Criminology

This talk will examine the intersection of mass incarceration and mass child support enforcement in the contemporary U.S. Based on material from my new book, Prisons of Debt, I analyze how these state systems work together to create complex entanglements for formerly- incarcerated fathers--entanglements that lead to cycles of debt and punishment. Drawing on observations in child support courts across the country and interviews with 145 indebted fathers, I show how these cycles too often undermine familial wellbeing and relations of care and reciprocity. The talk also connects the criminalization of child support to conceptualizations of state hybridity, unraveling the cross-system linkages and legal interlacing that create prisons of debt.