Download or read book The California Prison and Parole Law Handbook written by Heather MacKay and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Prison Truth written by William J. Drummond and published by University of California Press. This book was released on 2020-01-07 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: San Quentin State Prison, California’s oldest prison and the nation’s largest, is notorious for once holding America’s most dangerous prisoners. But in 2008, the Bastille-by-the-Bay became a beacon for rehabilitation through the prisoner-run newspaper the San Quentin News. Prison Truth tells the story of how prisoners, many serving life terms, transformed the prison climate from what Johnny Cash called a living hell to an environment that fostered positive change in inmates’ lives. Award-winning journalist William J. Drummond takes us behind bars, introducing us to Arnulfo García, the visionary prisoner who led the revival of the newspaper. Drummond describes how the San Quentin News, after a twenty-year shutdown, was recalled to life under an enlightened warden and the small group of local retired newspaper veterans serving as advisers, which Drummond joined in 2012. Sharing how officials cautiously and often unwittingly allowed the newspaper to tell the stories of the incarcerated, Prison Truth illustrates the power of prison media to humanize the experiences of people inside penitentiary walls and to forge alliances with social justice networks seeking reform.
Download or read book Golden Gulag written by Ruth Wilson Gilmore and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2007-01-08 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 1980, the number of people in U.S. prisons has increased more than 450%. Despite a crime rate that has been falling steadily for decades, California has led the way in this explosion, with what a state analyst called "the biggest prison building project in the history of the world." Golden Gulag provides the first detailed explanation for that buildup by looking at how political and economic forces, ranging from global to local, conjoined to produce the prison boom. In an informed and impassioned account, Ruth Wilson Gilmore examines this issue through statewide, rural, and urban perspectives to explain how the expansion developed from surpluses of finance capital, labor, land, and state capacity. Detailing crises that hit California’s economy with particular ferocity, she argues that defeats of radical struggles, weakening of labor, and shifting patterns of capital investment have been key conditions for prison growth. The results—a vast and expensive prison system, a huge number of incarcerated young people of color, and the increase in punitive justice such as the "three strikes" law—pose profound and troubling questions for the future of California, the United States, and the world. Golden Gulag provides a rich context for this complex dilemma, and at the same time challenges many cherished assumptions about who benefits and who suffers from the state’s commitment to prison expansion.
Download or read book Breathing Fire written by Jaime Lowe and published by MCD. This book was released on 2021-07-27 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dramatic, revelatory account of the female inmate firefighters who battle California wildfires. Shawna was overcome by the claustrophobia, the heat, the smoke, the fire, all just down the canyon and up the ravine. She was feeling the adrenaline, but also the terror of doing something for the first time. She knew how to run with a backpack; they had trained her physically. But that’s not training for flames. That’s not live fire. California’s fire season gets hotter, longer, and more extreme every year — fire season is now year-round. Of the thousands of firefighters who battle California’s blazes every year, roughly 30 percent of the on-the-ground wildland crews are inmates earning a dollar an hour. Approximately 200 of those firefighters are women serving on all-female crews. In Breathing Fire, Jaime Lowe expands on her revelatory work for The New York Times Magazine. She has spent years getting to know dozens of women who have participated in the fire camp program and spoken to captains, family and friends, correctional officers, and camp commanders. The result is a rare, illuminating look at how the fire camps actually operate — a story that encompasses California’s underlying catastrophes of climate change, economic disparity, and historical injustice, but also draws on deeply personal histories, relationships, desires, frustrations, and the emotional and physical intensity of firefighting. Lowe’s reporting is a groundbreaking investigation of the prison system, and an intimate portrayal of the women of California’s Correctional Camps who put their lives on the line, while imprisoned, to save a state in peril.
