The Development of US Regimes of Disappearance

The War on Terror, Mass Incarceration, and Immigrant Deportation

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2370640
AutoresAmina Zarrugh (0000-0003-4277-4656, Texas Christian University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2020
Volumen46
Número2
Páginas257-271
Fecha de publicación2020-03-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaCritical Sociology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0896-9205 • E-ISSN: 1569-1632
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0896920519826640
OpenAlexW2927638979
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas14
Referencias citadas30

Following 9/11, hundreds of individuals in the USA were detained on suspicion of engaging in terrorism and subjected to a 'hold until cleared' policy which permitted their indefinite detention while authorities vindicated them of terrorist connections. However, these experiences of detention are not unique to the post-9/11 era. Drawing on a critical analysis of prominent Supreme Court cases concerning the War on Terror, mass incarceration, and immigrant deportation, I argue that the US state has developed a series of institutions that operate to effectively 'disappear' people from public and political life. While discussions of disappearance often focus on a specific type of state violence, several important features of state-enforced disappearance characterize all three of the cases considered here. First, disappearances focus on particular communities on the basis of sociological categories such as gender, age, race and ethnicity, and religion, among others. Second, disappearances foster a sense of uncertainty regarding why someone has been disappeared, and render it difficult to ascertain information about the individual. And lastly, disappearance has protracted and extended effects-psychological, social, economic-on the families and friends of the disappeared person. In the USA, capitalism plays a critical role in the development of institutions that disappear individuals

Criminal justice · Criminology · Demographic economics · Deportation · Economics · Immigration · Mass incarceration · Political science · Sociology · Terrorism · War on terror · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Homelessness and Social Issues · Law · Migration, Refugees, and Integration