Download or read book American Prison written by Shane Bauer and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-06-11 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An enraging, necessary look at the private prison system, and a convincing clarion call for prison reform.” —NPR.org New York Times Book Review 10 Best Books of 2018 * One of President Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2018 * Winner of the 2019 J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize * Winner of the Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism * Winner of the 2019 RFK Book and Journalism Award * A New York Times Notable Book A ground-breaking and brave inside reckoning with the nexus of prison and profit in America: in one Louisiana prison and over the course of our country's history. In 2014, Shane Bauer was hired for $9 an hour to work as an entry-level prison guard at a private prison in Winnfield, Louisiana. An award-winning investigative journalist, he used his real name; there was no meaningful background check. Four months later, his employment came to an abrupt end. But he had seen enough, and in short order he wrote an exposé about his experiences that won a National Magazine Award and became the most-read feature in the history of the magazine Mother Jones. Still, there was much more that he needed to say. In American Prison, Bauer weaves a much deeper reckoning with his experiences together with a thoroughly researched history of for-profit prisons in America from their origins in the decades before the Civil War. For, as he soon realized, we can't understand the cruelty of our current system and its place in the larger story of mass incarceration without understanding where it came from. Private prisons became entrenched in the South as part of a systemic effort to keep the African-American labor force in place in the aftermath of slavery, and the echoes of these shameful origins are with us still. The private prison system is deliberately unaccountable to public scrutiny. Private prisons are not incentivized to tend to the health of their inmates, or to feed them well, or to attract and retain a highly-trained prison staff. Though Bauer befriends some of his colleagues and sympathizes with their plight, the chronic dysfunction of their lives only adds to the prison's sense of chaos. To his horror, Bauer finds himself becoming crueler and more aggressive the longer he works in the prison, and he is far from alone. A blistering indictment of the private prison system, and the powerful forces that drive it, American Prison is a necessary human document about the true face of justice in America.

Download or read book City of Inmates written by Kelly Lytle Hernández and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2017-02-15 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Los Angeles incarcerates more people than any other city in the United States, which imprisons more people than any other nation on Earth. This book explains how the City of Angels became the capital city of the world's leading incarcerator. Marshaling more than two centuries of evidence, historian Kelly Lytle Hernandez unmasks how histories of native elimination, immigrant exclusion, and black disappearance drove the rise of incarceration in Los Angeles. In this telling, which spans from the Spanish colonial era to the outbreak of the 1965 Watts Rebellion, Hernandez documents the persistent historical bond between the racial fantasies of conquest, namely its settler colonial form, and the eliminatory capacities of incarceration. But City of Inmates is also a chronicle of resilience and rebellion, documenting how targeted peoples and communities have always fought back. They busted out of jail, forced Supreme Court rulings, advanced revolution across bars and borders, and, as in the summer of 1965, set fire to the belly of the city. With these acts those who fought the rise of incarceration in Los Angeles altered the course of history in the city, the borderlands, and beyond. This book recounts how the dynamics of conquest met deep reservoirs of rebellion as Los Angeles became the City of Inmates, the nation's carceral core. It is a story that is far from over.

Download or read book American Inmate written by Justin Rovillos Monson and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2024-03-12 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rigorous and defiant collection that subverts contemporary discourse and representations of incarceration, of hip-hop, and of Asian American culture and literature. Justin Rovillos Monson’s poetic voice is sharp and irreverent—improvisational yet thoughtful, musical, and tender, achieving a range of lyrical registers woven seamlessly throughout the book from the first to last poem. Monson’s work challenges his readers with uncomfortable but essential, urgent, and necessary questions: What does it mean to be in the world and yet live apart from it? What happens to the minds and bodies of those locked away? What happens to the minds and bodies of their loved ones? How can America get free? Braiding personal narrative with contemporary rap lyrics and institutional language, Monson deepens the nuances and dimensions of and within Asian American poetics, prison poetics, and hip-hop poetics with his deft and experimental writing style. American Inmate speaks through cages, bars, walls, and borders, collapsing widespread misconceptions and stereotypes regarding incarceration, and shrinking the distance between readers on the outside and the complex interiority of an incarcerated human being. Sometimes slipping, sometimes soaring, sometimes laughing, sometimes dying, Monson’s fiery debut is a fresh, moving, elucidative work that will challenge readers to think more critically about the systems that govern our lives, to imagine with compassion and inclusivity, and to settle for nothing less than a truly free future that is liberatory for all.

