Book review: Armando Lara-Milan, Redistributing the Poor: Jails, Hospitals, and the Crisis of Law and Fiscal Austerity

Abstract

release from prison, are handed a list of halfway houses and treatment facilities with an order to move into one of them within a day or two of release. The onus of “choosing” a facility is put on the individual who likely finds that facilities no longer exist, do not have room, do not accept people with their particular backgrounds or are located outside the reach of public transportation. The idea of “choice” in these instances exposes the false dichotomy between treatment and punishment. As part of “treatment”, the individual is taught to make so-called better choices. Yet in the absence of real alternatives, the process of choosing leads back to institutions of punishment. This sort of dilemma is built into the system. Looking back, Miller explains that George W. Bush’s “Second Chance Act” passed at a time in which policymakers knew that people with criminal records struggled to find jobs and housing. Yet this Act emphasized personal transformation (and funded programs with that emphasis) rather than addressing the structural conditions that make it impossible for people to obtain decent jobs. Still today, so-called reentry programs rarely lead to good jobs or a meaningful career ladder. Rather, they focus on teaching people “how to cope with their position on the bottom of the social order” (p. 225). Halfway Home is an extraordinarily deep and nuanced exploration of intersectionality of race and class. In future work I would like to read more of Miller’s thoughts about how gender intersects with both race and class. As much as racism drives the over-incarceration of people of color, hegemonic notions of gender define citizenship and personhood. Thus, Miller notes that the criminal legal trajectory for boys includes getting into fights, cutting class, police and incarceration while girls tend to be a bit older when first arrested, most have children and almost all have been sexually assaulted. I’d like to hear more about how these differences play out. Within the carceral landscape, gender segregation is taken for granted, and gendered “pathways into crime” are assumed to be the norm. I especially wanted to learn more about how Black men experience racialized portrayals of sexually insatiable and predatory masculinity. This is not meant as criticism—no one book can do it all. Rather, this is hope that Miller will continue to turn his compassionate and astute eye on additional pieces of the carceral landscape. Halfway Home is a book I will assign to undergraduates, and have already recommended to friends and community activists. Indeed, if I were asked to suggest one book as an introduction to race and incarceration, this is the book I would choose. It is beautifully written, accessible and compellingly personal. Yet it is not simplistic: veterans in the field will gain new insights from the ways in which Miller weaves together law and policy, the history of racial constructions, neighborhood dynamics in Chicago and Detroit, and the politics of punishment and control.