Abounding acts of repression committed in democracies have continued to be overlooked and under-analyzed by many researchers and scholars due to "democratic exceptionalism". As the United States enters yet another consecutive year of declining political satisfaction and freedom. It has become pertinent that as conflict study researchers, scholars, and readers alike that there is a basic understanding of coercion including acts that have been committed within our own countries. Countless scholars have focused conflict study research on underdeveloped or emerging democracies, yet many have overlooked the seamy side of developed ones. This article aims to explain the relationship between the United States and state-sponsored repression from the 1990s to 2015. In hopes to better understand how variables like economic, social, and political vulnerabilities as well as race and sex influence repressive trends in the United States. In addition, this article hopes to extend the scope of conflict study research by including mass incarceration as a form of repression that has been used to control not only dissent but also satisfy the needs of elites to maintain a present state of affairs. This article tests various hypothesis to understand how repression continues to function in modern American society.