Download or read book Inside Private Prisons written by Lauren-Brooke Eisen and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2017-11-07 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the tough-on-crime politics of the 1980s overcrowded state prisons, private companies saw potential profit in building and operating correctional facilities. Today more than a hundred thousand of the 1.5 million incarcerated Americans are held in private prisons in twenty-nine states and federal corrections. Private prisons are criticized for making money off mass incarceration—to the tune of $5 billion in annual revenue. Based on Lauren-Brooke Eisen’s work as a prosecutor, journalist, and attorney at policy think tanks, Inside Private Prisons blends investigative reportage and quantitative and historical research to analyze privatized corrections in America. From divestment campaigns to boardrooms to private immigration-detention centers across the Southwest, Eisen examines private prisons through the eyes of inmates, their families, correctional staff, policymakers, activists, Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees, undocumented immigrants, and the executives of America’s largest private prison corporations. Private prisons have become ground zero in the anti-mass-incarceration movement. Universities have divested from these companies, political candidates hesitate to accept their campaign donations, and the Department of Justice tried to phase out its contracts with them. On the other side, impoverished rural towns often try to lure the for-profit prison industry to build facilities and create new jobs. Neither an endorsement or a demonization, Inside Private Prisons details the complicated and perverse incentives rooted in the industry, from mandatory bed occupancy to vested interests in mass incarceration. If private prisons are here to stay, how can we fix them? This book is a blueprint for policymakers to reform practices and for concerned citizens to understand our changing carceral landscape.

Download or read book Undoing Time written by Jeff Evans and published by UPNE. This book was released on 2001 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In their own words, a look inside the silent and hidden world of the men and women incarcerated in America's penitentiaries.

Download or read book American Prisons and Jails written by Joan Mullen and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Prisoner in His Palace written by Will Bardenwerper and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-06-06 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the tradition of In Cold Blood and The Executioner’s Song, this haunting, insightful, and surprisingly intimate portrait of Saddam Hussein provides “a brief, but powerful, meditation on the meaning of evil and power” (USA TODAY). The “captivating” (Military Times) The Prisoner in His Palace invites us to take a journey with twelve young American soldiers in the summer of 2006. Shortly after being deployed to Iraq, they learn their assignment: guarding Saddam Hussein in the months before his execution. Living alongside, and caring for, their “high value detainee and regularly transporting him to his raucous trial, many of the men begin questioning some of their most basic assumptions—about the judicial process, Saddam’s character, and the morality of modern war. Although the young soldiers’ increasingly intimate conversations with the once-feared dictator never lead them to doubt his responsibility for unspeakable crimes, the men do discover surprising new layers to his psyche that run counter to the media’s portrayal of him. Woven from firsthand accounts provided by many of the American guards, government officials, interrogators, scholars, spies, lawyers, family members, and victims, The Prisoner in His Palace shows two Saddams coexisting in one person: the defiant tyrant who uses torture and murder as tools, and a shrewd but contemplative prisoner who exhibits surprising affection, dignity, and courage in the face of looming death. In this thought-provoking narrative, Saddam, known as the “man without a conscience,” gets many of those around him to examine theirs. “A singular study exhibiting both military duty and human compassion” (Kirkus Reviews), The Prisoner in His Palace grants us “a behind-the-scenes look at history that’s nearly impossible to put down…a mesmerizing glimpse into the final moments of a brutal tyrant’s life” (BookPage).

Download or read book College for Convicts written by Christopher Zoukis and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-10-28 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States accounts for 5 percent of the world's population, yet incarcerates about 25 percent of the world's prisoners. Examining a wealth of studies by researchers and correctional professionals, and the experience of educators, this book shows recidivism rates drop in direct correlation with the amount of education prisoners receive, and the rate drops dramatically with each additional level of education attained. Presenting a workable solution to America's mass incarceration and recidivism problems, this book demonstrates that great fiscal benefits arise when modest sums are spent educating prisoners. Educating prisoners brings a reduction in crime and social disruption, reduced domestic spending and a rise in quality of life. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Download or read book The Furnace of Affliction written by Jennifer Graber and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2011-03-14 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on the intersection of Christianity and politics in the American penitentiary system, Jennifer Graber explores evangelical Protestants' efforts to make religion central to emerging practices and philosophies of prison discipline from the 1790s through the 1850s. Initially, state and prison officials welcomed Protestant reformers' and ministers' recommendations, particularly their ideas about inmate suffering and redemption. Over time, however, officials proved less receptive to the reformers' activities, and inmates also opposed them. Ensuing debates between reformers, officials, and inmates revealed deep disagreements over religion's place in prisons and in the wider public sphere as the separation of church and state took hold and the nation's religious environment became more diverse and competitive. Examining the innovative New York prison system, Graber shows how Protestant reformers failed to realize their dreams of large-scale inmate conversion or of prisons that reflected their values. To keep a foothold in prisons, reformers were forced to relinquish their Protestant terminology and practices and instead to adopt secular ideas about American morals, virtues, and citizenship. Graber argues that, by revising their original understanding of prisoner suffering and redemption, reformers learned to see inmates' afflictions not as a necessary prelude to a sinner's experience of grace but as the required punishment for breaking the new nation's laws.

