Jacqueline Wang

Fellow, 2020-21 and past

Jackie Wang is Assistant Professor of Culture and Media Studies. She is the author of Carceral Capitalism (2018), a book on the racial, economic, political, legal, and technological dimensions of the U.S. carceral state. Her forthcoming book manuscript, tentatively titled Vectors of Control, examines how, during the postwar period, calls to reform the U.S. criminal legal system catalyzed experimentation in the realm of criminal procedure and led to the development of new techniques of control. Rather than focusing exclusively on the role of the state in pursuing the policy path now known as ‘mass incarceration,’ her recent research looks at the role of reformers, nonprofits, the Cold War university, and financiers in shaping the development of the carceral state. As a Heilbroner Center fellow, she will be researching the financialization of juvenile justice and the emergence of pay-for-success public finance models that mashal the financial sector to solve social problems.