Download or read book Maximum Security written by Fay Stender and published by New York : Dutton. This book was released on 1972 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
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 The Rise and Fall of California s Radical Prison Movement written by Eric Cummins and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a history of the California prison movement from 1950 to 1980, focusing on the San Francisco Bay Area's San Quentin State Prison and highlighting the role that prison reading and writing played in the creation of radical inmate ideology in those years. The book begins with the Caryl Chessman years (1948-60) and closes with the trial of the San Quentin Six (1975-76) and the passage of California's Determinate Sentencing Law (1977). This was an extraordinary era in the California prisons, one that saw the emergence of a highly developed radical convict resistance movement inside prison walls. This inmate groundswell was fueled at times by remarkable individual prisoners, at other times by groups like the Black Muslims or the San Quentin chapter of the Black Panther Party. But most often resistance grew from much wider sources and in quiet corners: from dozens of political study groups throughout the prison; from an underground San Quentin newspaper; and from covert attempts to organize a prisoners' union. The book traces the rise and fall of the prisoners' movement, ending with the inevitably bloody confrontation between prisoners and the state and the subsequent prison administration crackdown. The author examines the efforts of prison staff to augment other methods of inmate management by attempting to modify convict ideology by means of "bibliotherapy" and communication control, and describes convict resistance to these attempts as control. He also discusses how Bay Area political activists became intensely involved in San Quentin and how such writings as Chessman's Cell 2455, Cleaver's Soul on Ice, and Jackson's Soledad Brother reached far beyond prison walls to influence opinion, events, and policy.
Download or read book This Is Ear Hustle written by Nigel Poor and published by Crown. This book was released on 2022-08-30 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “profound, sometimes hilarious, often heartbreaking” (The New York Times) view of prison life, as told by currently and formerly incarcerated people, from the co-creators and co-hosts of the Peabody- and Pulitzer-nominated podcast Ear Hustle “A must-read for fans of the legendary podcast and all those who seek to understand crime, punishment, and mass incarceration in America.”—Piper Kerman, author of Orange Is the New Black When Nigel Poor and Earlonne Woods met, Nigel was a photography professor volunteering with the Prison University Project and Earlonne was serving thirty-one years to life at California’s San Quentin State Prison. Initially drawn to each other by their shared interest in storytelling, neither had podcast production experience when they decided to enter Radiotopia’s contest for new shows . . . and won. Using the prize for seed money, Nigel and Earlonne launched Ear Hustle, named after the prison term for “eavesdropping.” It was the first podcast created and produced entirely within prison and would go on to be heard millions of times worldwide, garner Peabody and Pulitzer award nominations, and help earn Earlonne his freedom when his sentence was commuted in 2018. In This Is Ear Hustle, Nigel and Earlonne share their own stories of how they came to San Quentin, how they created their phenomenally popular podcast amid extreme limitations, and what has kept them collaborating season after season. They present new stories, all with the same insight, balance, and rapport that distinguish the podcast. In an era when more than two million people are incarcerated across the United States—a number that grows by 600,000 annually—Nigel and Earlonne explore the full and often surprising realities of prison life. With characteristic candor and humor, their moving portrayals include unexpected moments of self-discovery, unlikely alliances, inspirational resilience, and ingenious work-arounds. One personal narrative at a time, framed by Nigel’s and Earlonne’s distinct perspectives, This Is Ear Hustle reveals the complexity of life for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people while illuminating the shared experiences of humanity that unite us all.
Download or read book The Toughest Beat written by Joshua Page and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Toughest Beat uses the rise of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, the state's powerful prison officers' union, to explore the actors and interests that have created, shaped, and protected the Golden State's sprawling, dysfunctional penal system -- and how it might yet be transformed.
Download or read book The Prison of Democracy written by Sara M. Benson and published by University of California Press. This book was released on 2019-04-16 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At publication date, a free ebook version of this title will be available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Built in the 1890s at the center of the nation, Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary was designed specifically to be a replica of the US Capitol Building. But why? The Prison of Democracy explains the political significance of a prison built to mimic one of America’s monuments to democracy. Locating Leavenworth in memory, history, and law, the prison geographically sits at the borders of Indian Territory (1825–1854) and Bleeding Kansas (1854–1864), both sites of contestation over slavery and freedom. Author Sara M. Benson argues that Leavenworth reshaped the design of punishment in America by gradually normalizing state-inflicted violence against citizens. Leavenworth’s peculiar architecture illustrates the real roots of mass incarceration—as an explicitly race- and nation-building system that has been ingrained in the very fabric of US history rather than as part of a recent post-war racial history. The book sheds light on the truth of the painful relationship between the carceral state and democracy in the US—a relationship that thrives to this day.