Download or read book Private Prisons in America written by Michael A. Hallett and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Under the auspices of a governmentally sanctioned "war on drugs," incarceration rates in the United States have risen dramatically since 1980. Increasingly, correctional administrators at all levels are turning to private, for-profit corporations to manage the swelling inmate population. Policy discussions of this trend toward prison privatization tend to focus on cost-effectiveness, contract monitoring, and enforcement, but in his Private Prisons in America, Michael A. Hallett reveals that these issues are only part of the story. Demonstrating that imprisonment serves numerous agendas other than "crime control," Hallett's analysis suggests that private prisons are best understood not as the product of increasing crime rates, but instead as the latest chapter in a troubling history of discrimination aimed primarily at African American men.

Download or read book American Corrections written by Barry A. Krisberg and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2018-01-17 with total page 924 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American Corrections, Second Edition offers you a contemporary, issues-oriented introduction that covers every aspect of corrections, prompting you to think critically about complex issues that are affecting the current U.S. correctional system. Incorporating the most recent theory, research, and data available, the Second Edition encourages you to explore the most interesting and progressive developments in correctional policy and practice. Authors Barry A. Krisberg, Susan Marchionna, and Christopher J. Hartney draw from years of professional experience to give you a practical knowledge of corrections, as well as provide a framework for thoughtful analysis into what is plaguing the American correctional system and a realistic exploration of the solutions that could make a difference. New to the Second Edition: Up-to-date coverage of today’s key issues reflects the latest developments in corrections, including the fiscal impact of corrections, reforms in corrections, and an expanded use of alternatives to incarceration. Debates around the effectiveness of corrections encourage you to think critically about probation, problem-solving courts, split sentences and flash incarceration, new recidivism studies, rates of racial and ethnic disparity in adult and juvenile corrections, and overrepresentation of youth of color in prisons. Recent trends are discussed to give you a clearer picture of how the correctional system has transformed over the years, including the decline in the practice of incarcerating juveniles in large prisons, the rising incarceration rate for women, the treatment of mentally ill inmates, the increase of private prisons, and more. Incisive exploration of policies proposed by the Trump administration shows you how the current administration’s approach differs from Obama-era sentencing reforms and encourages students to think critically about the potent impacts on the correctional system. New Spotlight boxes introduce you to key issues such as immigration and detention and the opioid addiction epidemic. Updated references, statistics, court rulings, and data help you understand the latest trends in correctional practices.

Download or read book Routledge Handbook on American Prisons written by Laurie A. Gould and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-11-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Handbook on American Prisons is an authoritative volume that provides an overview of the state of U.S. prisons and synthesizes the research on the many facets of the prison system. The United States is exceptional in its use of incarceration as punishment. It not only has the largest prison population in the world, but also the highest per-capita incarceration rate. Research and debate about mass incarceration continues to grow, with mounting bipartisan agreement on the need for criminal justice reform. Divided into four sections (Prisons: Security, Operations and Administration; Types of Offenders and Populations; Living and Dying in Prison; and Release, Reentry, and Reform), the volume explores the key issues fundamental to understanding the U.S. prison system, including the characteristics of facilities; inmate risk assessment and classification, prison administration and employment, for-profit prisons, special populations, overcrowding, prison health care, prison violence, the special circumstances of death row prisoners, collateral consequences of incarceration, prison programming, and parole. The final section examines reform efforts and ideas, and offers suggestions for future research and attention. With contributions from leading correctional scholars, this book is a valuable resource for scholars with an interest in U.S. prisons and the issues surrounding them. It is structured to serve scholars and graduate students studying corrections, penology, institutional corrections, and other related topics.

