Theorizing otherness, the war on drugs and incarceration

The notion of ‘black drug couriers’ in prison suggests that theories of penology, criminology and victimology should move beyond their preoccupation with the individual offender. This is (not just because of the plural sense of ‘couriers’ but more importantly) because some of what is conceptualized as punishment goes beyond individual offenders to affect whole groups and categories who could be innocent. The article theorizes victimization as mere punishment by looking at institutional practices that are deliberately designed to exclude, marginalize, control, alienate or even victimize the imprisoned Other. The crime-centredness of criminology is almost unavoidable with reference to illicit drugs and black immigrants because spatial mobility is expected to imply anomie, social disorganization or, at least, culture shock with all the predictable incidence of deviance that could be associated with exposure to a different culture. This article will critically review this apparent truism with a view to highlighting possible ‘drugs war crimes’ of unjustifiable stereotypes and victimization as mere punishment mainly against innocent people in prison.