MASS INCARCERATION, STATE RACKETEERING AND NEOLIBERAL RATIONALITY

Abstract The nature of punitive regimes in southern countries is argued to serve mainly as a means to observe the contemporary phenomenon of mass incarceration, not only to clarify the articulated nature of the technologies of power and the boomerang effects that bring together patterns of the control of conduct and government of populations in global capitalism but, above all, to reveal the more general direction of these processes. Thus, analysis of the Brazilian experience could contribute to specify the concept of neoliberal rationality and the way in which it constitutes mass incarceration, insofar as the truncated articulation between authoritarian and efficient management of crime and violence-which forms the basis of processes of creation and reproduction of illegal and informal markets in the country-and the consequent economic saturation of meaning of different social spheres go hand in hand with the adoption of racket-like practices and the violent appropriation of economic resources and means of power. (AU)