Download or read book Do Prisons Make Us Safer written by Steven Raphael and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2009-01-22 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The number of people incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails more than quadrupled between 1975 and 2005, reaching the unprecedented level of over two million inmates today. Annual corrections spending now exceeds 64 billion dollars, and many of the social and economic burdens resulting from mass incarceration fall disproportionately on minority communities. Yet crime rates across the country have also dropped considerably during this time period. In Do Prisons Make Us Safer? leading experts systematically examine the complex repercussions of the massive surge in our nation's prison system. Do Prisons Make Us Safer? asks whether it makes sense to maintain such a large and costly prison system. The contributors expand the scope of previous analyses to include a number of underexplored dimensions, such as the fiscal impact on states, effects on children, and employment prospects for former inmates. Steven Raphael and Michael Stoll assess the reasons behind the explosion in incarceration rates and find that criminal behavior itself accounts for only a small fraction of the prison boom. Eighty-five percent of the trend can be attributed to "get tough on crime" policies that have increased both the likelihood of a prison sentence and the length of time served. Shawn Bushway shows that while prison time effectively deters and incapacitates criminals in the short term, long-term benefits such as overall crime reduction or individual rehabilitation are less clear cut. Amy Lerman conducts a novel investigation into the effects of imprisonment on criminal psychology and uncovers striking evidence that placement in a high security penitentiary leads to increased rates of violence and anger—particularly in the case of first time or minor offenders. Rucker Johnson documents the spill-over effects of parental incarceration—children who have had a parent serve prison time exhibit more behavioral problems than their peers. Policies to enhance the well-being of these children are essential to breaking a devastating cycle of poverty, unemployment, and crime. John Donohue's economic calculations suggest that alternative social welfare policies such as education and employment programs for at-risk youth may lower crime just as effectively as prisons, but at a much lower human cost. The cost of hiring a new teacher is roughly equal to the cost of incarcerating an additional inmate. The United States currently imprisons a greater proportion of its citizens than any other nation in the world. Until now, however, we've lacked systematic and comprehensive data on how this prison boom has affected families, communities, and our nation as a whole. Do Prisons Make Us Safer? provides a highly nuanced and deeply engaging account of one of the most dramatic policy developments in recent U.S. history.

Download or read book American Prisons written by David Musick and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-05-18 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Imprisonment has become big business in the United States. Using a "history of ideas" approach, this book examines the cultural underpinnings of prisons in the United States and explores how shared ideas about imprisonment evolve into a complex, loosely connected nationwide system of prisons that keeps enough persons to populate a small nation behind bars, razor wire and electrified fences. Tracing both the history of the prison and the very idea of imprisonment in the United States, this book provides students with a critical overview of American prisons and considers their past, their present and directions for the future. Topics covered include: • a history of imprisonment in America from 1600 to the present day; • the twentieth-century prison building binge; • the relationship between U.S. prisons and the private sector; • a critical account of capital punishment; • less-visible prison minorities, including women, children and the elderly; and • sex, violence and disease in prison. This comprehensive book is essential reading for advanced courses on corrections and correctional management and offers a compelling and provocative analysis of the realities of American penal culture from past to present. It is perfect reading for students of criminal justice, corrections, penology and the sociology of punishment.

Download or read book Health and Incarceration written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2013-08-08 with total page 67 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past four decades, the rate of incarceration in the United States has skyrocketed to unprecedented heights, both historically and in comparison to that of other developed nations. At far higher rates than the general population, those in or entering U.S. jails and prisons are prone to many health problems. This is a problem not just for them, but also for the communities from which they come and to which, in nearly all cases, they will return. Health and Incarceration is the summary of a workshop jointly sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences(NAS) Committee on Law and Justice and the Institute of Medicine(IOM) Board on Health and Select Populations in December 2012. Academics, practitioners, state officials, and nongovernmental organization representatives from the fields of healthcare, prisoner advocacy, and corrections reviewed what is known about these health issues and what appear to be the best opportunities to improve healthcare for those who are now or will be incarcerated. The workshop was designed as a roundtable with brief presentations from 16 experts and time for group discussion. Health and Incarceration reviews what is known about the health of incarcerated individuals, the healthcare they receive, and effects of incarceration on public health. This report identifies opportunities to improve healthcare for these populations and provides a platform for visions of how the world of incarceration health can be a better place.

Download or read book American Prisons and Jails written by and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 796 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Waiting for an Echo written by Christine Montross and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-07-20 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A haunting and harrowing indictment . . . [a] significant achievement.” —The New York Times Book Review L.A. Times Book Prize Finalist * New York Times Book Review Paperback Row * Time Best New Books July 2020 Waiting for an Echo is a riveting, rarely seen glimpse into American jails and prisons. It is also a damning account of policies that have criminalized mental illness, shifting large numbers of people who belong in therapeutic settings into punitive ones. Dr. Christine Montross has spent her career treating the most severely ill psychiatric patients. This expertise—the mind in crisis—has enabled her to reckon with the human stories behind mass incarceration. A father attempting to weigh the impossible calculus of a plea bargain. A bright young woman whose life is derailed by addiction. Boys in a juvenile detention facility who, desperate for human connection, invent a way to communicate with one another from cell to cell. Overextended doctors and correctional officers who strive to provide care and security in environments riddled with danger. Our methods of incarceration take away not only freedom but also selfhood and soundness of mind. In a nation where 95 percent of all inmates are released from prison and return to our communities, this is a practice that punishes us all.