[Ads-l] "Mass Incarceration" (Not in OED)

[Shapiro, Fred]

An extremely important political and criminological term not included in OED is "mass incarceration."  I suggest that it should be added with both a general sense and a specific sense.  The definition could be something like "a governmental or legal program of criminalizing or imprisoning a large segment of population, such as leftists after the First World War or Japanese-Americans after the Second World War; later principally describing such programs directed at African American males."

Here are the earliest citations I have found in some cursory research:

General sense:
1920 Milwaukee Leader 21 May 16/2 (GenealogyBank)  Mr. Palmer and his counselors and agents have inspired and have conducted a reign of mass-law — of mass-raids, mass-arrests, mass-incarceration.

Specific sense:
1968 Chicago Daily Defender 6 Aug. 4 (ProQuest)  It is obvious that the white society in America is psychologically attuned to the mass incarceration of black people.

Fred Shapiro


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