THE MACHINERY OF MASS INCARCERATION

THE MACHINERY OF MASS INCARCERATION A Structural Account of How the United States Built the World's Largest Carceral System — and Why It Stays Built All factual claims in this work are sourced from the accompanying research dossier. Claims not present in the dossier are marked [NEW CLAIM — requires verification]. Dossier confidence levels [VH/VM/C/U/S] are noted parenthetically for contested or significant claims. AUTHOR'S NOTE ON METHOD This work does not argue for a particular policy outcome. It describes documented structural incentives. The reader is invited to form their own conclusions about what those incentives mean and what, if anything, should be done about them. The tone occasionally runs sardonic. It earns the right to do so by staying factual. The irony in these pages is not manufactured — it arises, almost inevitably, from the documented contradictions between what institutions say they are for and what the evidence shows they actually do. No prisoners are mocked here. No