This article reviews Loic Wacquant’s (2009) book Punishing the Poor, arguing that critical race or intersectional feminist theory and scholarship on the state provides important insights on social policy developments that are overlooked or under-theorized by Wacquant. We draw heavily from our own research on welfare state restructuring and grassroots welfare rights activism in the USA and Great Britain, but we also review other relevant scholarship on welfare and criminal justice policies. We conclude with both a research agenda for further critical race and feminist analysis of recent transformations in the state, and a political agenda informed by critical race feminism for those interested in challenging the punitive trends in policies towards the poor.
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