The Punitive Turn in Social Policies: Critical Race Feminist Reflections on the USA, Great Britain, and Beyond

This article reviews Loic Wacquant’s (2009) book Punishing the Poor, arguing that critical race or intersectional feminist theory and scholarship on the state provides important insights on social policy developments that are overlooked or under-theorized by Wacquant. We draw heavily from our own re...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inCritical sociology Vol. 37; no. 2; pp. 225 - 236
Main Authors Fisher, Tracy, Reese, Ellen
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London, England SAGE Publications 01.03.2011
Sage Publications Ltd
Subjects
Activism
Civil Rights
Criminal justice
Criminal Justice Policy
Criminal law
Development Policy
Feminism
Feminist Theory
Grass roots movement
Great Britain
Intersectionality
Poor
Poverty
Race
Racism
Review articles
Rights
Scholarship
Social Policy
State
U.S.A
United Kingdom
United States of America
Wacquant, Loic
Welfare
Welfare rights
Welfare State
United Kingdom > UK
United States > US
welfare state
poverty
welfare
crime and control
intersectionality
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Summary:This article reviews Loic Wacquant’s (2009) book Punishing the Poor, arguing that critical race or intersectional feminist theory and scholarship on the state provides important insights on social policy developments that are overlooked or under-theorized by Wacquant. We draw heavily from our own research on welfare state restructuring and grassroots welfare rights activism in the USA and Great Britain, but we also review other relevant scholarship on welfare and criminal justice policies. We conclude with both a research agenda for further critical race and feminist analysis of recent transformations in the state, and a political agenda informed by critical race feminism for those interested in challenging the punitive trends in policies towards the poor.
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ISSN:0896-9205
1569-1632
DOI:10.1177/0896920510378772