ model, these factors are generally inverted. They base these models on a 34 Rafael Di Tella and Juan Dubra, “Crime and Punishment in the ‘American Dream,’” Journal of Public Economics 92, no. 7 (July 2008): 1564–84, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2007.11.010. 35 Tella and Dubra also note that “[s]everity [in punishment is] positively correlated with GDP per capita.”35 If this severity is then relational to belief in the American dream, whether there is some form of causation relationship—whether higher GDP per capita results in a greater pull toward belief in the American dream, belief in the American Dream results in higher GDP per capita, or the answer lies in some combination of the two—remains difficult to determine. However, this possible relationship seems valuable to note; ways that belief in individualism could empower a populous to produce, without decreasing the safety or quality of life overall for the civic body, can certainly be worthwhile to investigate. Herein may lie the possibilities of ‘democratic individualism.’ 16 number of different surveys, some conducted by themselves, and some from other sources. Among these are findings that, when asked if the poor are unlucky or lazy, more than 60% of Americans answered that the poor are lazy rather than unlucky, in stark contrast to only 20% of Europeans. 36 This is considered a likely link of relationship between the correlated variables of belief in the American dream and harsher legal punishments; they posit that a penal system which is based on ‘retribution’ (or ‘just deserts’ rationale) tries to determine a level of shock which they call ‘meanness.’ How ‘mean’ was the act of committing the crime? They conclude that in societies that believe poverty is the result of laziness—and thus where belief in meritocracy suggests that one has full capability to determine the outcomes of one’s life in the society—there is a greater sense that crime is voluntary, which increases its ‘meanness.’ Alternatively, in societies where these beliefs do not prevail, crime is considered largely the result of luck, which decreases the sense that the act of committing a crime was rooted predominantly in malevolence or indifference. By their estimation, the former leads to harsher punishments than the latter because “in our theory punishment occurs because voters want to harm criminals who display low levels of benevolence towards others” (emphasis not in original text). They reference further research that indicates that those who believe in meritocracy tend to be more likely to support the capital punishment, 37 and findings from the International Crime Victim Survey (ICVS) that demonstrate that Americans tend support harsher punishments than Europeans for the same infraction (with the exception of Northern Ireland) to further support their conclusions. Europeans from multiple different countries, not only French Europeans. Alberto Alesina, Edward Glaeser and Bruce Sacerdote. "Why Doesn’t the United States Have a European-Style Welfare State?" Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, no. 2 (2001): 187-277, accessed April 25, 2023, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2001/06/2001b bpea alesina.pdf, 242. 36 37 17 But to return to Di Tella and Dubra’s primary point: when crime is seen as the result of laziness, selfishness, or maliciousness, it seems to directly impact the desire to enact harsher punishments. This is not to say that there are none in human society who are lazy, selfish, or malicious—of course there are. But the degree to which that is relevant in the larger dialogue about crime and ‘criminals,’ in contrast to factors of ‘luck’ such as the poverty cycle, settler colonialism and discrimination, limited access to physical and mental healthcare, unnecessary and damaging criminalization of drug addiction and sex work, etc., is ultimately a moot point. ‘Just deserts’ rationale is emotion-based rather than function-based, and when it prevents the institution of legitimate solutions to reduce crime and improve society, it’s clear that it has little-to-no useful place in the paradigm. There are countless examples that demonstrate this to be the case. The issue of giving Pell Grants to imprisoned individuals is but one among many. Fortunately, as of July 2023, prisoners will once again have Pell Grant eligibility in the U.S. for the first time since it was outlawed in the 1994 crime bill. 38 The ban on Pell Grant eligibility had effectively defunded all higher educational programs for prisoners. 39 This government decision was detrimental for a number of reasons—setting aside the important question of whether or not the pursuit of education is a matter of human rights, numbers gathered by the Vera Institute of Justice in Washington D.C. indicate that the likelihood of recidivism for prisoners who participate in a postsecondary education programs is 48% lower than Department of Education, "Pell Grants for Prison Education Programs; Determining the Amount of Federal Education Assistance Funds Received by Institutions of Higher Education (90/10); Change in Ownership and Change in Control," Federal Register 87, no. 210 (October 28, 2022): 61314-61326, accessed May 1, 2023, https://www federalregister.gov/documents/2022/10/28/2022-23078/pell-grants-forprison-education-programs-determining-the-amount-of-federal-education-assistance. 