Blood from a Turnip: Debt, Race, and Expropriation in Penal Capitalism

Debt is now a staple in the literature on neoliberalism. And the growth of penal debt, more specifically, has come to the attention of those who study mass incarceration. This essay pursues the rise of financial sanctions in the carceral state, in order to track the broader economies of power that are served through such debt. Ultimately, the article argues that offender debt practice resonates with the historical aims of racial capitalism, to extract value from historically abject populations. Grasping this dynamic will help to capture the shifting relationship of a predatory state to its most vulnerable subjects.