The Birth of the Digital Prison: Carceral State Expansion in a Digital Age
September 29th, 2025
In the article “The Birth of the Digital Prison: Carceral State Expansion in a Digital Age”, published in Punishment & Society, Liam Martin examines how carceral capacity in the United States expanded not only through the construction of new prisons but also through the emergence of a new form of social control: digital incarceration. Drawing on research on digital punishment and the so-called “shadow carceral state,” Martin shows how infrastructure originally designed for telecommunications was progressively repurposed for penal functions. In particular, he highlights that this infrastructural development was initially driven by private-sector technologists and entrepreneurs operating outside formal policy processes. From this historical perspective, the article emphasizes the dynamics of penal entrepreneurialism as a key driver of carceral state expansion in the digital age.
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