39 Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete?, loc. chapter 3 “Imprisonment and Reform.” 38 18 for those who do not. 40 They project that if only 50% of prisoners eligible to participate in such programs choose to do so, that this could save an estimated $365.8 million per year nationwide from the reduction in re-imprisonments alone. 41 Thus, based solely on aims to reduce crime and save tax dollars, it is clearly in the best interests of the American people to support Pell Grants and postsecondary education for prisoners. Yet, many U.S. Americans still recoil from the idea of allowing convicts to get a college education, due to the emotional pushback of ‘just deserts’ rationale. Why should ‘bad people’ get to have a college education? They don’t ‘deserve’ to have anything decent happen for them while in prison! Because prison should be about suffering! But here we fall back on the ‘blame’ narrative that, in addition to often being ill-informed, is proven ineffective and unhelpful by the simple numbers above. Another example lies in wages for prison labor. The average maximum daily wages available for prison labor capped at $3.45 as of 2017. The average minimum for non-industry prison jobs was 86 cents for a day’s work, and there are several states in which prisoners are forced into essentially slave labor for nothing at all. 42 Mandating and raising prison wages would be “a tough sell politically” 43 for the same reason as granting access to postsecondary education for prisoners: ‘just deserts’ rationale. Fixated on the question of whether or not prisoners are ‘deserving’ at the individual level, U.S. : Patrick Oakford et al., Investing in Futures: Economic and Fiscal Benefits of Postsecondary Education in Prison (Washington D.C.: Vera Institute of Justice, 2019), accessed April 23, 2023, https://www.vera.org/downloads/publications/investing-in-futures.pdf. 41 Patrick Oakford et al., Investing in Futures: Economic and Fiscal Benefits of Postsecondary Education in Prison (Fact Sheet) (Washington D.C.: Vera Institute of Justice, 2019), accessed April 23, 2023, https://www.vera.org/downloads/publications/investing-in-futures-factsheet.pdf. 42 Wendy Sawyer, “How Much Do Incarcerated People Earn in Each State?,” Prison Policy Initiative, April 10, 2017, https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2017/04/10/wages/#:~:text=Incarcerated%20people%20assigned%20to %20work,%E2%80%9Chigher%E2%80%9D%20wages%2C%20however. 43 Sawyer, “How Much Do Incarcerated People Earn.” 40 19 American voters miss a whole slew of other relevant questions: since the majority of incarcerated individuals will eventually be released, what are they supposed to do upon said release if all they are afforded is “a bus ticket and $50 of gate money?” If they are prevented from building any kind of savings, “how can they possibly afford the immediate costs of food, housing, healthcare, transportation, child support, and supervision fees?” 44 Those with felony convictions are often disqualified from welfare or food stamps, and face additional barriers with employment and housing. 45 How can we possibly expect that people released from prison will not reenter the crime market upon their release if they are utterly denied access to other options? It is by answering these questions that effective progress can be made, not by fixating on indignation based on the dehumanizing desire for retribution. The radical individualist belief in meritocracy leads to the limiting perspective that it is the ‘fault’ of an incarcerated individual that they have been convicted of breaking the law. This ignores that many of the root causes that motivate crime are the result of systemic oppression, it dismisses the role of discrimination, and ignores the reality of failings and false convictions in the justice system. Therefore, when we come to acknowledge those things and see that crime is interrelated with systemic factors, we can move away from the impulses of ‘just deserts’ rationale. When viewing a society-wide problem, and discussing society-wide policies, seeing crime as a collective issue requiring collective solutions rather than a ‘blame’ narrative placed on individuals serves the dual purpose of decreasing the emotional drive to dehumanize and abuse those 44 45 Sawyer, “How Much Do Incarcerated People Earn.” Sawyer, “How Much Do Incarcerated People Earn.” 20 deemed ‘criminals,’ and facilitating a functional approach to legitimately useful solutions. This opens the space to explore alternatives to ‘punishment’ as the end-goal of justice, inviting the implementation of initiatives based on crime reduction, reparations, and rehabilitation rather than on vengeance. 21 RADICAL INDIVIDUALISM OBSCURES DISCRIMINATION Not every lawbreaker is deemed a ‘criminal.’ Davis notes that, “Radical criminologists have long pointed out that the category ‘lawbreakers’ is far greater than the category of individuals who are deemed criminals since, many point out, almost all of us have broken the law at one time or another. Even President Bill Clinton admitted that he had smoked marijuana at one time, insisting, though, that he did not inhale.” 