Carceral:
“pertaining to prisons or a prison,” 1570s, from Latin carceralis, from carcer “prison, jail; starting place in a race course, enclosed space,” from Proto-Italic *kar-kr(o)-, which is of uncertain origin (see incarceration). [etymonline]
Hmmmmm. Proto-Italic? Haven’t run across that one before. Noted in “My politically homeless views,” Matthew Yglesias, Slow Boring:
What’s worse, this cruelty is somewhat arbitrary because part of the badness of being in prison is that you’re subject to the capricious will of the guards and (even worse) of your fellow inmates. This overall results in a bad situation where de facto punishment is being meted out to offenders in part by the state but also in part by other incarcerated people in a way that empowers prison gangs and undermines the purposes of the carceral system.
