Incarceration
Confinement as punishment, deterrent, or rehabilitation. Sometimes just for being. State function and business model.
How We Say It
inΒ·karΒ·sΙΒ·rayΒ·shΙn
Where It Comes From
Latin incarcerare β to imprison. From in- (in) + carcer (prison, enclosure). The Latin carcer is also the root of cancel. The systematic, large-scale use of incarceration as criminal punishment is a development of the 18th and 19th centuries.
How It's Been Used
The United States incarcerates more people per capita than any other country β roughly 1.8 million in state and federal facilities. 'Mass incarceration' entered scholarly and activist usage in the 1990s and 2000s. Sociology distinguishes punishment, deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitation as competing rationales β though research generally finds incapacitation does the most actual work.