46 As sociologist David Garland states, U.S. systems of criminalization and imprisonment are deeply entangled in the “diverse currents of political and social life.” 47 As a result, discrimination plays a significant role in which ‘lawbreakers’ are or are not deemed ‘criminals,’ and which ones remain free to engage and advance in society (perhaps by becoming president, for example). How significant is the role of discrimination in the U.S. justice system? Kelly Lytle Hernández, in her 2017 monograph City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771-1965 48 makes a shocking and seemingly dubitable claim: “Mass incarceration is about mass elimination. […] Incarceration operates as a means of purging, removing, caging, containing, erasing, disappearing, and eliminating targeted populations from land, life, and society in the United States.” 49 Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete?, chapter 6. David Garland, "Sociological Perspectives on Punishment," in Crime and Justice, vol. 14, ed. Michael Tonry and Norval Morris (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), quoted in Kelly Lytle Hernández, City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771-1965 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017), Kindle, Introduction. 48 : Kelly Lytle Hernández, City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771-1965 (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2017), Kindle. 49 Hernández, City of Inmates, Introduction. 46 47 22 Hernández herself, was shocked by these conclusions. She states, “I had trouble arriving at such an unsettling idea, but the collection of two centuries of evidence documenting the rise of incarceration in Los Angeles left me no other interpretation.” When Hernández began her work, she had never even heard of the term that eventually informed the predominant conclusion of her book: ‘settler colonialism.’ She simply sought to document the history of L.A.’s system of incarceration. She chose L.A. because it is arguably the “carceral capital of the world”—the city which imprisons “more people than any other city in the United States, which incarcerates more people than any other nation on earth.” Thus, the so-called ‘City of Angels’ might better be termed the ‘City of Inmates.’ And after seven years of dedicated searching for information anywhere that she could find it—which proved surprisingly difficult, as the Los Angeles Police Department and the L.A. City Archives had destroyed nearly all of the LAPD’s records, requiring her to find any and all possible information that had survived—the evidence told a disturbing story. Hernández found that there were 6 distinct chapters of L.A. imprisonment over its history, that initially seemed disjointed and difficult to relate to one another. How did a story that began with incarceration of members of the indigenous Tongva-Gabrielino Tribe from the beginning of white settlement until the 1870s, and then with imprisonment of poor white vagrant and/or homoromantic men labeled ‘tramps’ and ‘hobos’ from the 1880s to the 1910s relate to the racist birth of immigrant detention centers for Chinese immigrants as a result of the 1892 Geary Act? How did all of that connect with imprisoning revolutionaries of the Mexican Civil War and the illegalization of unsanctioned crossing of the Mexican border? How did each of those tales somehow link 23 to a skyrocket of the population of incarcerated African Americans in L.A. from slightly disproportionate but generally politically irrelevant to astonishingly disproportionate and politically dominant? The pieces began to connect when Hernández became familiar with Patrick Wolfe’s definition for ‘settler colonialism.’ She summarizes that the phenomenon of ‘settler colonialism’ is distinct from other types of colonialism because rather than focusing solely on the extraction of resources and exploitation of labor, these colonial undertakings seek land. Upon this land, they intend to build a permanent and enduring society—one which specifically has no intention of integrating with, submitting to, or even permanently controlling and exploiting any other peoples on the land who fall outside of their exclusive and identified ‘superior’ group. Thus, settler colonialism is explicitly about elimination of natives. But it does not stop there—any who do not fit within the idealized settler colonial society are likewise eliminated or banished, including exogenous immigrant groups, religious deviants, or any who otherwise appear unwilling to conform to the definitions the society sees as intrinsic to itself (i.e. on fronts of family structure, sexuality, lifestyle, etc.). 50 From this lens, it became immediately clear how each of L.A.’s carceral chapters are related: the group that faced the greatest disproportional caging in each historical interval was the group that presented the most significant ‘threat’ to the dominant settler society. Prisons, and the new invention of the ostensibly ‘non-punitive’ immigrant detention centers, were utilized as an apparatus of elimination for ‘undesirable’ populations. 50 Hernández, City of Inmates, Introduction. 24 After reading Hernández’s words, I found myself startled by a question I had never asked: ‘If populations of all different skin colors have coexisted in regular contact with each other on this land now named the United States of America… how on earth am I this white? How could I possibly have an almost exclusively white ancestral line? Why aren’t I some shade of brown as is typical throughout central and South America [which were invaded predominantly51 by regular colonialism, not settler colonialism]?’ The answer lies in a retrospectively astounding history of racial segregation— once which anyone can see results generally with whites in possession of the best land in the most politically relevant parts of any city, and the banishment of minority groups to the outskirts, persisting today. It hit like a slap to the face—how could I have missed something that was so glaringly visible, so obvious? Incarceration, in both the form of the official prison system and of immigrant detention centers, is a direct participant in this history of banishment and elimination. That is not to say that the U.S. prison system was not also legitimately developed to address issues of crime. As it was initially conceived by revolutionaries as a reform, it was certainly intended as such, and it does function as our current system purposed to uphold the law and to address individuals who behave in ways which are dangerous and harmful to others. We do need to uphold our legal institutions (or get them properly changed when they are causing damage), and we do need to address those who endanger Hernández discusses the academic debate over whether or not Spanish colonialism—in certain areas particularly—arguable qualified as settler colonialism. But in many other areas it was certainly predominantly about the simpler extraction of resources and control of labor, and the percentage of colonists who emigrated in family units or as communities was much lower than in the early U.S. colonies. More immigration of colonists who were single men led to much higher rates of intermarriage (see ‘The Colonization of the United States’ at https://utah.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/fyr12.socst.us.const.lpcolus/the-colonization-of-the-unitedstates/’). 51 25 others. Improvement of the ways the U.S. chooses to do that, which can may increase humane treatment and effective deterrence, is the end goal of this research. But the inclusion of Hernández’s conclusions is simply to say that definitions of ‘crime’ and certain systems of illegalization are additionally interrelated with both conscious and unconscious enforcements of the settler colonial vision. This remains relevant for us today. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, as of April of 2023, 38.5% of incarcerated individuals in U.S. prisons are black, 52 despite the fact that African Americans represent only approximately 14.2% of the population. 53 30.2% of inmates are Hispanic, 54 despite the fact that the Hispanic population only consists of approximately 19% of the U.S. population. 55 Native Americans are also overrepresented. 56 And race and ethnicity are not the only factors that can skew a person’s likelihood to be imprisoned. For example, a 2022 report 57 revealed that gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals are over twice as likely to be arrested as their straight counterparts, and three times as likely for said arrest to result in incarceration. Transgender individuals also face higher risk of arrest and incarceration, with trans women of color facing the highest rates. Bureau of Prisons, "Inmate Race," Federal Bureau of Prisons, accessed May 6, 2023, https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics inmate race.jsp. 53 Mohamad Moslimani, Christine Tamir, Abby Budiman, Luis Noe-Bustamante, and Lauren Mora, "Facts about the U.S. Black Population," Pew Research Center: Social & Demographic Trends, accessed May 6, 2023, https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/fact-sheet/facts-about-the-us-black-population/. 54 The Bureau of Prisons, "Inmate Ethnicity," accessed May 6, 2023, https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics inmate ethnicity.jsp. 55 Pew Research Center, "Who is Hispanic?," Pew Research Center: Short Reads, September 15, 2022, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/09/15/who-ishispanic/#:~:text=Let's%20start%20with%20the%20basics nation's%20population%2C%20both%20new% 20highs. 56 Leah Wang, "On Indigenous Peoples' Day, Remember Incarcerated Native Americans," Prison Policy Initiative, October 8, 2021, https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2021/10/08/indigenouspeoplesday/. 57 : Jane Hereth, Overrepresentation of People Who Identify as LGBTQ+ in the Criminal Legal System (Safety and Justice Challenge, 2022), https://safetyandjusticechallenge.org/wpcontent/uploads/2022/05/LQBTQOverrepresentationReport-1.pdf. 52 26 LGBTQ+ individuals report high levels of harassment by police officers, and prison staff, and in a study performed by Lamda Legal, as many as 19% reported overhearing negative comments about their gender identity or sexual orientation by an attorney, judge, or other court official. 58 Muslims, too face disproportionate rates; a 2019 report found that Muslims are wildly overrepresented in state prisons at 9%, despite constituting only 1% of the U.S. population. 59 They tend to face worse treatment while in prison than nonMuslims,60 and are frequently denied the ability to practice their faith on arbitrary and illegal grounds. 61 Clearly, with such disproportionate numbers for these minority groups, there must be a level to which some of those arrests are the result of discrimination. In the words of Angela Davis: “if we are willing to take seriously the consequences of a racist and classist justice system, we will reach the conclusion that enormous numbers of people are in prison simply because they are, for example, black, Chicano, Vietnamese, Native American or poor, regardless of their ethnic background. They are sent to prison not so much because of the crimes they may have indeed committed, but largely because their communities have been criminalized.” 