The Carceral Creep

Mimi E. Kim’s historical study explains how carceral expansion entered gender-based violence policy. Focusing on U.S. anti-violence reforms from 1973 to 1983, it analyzes the relationship among feminist claims, racialized law-and-order politics, and the growth of the punitive state.

The article is important because it supplies historical evidence that anti-violence movements do not automatically become carceral; they are drawn into law-and-order frameworks under specific political conditions. Kim shows how anti-rape, domestic violence, and victims’ rights reforms could win recognition and resources while also strengthening policing, prosecution, and incarceration.

For FemRes, this paper connects concept and history. It pairs well with Bernstein’s work on the new abolitionism, Kim’s article on transformative justice, and prison abolition resources, helping readers situate feminist anti-violence politics within histories of race, state power, and institutional expansion.