The Afterlife of Mass Incarceration, or What Does It Mean to Need a “Brute” in the Twenty-First Century?

We live in troubling times. As I write this article, the Russian Federation has invaded Ukraine, bringing the horrors of war, once again, to continental Europe.Theworld cheers Ukrainian resistance, and surrounding nations have opened their borders to receive the millions of refugees forced by terror to flee their homes. But in a reminder that we live in a world that fears and criminalizes the “other,” holding them in disdain, African and Arab refugees have been plucked from trains and buses in their attempts to escape. They have been refused shelter in homes thatwelcomed their neighbors and made to know, inmyriadways, that they do not belong. This is unsurprising when considering the many moral panics about the danger of the foreignborn other. Refugees are often blamed for crime waves in the countries that receive them, despite there being little to no evidence of an actual spike in crime. Recent statements from the prime minister of Bulgaria explained