Public Hostility
Public Hostility
The concluding chapter makes clear that despite the negative outcomes for felons reentering society, a felony conviction has many “useful” purposes rooted in historical practices and politics. A felony conviction is a powerful tool that is integral to maintaining a discourse about “us” versus “them” that fuses distinct social-economic institutions, such as housing, education, and employment, to the criminal justice system. This chapter describes how the term “felon” defines an individual’s worth in such a way as to become a simple short-cut that widens the net of policies, maintains the broader social system of white supremacy, supports legal and political structures and tough-on-crime initiatives, and extends the original punishment to socially disable men and women convicted of a felony. This chapter argues that the negative externalities that restrict felons from accessing critical public assistance engender failure in the returning population, resulting in recidivism, and reinforce the concept of retribution.
Keywords: felony conviction, recidivism, socially disable, white supremacy
NYU Press Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
