The Problem Is Not (Merely) Mass Incarceration

Incarceration as a Bioethical Crisis and Abolition as a Moral Obligation

Bibliographic Data

ID20334499
AuthorsJennifer E James (0000-0001-6240-3487, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume53
Issue6
Pages35-37
Publication date2023-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Hastings Center Report (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0093-0334 • E-ISSN: 1552-146X
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/hast.1542
PMID38131492
OpenAlexW4390116977
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited5

Mass incarceration is an ethical crisis. Yet it is not only the magnitude of the system that is troubling. Mass incarceration has been created and sustained by racism, classism, and ableism, and the problems of the criminal legal system will not be solved without meaningfully intervening upon these forms of oppression. Beyond that, incarceration itself—whether of one person or 2 million—represents a moral failing. To punish and control, rather than invest in community and healing, is antithetical to the values of the field of bioethics. This commentary, which responds to the article “Fifty Years of U.S. Mass Incarceration and What It Means for Bioethics,” by Sean Valles, considers abolition as a crucial form of justice that must be centered in the work of bioethics. Abolition is both an antiracist intervention and a means of considering the ways health care broadly and bioethics specifically have allowed for the perpetuation of carcerality in the United States

Bioethics · Criminal justice · Criminology · Dignity · Economic Justice · Mass incarceration · Moral obligation · Obligation · Oppression · Political science · Politics · Racism · Sociology · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Ethics and Legal Issues in Pediatric Healthcare · Law · Torture, Ethics, and Law

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