62 This, therefore, is an issue that must be solved by the society at large, rather than at the level of the individuals bound for prisons. Hereth, Overrepresentation, 3. Muslim Advocates, Fulfilling the Promise of Free Exercise for All: Muslim Prisoner Accommodation in State Prisons (Muslim Advocates, 2019), https://muslimadvocates.org/wpcontent/uploads/2019/07/FULFILLING-THE-PROMISE-OF-FREE-EXERCISE-FOR-ALL-MuslimPrisoner-Accommodation-In-State-Prisons-for-distribution-7 23.pdf, 15. 60 Nicola Slawson, "Black and Muslim prisoners suffer worse treatment, study finds," The Guardian, October 18, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/oct/19/black-and-muslim-prisoners-sufferworse-treatment-study-finds. 61 Muslim Advocates, Fulfilling the Promise, 12. 62 Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete?, chapter 6. 58 59 27 Not only do perspectives rooted in radical individualism fail to provide the framework to solve these society-wide issues in the U.S. justice system, they in fact further obscure and enable them. Robin J. DiAngelo’s elucidates the relationship between individualism and discrimination stunningly in her article “Why Can’t We All Just Be Individuals?: Countering the Discourse of Individualism in Anti-Racist Education.” 63 DiAngelo discusses racism specifically, and thus this is the example the rest of this section will emphasize; however, while different forms of discrimination are undoubtedly distinct in form, severity, and history, many of the following points apply more broadly to other forms of discrimination as well. DiAngelo demonstrates how what she terms the ‘Discourse of Individualism’ is one of the key barriers preventing dominant society (which, in the case of race in the United States, means white people) from acknowledging and addressing racism, the problems it presents today, and how it is perpetuated. DiAngelo has worked for many years as a co-facilitator for anti-racism classes for predominantly white audiences—she, as a white person, discusses realities of white privilege, and her co-facilitator discusses realities of the experience of racism as a person of color. She begins the article by overviewing an interaction she had with a white woman, ‘Sue,’ and her husband ‘Bill’ during the lunch break of one of her classes. Sue approached her and declared “’Bill and I think we should all just see each other as individuals.’” Despite the fact that DiAngelo has experienced many such encounters, they never cease to surprise her—she had already addressed in the lecture how ‘just seeing Robin J. DiAngelo, “Why Can’t We All Just Be Individuals?: Countering the Discourse of Individualism in Anti-Racist Education,” InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies 6, no. 1 (2010), https://doi.org/10.5070/d461000670. 63 28 each other as individuals’ is a privilege only available to the dominant group, and yet this statement seemed the suggest that she, in her many years of experience and with extensive knowledge on the topic, had never considered this widely popular one-line ‘solution’ to a deeply complex societal issue. She tried to re-explain what she had stated earlier to no avail, and Bill and Sue walked out before the end of the lecture. 64 DiAngelo summarizes the claims that, in her experience, white people are making when they insist on individualism in discussion of racism: “My race has not made a difference in my life, so why do we have to talk about race as if it mattered? […] I don’t see myself as a member of a racial group; you shouldn’t see me that way either. In fact, by saying that my group membership matters, you are generalizing. Generalizing discounts my individuality; unless you know me, you can’t profess to know anything about my life[…]. Further, as an individual I am objective and view others as individuals and not as members of racial groups. […] Racism will disappear when we all see each other as individuals.” 65 Obviously, these claims do not hold up in the face of extensive research-based evidence proving racial discrimination and implicit biases in white Americans, as well as concrete disparities and visible evidence of segregation patterns in housing, economics, and education. Thus, DiAngelo arrives at the central argument of her paper: “the 64 65 DiAngelo, “Why Can’t We All Just Be Individuals?”, “Introduction.” DiAngelo, “Why Can’t We All Just Be Individuals?”, “Introduction.” 29 Discourse of Individualism, rather than ameliorating racism, actually functions to obscure and maintain racism’s manifestation in our lives.” 66 DiAngelo explains that while seeing people as individuals is valuable in general, the Discourse of Individualism when applied to conversations about racism specifically serves to obscure racism in eight key ways. She argues that it operates to: “deny the significance of race and the advantages of being white; hide the accumulation of wealth over generations; deny social and historical context; prevent a macro analysis of the institutional and structural dimensions of social life; deny collective socialization and the power of dominant culture (media, education, religion, etc.) to shape our perspectives and ideology; function as neo-colorblindness and reproduce the myth of meritocracy; and make collective action difficult. Further, being viewed as an individual is a privilege only available to the dominant group.” 