Stolen Wealth, Hidden Power
The Case for Reparations for Mass Incarceration
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- $20.99
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- $20.99
Publisher Description
A meticulous and exhaustive accounting of the total economic devastation wreaked on Black communities by mass incarceration with an action guide for vital reparations.
Stolen Wealth, Hidden Power is a staggering account of the destruction wrought by mass incarceration. Finding that the economic value of the damages to Black individuals, families, and communities totals $7.16 trillion—roughly 86 percent of the current Black–White wealth gap—this compelling and exhaustive analysis puts unprecedented empirical heft behind an urgent call for reparations.
Much of the damage of mass incarceration, Tasseli McKay finds, has been silently absorbed by families and communities of the incarcerated—where it is often compensated for by women’s invisible labor. Four decades of state-sponsored violence have destroyed the health, economic potential, and political power of Black Americans across generations. Grounded in principles of transitional justice that have guided other nations in moving past eras of state violence, Stolen Wealth, Hidden Power presents a comprehensive framework for how to begin intensive individual and institutional reparations. The extent of mass incarceration’s racialized harms, estimated here with new rigor and scope, points to the urgency of this work and the possibilities that lie beyond it.
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In this devastating call to action, social science researcher McKay (Holding On) documents "the knowable and definable set of atrocities" caused by the mass incarceration of Black Americans over the past four decades and outlines "a program of reparation tied to concrete evidence of harm." Drawing on a longitudinal study of nearly 2,000 families, McKay meticulously details the "rippling consequences" of incarceration on prisoners, their loved ones, and their communities. These include disproportionate rates of infant mortality among Black children and "elevated exposure to violence, infectious disease, and mental health conditions" for people living in neighborhoods with a "militarized police presence." Throughout, McKay interweaves qualitative analysis of post-traumatic stress among men with juvenile records, for example, with powerful firsthand testimony: "I'm fucked up for real. Like I can't go in open places like that; if I do, I gotta sit in a corner. Loud noises affect me." She also offers specific policy proposals, including universal prekindergarten and expanded welfare benefits, and pins the total cost of reparations at trillion, to be paid through a combination of "direct cash-value compensation" and supplemental aid programs for college tuition, job training, and more. Though the means to enacting McKay's reforms remains unclear, this is an eloquent and impressively detailed argument for repairing a grave injustice.
