How to Use carceral in a Sentence

carceral

adjective
  • Maybe this left-wing Rhodes Scholar was the man to beat back the carceral state.
    — Benjamin Wallace-Wells, The New Yorker, 8 June 2022
  • The mug shot is a vestige of the carceral system that comes to the artist preaestheticized.
    — Adam Bradley, New York Times, 11 Aug. 2022
  • Also, a lot of my work is thinking about the carceral space more broadly, so not just prisons.
    — Allison Noelle Conner, Los Angeles Times, 8 Sep. 2023
  • Yet in her critique of the carceral system, Davis has always been far ahead of the curve.
    — Andy Lewis, Los Angeles Times, 17 Jan. 2022
  • Post-release, those that cycle in and out of the carceral system have worse health outcomes.
    — Ambar Castillo, STAT, 23 Nov. 2022
  • Until this point in our story, John had never been in the carceral system.
    — Los Angeles Times, 20 Sep. 2022
  • If a fair system of payment for carceral employment were put in place, this viewpoint might be borne out.
    — Phillip Vance Smith, JSTOR Daily, 1 Feb. 2024
  • Raq Rarest is one of many pages that uploaded rappers’ brushes with the carceral state.
    — Andre Gee, Rolling Stone, 31 Aug. 2023
  • But a woman of her means, with her support network and her lawyers, wasn’t destined to get trapped in the carceral system.
    — Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic, 31 July 2019
  • What does the carceral state mean for our communities and mean for solutions and mean for justice?
    — Isaac Chotiner, The New Yorker, 25 Mar. 2021
  • It was accompanied by funding for local police that helped to swell the carceral state.
    — Kim Phillips-Fein, The New Republic, 28 Aug. 2023
  • Instead, our pain is used to bolster policing and carceral approaches.
    — ELLE, 17 Mar. 2022
  • How many people would never needlessly end up in the carceral system for stealing pocket change or a pair of socks?
    — Madison Feller, ELLE, 25 Feb. 2022
  • The George Floyd protests have bolstered the movement to dismantle the carceral state.
    — Osita Nwanevu, The New Republic, 27 Aug. 2020
  • Ranging in age from toddlers to teens, these girls speak with a moral clarity that cuts through any defense of this country’s carceral fetish.
    — Amy Nicholson, Twin Cities, 1 Mar. 2025
  • Similar deaths may yet be avoided in our carceral system with swift action beyond this two-week lockdown.
    — Bonnie Kristian, TheWeek, 2 Apr. 2020
  • The treatment gap is especially acute in carceral settings.
    — Hannah Harris Green, STAT, 26 June 2026
  • This collective endeavor to live free unfolds in the confines of the carceral landscape.
    — Longreads, 20 July 2019
  • The state’s sprawling carceral footprint — over 25,000 acres of state land — might be shrinking.
    — Brian Kaneda, Oc Register, 26 May 2026
  • My fellow West Coast native is one of the carceral state’s most important critics.
    — Mitchell S. Jackson, TIME, 2 Oct. 2024
  • Edmond’s fate speaks to our current debate over America’s carceral state and the role the war on drugs has played in building it.
    — David Farber, Twin Cities, 1 Oct. 2019
  • Caught in the double bind of toxic masculinity and a racist revolving-door carceral system, where does the buck stop?
    — New York Times, 10 June 2022
  • The question should be whether the freedom abuse victims need can ever truly be given to them by carceral institutions.
    — Hanna Phifer, refinery29.com, 29 Apr. 2022
  • Lowcountry is a dark, twisted romcom about the psychic distress of looking for love in the digital age and the carceral state.
    — Greg Evans, Deadline, 25 Mar. 2025
  • Used together, these policies enable a new form of techno-carceral governance.
    — Kate Caldwell, Mercury News, 30 Sep. 2025
  • Other great reads What can a coloring book reveal about the absurdity of carceral logic?
    — Ryan Fonseca, Los Angeles Times, 13 Sep. 2023
  • Walsh’s public grief — and his rage — was a potent political force, an ideal embodiment of the carceral populism of the times.
    — Rachel Monroe, Vulture, 15 Mar. 2021
  • While carceral feminism obscures and props up the violent power of the state, abolition feminism unearths the rot at the core.
    — Isabel Cristo, The New Republic, 6 July 2020
  • And the indie is committed to connecting writers and editors who’ve been impacted by the carceral system with those who have not.
    — Brittany Allen, Literary Hub, 11 June 2026
  • The collective of artists determined to shift our reliance on carceral punishment through their media has become even more visible over the past few years.
    — Abigail Glasgow, Harper's BAZAAR, 17 Aug. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'carceral.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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