67 One of the primary flaws in holding radical individualist beliefs that discount the role of discrimination—thus obscuring the social elements above and perpetuating relations of unequal power—is that it must inevitably apply at the macro level as well. This means that the consistent achievement of white people over other racial groups doesn’t only serve to declare that each individual white person who has achieved social and economic success deserves a trophy for outcompeting others in this completely ‘fair’ race. It also must position white people as morally superior over people of color on the whole, due to the glaringly unequal out-performance of whites over every other group. 68 According to the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances, in 2019, the median DiAngelo, “Why Can’t We All Just Be Individuals?”, “Introduction.” DiAngelo, “Why Can’t We All Just Be Individuals?”, Abstract. 68 DiAngelo, “Why Can’t We All Just Be Individuals?”, “The Discourse of Individualism.” 66 67 30 white household had $188,200 in wealth, and the median Black household had $24,100, which means that the median white household had 7.8 times the wealth of the median black household. 69 This is one of countless statistics across matters of wealth, health, education, and more which prove the persistence of racial disparity. 70 The perspective that racism is no longer relevant today, and this narrative of ‘no more excuses’ in response to black suffering, 71 suggests that white people as a group just each individually… try harder? Eight times harder? Aside from the reality that such a suggestion is extraordinarily arrogant and demeaning, it also quickly becomes problematic. If not systemic discrimination, why are whites achieving higher levels of financial, social, or political success? Scientific research has proven that different ‘races’ are not biologically distinct, and that the visible differences in skin, hair, eye shape, etc., are genetic only at the most superficial level. 72 There may be more genetic difference between a tall person and a short person of the same ‘race’ than between two tall people of different ‘races.’ 73 Race is an entirely social and political construct. Thus, in cannot be inherent that one group is smarter or more capable than the other. Further, arguments of cultural, moral, or religious superiority are no less problematic, demeaning, and Federal Reserve System, "Disparities in Wealth by Race and Ethnicity in the 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances," FEDS Notes, September 28, 2020, accessed May 2, 2023, https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/disparities-in-wealth-by-race-and-ethnicity-in-the2019-survey-of-consumer-finances-20200928 html. 70 Mabinty Quarshie et al., "12 charts show how racial disparities persist across wealth, health, education and beyond," USA Today, June 18, 2020, https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/2020/06/18/12-chartsracial-disparities-persist-across-wealth-health-and-beyond/3201129001/. 71 Brendese, "Awakening to Race." 72 Richard S. Cooper, "Race in Biological and Biomedical Research," Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Medicine 3, no. 11 (2013): a008573, doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a008573. 73 Michael J. Bamshad et al., "Human Population Genetic Structure and Inference of Group Membership," American Journal of Human Genetics 72, no. 3 (2003): 578-589, accessed May 3, 2023, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1180234/.eam 69 31 unsubstantiable—not to mention that they often feed right back around to the myths of ‘genetic race’ and the implications that justify violence enacted against people of color. When the question is asked with academic integrity, there is only one answer that holds substance in the face of endless evidence: racism, alongside many other forms of discrimination, is a problem in the settler-colonial-society of the United States today. These systems of oppression present barriers for education, health, income, wealth, and, clearly, influence a disproportionate prosecution within the criminal justice and prison systems. While DiAngelo agrees that there are ways to rethink individualism to orient it effectively in favor of combatting racism (and thus perhaps other forms of discrimination), 74 radical individualism, which dismisses the notion that systemic barriers influence the outcome of one’s life, serves only to obscure and perpetuate discrimination. This prevents effective and progressive conversations to solve the issues in the U.S. justice system, which a more collectivist—and accountable—perspective would instead promote. 74 DiAngelo, “Why Can’t We All Just Be Individuals?”, “Conclusion.” 32 CONCLUSION Shortly after signing the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, Bill Clinton gave a speech on the lawn of the White House. This ‘1994 Crime Bill’ implemented the ‘three strikes’ policy, created 60 new offenses punishable by capital punishment, provided $9.7 billion for the construction of prisons, funded the hire of 100,000 new police officers, and, as previously mentioned, removed prisoners’ eligibility to receive Pell Grants for education. 