The Crisis Of Imprisonment

America's prison-based system of punishment has not always enjoyed the widespread political and moral legitimacy it has today. In this groundbreaking reinterpretation of penal history, Rebecca McLennan covers the periods of deep instability, popular protest, and political crisis that characterized early American prisons. She details the debates surrounding prison reform, including the limits of state power, the influence of market forces, the role of unfree labor, and the 'just deserts' of wrongdoers. McLennan also explores the system that existed between the War of 1812 and the Civil War, where private companies relied on prisoners for labor. Finally, she discusses the rehabilitation model that has primarily characterized the penal system in the twentieth century. Unearthing fresh evidence from prison and state archives, McLennan shows how, in each of three distinct periods of crisis, widespread dissent culminated in the dismantling of old systems of imprisonment.

"In the Age of Jackson, private enterprise set up shop in the American penal system. Working hand in glove with state government, by 1900 contractors in both the North and the South would go on to put more than half a million imprisoned men, women, and youth to hard, sweated toil for private gain. Held captive, stripped of their rights, and subjected to lash and paddle, these convict laborers churned out vast quantities of goods and revenue, in some years generating the equivalent of more than $30 billion worth of work. By the 1880s, however, a growing cross-section of American society came to regard the prison labor system as morally corrupt and unbefitting of a free republic: it fostered torture and other abuses, degraded free citizen-workers, corrupted the government and the legal system, and defeated the supposedly moral purpose of punishment. The Crisis of Imprisonment tells the remarkable story of this controversial system of penal servitude - how it came into being, how it worked, how the popular campaigns for its abolition were ultimately victorious, and how it shaped and continues to haunt America's modern penal system."--Jacket.

Prison officials are in the midst of the biggest prison crisis. This book looks at prison life and conditions. It reviews ideas and policies, both at home and from abroad, that can be used to alleviate the crisis if we are able to muster the political courage and public support to put them into effect.

Elsner presents an extraordinary, comprehensive, shocking expos of the American prison system. Readers learn why the prison epidemic matters to them, even if they've never met anyone who's gone to jail, and learn what it's really like on the inside with racial gangs, corruption, and sickness.

"The Expanding Prison is a provocative, cogent argument for prison reform. David Cayley argues that our overpopulated prisons are more reflective of a society that is becoming increasingly polarized than of an actual surge in crime. This book considers proven alternatives to imprisonment that emphasize settlement-oriented techniques over punishment, and move us towards a vision of justice as peace-making rather than one of vengeance."

After 300 years of the American struggle with crime and punishment-related issues, the nation seems less able to deal with them now than at any other time in history. Why have we failed? Is the worst yet to come?In Crisis and Reform, criminology expert Alexis M. Durham III explores the most serious problems currently plaguing America's correctional system, their historical background, and possible solutions.Topics covered include:--Prison Crowding-AIDS in Prison-Difficulties Associated with Older Inmates-Women in Prison-Changing the Offender-Alternatives to Incarceration, including Electronic Monitoring, Intensive Supervision, House Arrest, Community Services, and Day-Reporting Centers-Boot Camps-Prison Privatization-The Death Penalty

A Disturbing and Shocking Expose-A Passionate Cry for Reform Prison Madness exposes the brutality and failure of today's correctional system-for all prisoners-but especially the incredible conditions Andured by those suffering from serious mental disorders. "A passionately argued and brilliantly written wake-up call to America about the myriad ways our penal systems brutalize our entire culture. Dr. Kupers not only diagnoses the problem, he also offers a set of solutions. I hope this book will be read by all concerned citizens and voters, for it conveys truths that are vitally important to all of us." —James Gilligan, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, and author of Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic

This book is about human breakdown under stress. It is the first attempt comprehensively to map the variety of forms that despair can take, to reconstruct the ineffable shapes of human extremity as fully and faithfully as possible. Presenting the results of one of the largest studies ever undertaken, the book is based on well over 600 interviews (and related background material) dealing with the self-destructive acts of men and women in prison. It is thus also a portrait of the impact of incarceration, bringing to life the prison world as seen through the eyes of those who suffer in confinement. Hundreds of inmates, speaking in their own words, here present a firsthand view of their experience with all its nuances and pathos. Following an introductory chapter on the scope and methods of the research, the first part of the book presents the major themes of coping that emerged from the study--the fundamental concerns of people under stress (potency, fear, need for support) as they are manifested in difficulties with the environment, with perception of the self and others, and with impulse management. Part Two takes up the questions of how typical are inmates who injure themselves and in what ways they differ from their peers--and major differences in risk and in themes of coping are shown to be related to age, sex, ethnic background, previous experiences with drugs and with personal violence, and incarceration in jails before sentence and in prisons. Part Three presents detailed psychological autopsies of men who ended their lives in prison cells, providing a convincing (and heart-rending) view of the process of human breakdown as it unfolds over time. The book will be important not only to criminologists and penologists but also--and because of its profound general implications--to all those sociologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and administrators of institutions who wish to understand and effectively to deal with the tragic problems of human breakdown. Hans Toch is professor of psychology in the School of Criminal Justice at the University of Albany. He is an elected fellow of the American Psychological Association as well as the American Society of Criminology. He has been president of the American Association of Forensic Psychology. He was also the Project Co-Director of the Institute for the Study of Crime and Delinquency at Sacramento, California.

The crisis of borders and prisons can be seen starkly in statistics. In 2011 some 1,500 migrants died trying to enter Europe, and the United States deported nearly 400,000 and imprisoned some 2.3 million people--more than at any other time in history. International borders are increasingly militarized places embedded within domestic policing and imprisonment and entwined with expanding prison-industrial complexes. Beyond Walls and Cages offers scholarly and activist perspectives on these issues and explores how the international community can move toward a more humane future. Working at a range of geographic scales and locations, contributors examine concrete and ideological connections among prisons, migration policing and detention, border fortification, and militarization. They challenge the idea that prisons and borders create safety, security, and order, showing that they can be forms of coercive mobility that separate loved ones, disempower communities, and increase shared harms of poverty. Walls and cages can also fortify wealth and power inequalities, racism, and gender and sexual oppression. As governments increasingly rely on criminalization and violent measures of exclusion and containment, strategies for achieving change are essential. Beyond Walls and Cages develops abolitionist, no borders, and decolonial analyses and methods for social change, showing how seemingly disconnected forms of state violence are interconnected. Creating a more just and free world--whether in the Mexico-U.S. borderlands, the Morocco-Spain region, South Africa, Montana, or Philadelphia--requires that people who are most affected become central to building alternatives to global crosscurrents of criminalization and militarization. Contributors: Olga Aksyutina, Stokely Baksh, Cynthia Bejarano, Anne Bonds, Borderlands Autonomist, Collective, Andrew Burridge, Irina Contreras, Renee Feltz, Luis A. Fernandez, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Amy Gottlieb, Gael Guevara, Zoe Hammer, Julianne Hing, Subhash Kateel, Jodie M. Lawston, Bob Libal, Jenna M. Loyd, Lauren Martin, Laura McTighe, Matt Mitchelson, Maria Cristina Morales, Alison Mountz, Ruben R. Murillo, Joseph Nevins, Nicole Porter, Joshua M. Price, Said Saddiki, Micol Seigel, Rashad Shabazz, Christopher Stenken, Proma Tagore, Margo Tamez, Elizabeth Vargas, Monica W. Varsanyi, Mariana Viturro, Harsha Walia, Seth Freed Wessler.