75 While it offered some small initiatives to address crime at its root as well, this pinnacle legislation of the ‘Tough on Crime’ era quintessentially focused on being ‘Tough on Criminals,” rather than the phenomenon of crime itself. Clinton summarized this sentiment in the aforementioned speech, stating, “People who commit crimes should be caught, convicted, and punished. This bill puts Government on the side of those who abide by the law, not those who break it; on the side of the victims, not their attackers; on the side of the brave men and women who put their lives on the line for us every day, not the criminals or those who would turn away from law enforcement.” 76 This epitomizes the ‘us vs. them’ narrative—the insinuation that government exists to serve the ‘good people,’ and that it is united with these ‘good people’ against the ‘bad people’ who break the law. Yet, it’s worth reiterating that Clinton also admitted to smoking marijuana once. This category of ‘criminal’ is not so clear cut, and Clinton’s "Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994," H.R. 3355, 103rd Cong. (1994), https://www.congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/house-bill/3355/text. 76 Bill Clinton, "Remarks on Signing the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994," speech transcript, Washington D.C., September 13, 1994, accessed April 23, 2023, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-signing-the-violent-crime-control-and-lawenforcement-act-1994. 75 33 insinuation that those who break the law are excluded from status as a member of the society, as an ‘American,’ and perhaps even as a human being in the eyes of the government, is quite a dangerous and damaging paradigm indeed. Beyond this, it has simply proven an ineffective approach to the problem of crime. When Clinton stated in that same speech that, “Our country will not truly be safe again until all Americans take personal responsibility for themselves, their families, and their communities,” those words were unfortunately heard in the context of a radical individualist notion of crime, deputizing individual Americans against the ‘un-American bad people.’ Yet the words themselves hold an excellent suggestion, if they can only be removed from such a mindset. ‘Personal responsibility’ is ever an admirable goal and should certainly be encouraged; the democratic individualist would hear also the notion of taking responsibility for ‘family,’ ‘community,’ and even country with regards to crime. There is no ‘us’ and ‘them.’ There is only ‘us,’ all of us, in the complex ideological, cultural, and political system that we live and participate in. All of us are human and deserving of dignity, and our society will never become the best it can be until we acknowledge that there are no exceptions to this rule. Radical individualism and ‘just deserts’ narrative present a barrier to that end, in addition to obscuring the realities of discrimination, and thus the conclusions of this research advise U.S. Americans to supplant such a perspective with one of democratic individualism, which can acknowledge the ways in which crime is a collective issue. It is worth noting as well that an expansion of this research might warrant investigation into the ways in which corporations specifically benefit from radical individualist narratives which place blame onto incarcerated individuals. The prison- 34 industrial complex is an essential and inextricable component of the modern U.S. American prison system and to the policies which preserve it. Motives of corporate profit saturate every level of the U.S. prison system, regardless of each prison’s private or stateowned status. From those who are paid to build and maintain prisons, to the callous utility of cheap convict labor, to lucrative company contracts to provide prison resources, to lobby money which perpetuates the cycle, incarceration is an industry in which many powerful organizations hold monetary stake. 77 Undoubtedly, when the money available in the prison industry increases ‘per head,’ a societal belief that every single person who winds up in prison ‘deserves’ it, regardless of any questionable legal justifications used to place them there, must provide an advantage for corporate interests. Herein may lie another benefit to acknowledging the importance and impact of systems, rather than buying into the ‘blame’ inherent in ‘bootstraps theory.’ Regardless, to conclude the central arguments of this paper, Davis posits these questions in the final chapter of her book: “How can we imagine a society in which race and class are not primary determinants of punishment? Or one in which punishment itself is no longer the central concern in the making of justice?”78 While there are undoubtedly multiple answers to these questions, one such answer is to deconstruct radical individualism. If U.S. Americans are willing to see beyond the myth of meritocracy, let go of the ‘blame’ narrative, and to acknowledge systemic barriers of discrimination, we can open the space for conversations and legislation that will enable humane and effective change. A greater collectivist understanding of crime will bring us closer to the 77 78 Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete?, chapter 5. 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