Download or read book After Prison written by David J. Harding and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2020-08-31 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The incarceration rate in the United States is the highest of any developed nation, with a prison population of approximately 2.3 million in 2016. Over 700,000 prisoners are released each year, and most face significant educational, economic, and social disadvantages. In After Prison, sociologist David Harding and criminologist Heather Harris provide a comprehensive account of young men’s experiences of reentry and reintegration in the era of mass incarceration. They focus on the unique challenges faced by 1,300 black and white youth aged 18 to 25 who were released from Michigan prisons in 2003, investigating the lives of those who achieved some measure of success after leaving prison as well as those who struggled with the challenges of creating new lives for themselves. The transition to young adulthood typically includes school completion, full-time employment, leaving the childhood home, marriage, and childbearing, events that are disrupted by incarceration. While one quarter of the young men who participated in the study successfully transitioned into adulthood—achieving employment and residential independence and avoiding arrest and incarceration—the same number of young men remained deeply involved with the criminal justice system, spending on average four out of the seven years after their initial release re-incarcerated. Not surprisingly, whites are more likely to experience success after prison. The authors attribute this racial disparity to the increased stigma of criminal records for blacks, racial discrimination, and differing levels of social network support that connect whites to higher quality jobs. Black men earn less than white men, are more concentrated in industries characterized by low wages and job insecurity, and are less likely to remain employed once they have a job. The authors demonstrate that families, social networks, neighborhoods, and labor market, educational, and criminal justice institutions can have a profound impact on young people’s lives. Their research indicates that residential stability is key to the transition to adulthood. Harding and Harris make the case for helping families, municipalities, and non-profit organizations provide formerly incarcerated young people access to long-term supportive housing and public housing. A remarkably large number of men in this study eventually enrolled in college, reflecting the growing recognition of college as a gateway to living wage work. But the young men in the study spent only brief spells in college, and the majority failed to earn degrees. They were most likely to enroll in community colleges, trade schools, and for-profit institutions, suggesting that interventions focused on these kinds of schools are more likely to be effective. The authors suggest that, in addition to helping students find employment, educational institutions can aid reentry efforts for the formerly incarcerated by providing supports like childcare and paid apprenticeships. After Prison offers a set of targeted policy interventions to improve these young people’s chances: lifting restrictions on federal financial aid for education, encouraging criminal record sealing and expungement, and reducing the use of incarceration in response to technical parole violations. This book will be an important contribution to the fields of scholarly work on the criminal justice system and disconnected youth.
Download or read book Appealing to Justice written by Kitty Calavita and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Having gained unique access to California prisoners and corrections officials and to thousands of prisoners’ written grievances and institutional responses, Kitty Calavita and Valerie Jenness take us inside one of the most significant, yet largely invisible, institutions in the United States. Drawing on sometimes startlingly candid interviews with prisoners and prison staff, as well as on official records, the authors walk us through the byzantine grievance process, which begins with prisoners filing claims and ends after four levels of review, with corrections officials usually denying requests for remedies. Appealing to Justice is both an unprecedented study of disputing in an extremely asymmetrical setting and a rare glimpse of daily life inside this most closed of institutions. Quoting extensively from their interviews with prisoners and officials, the authors give voice to those who are almost never heard from. These voices unsettle conventional wisdoms within the sociological literature—for example, about the reluctance of vulnerable and/or stigmatized populations to name injuries and file claims, and about the relentlessly adversarial subjectivities of prisoners and correctional officials—and they do so with striking poignancy. Ultimately, Appealing to Justice reveals a system fraught with impediments and dilemmas, which delivers neither justice, nor efficiency, nor constitutional conditions of confinement.
Download or read book Prisoners of Freedom written by Harri Englund and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2006-09-12 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description
Download or read book Doing Time in the Depression written by Ethan Blue and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2012-02 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As banks crashed, belts tightened, and cupboards emptied across the country, American prisons grew fat. Doing Time in the Depression tells the story of the 1930s as seen from the cell blocks and cotton fields of Texas and California prisons, state institutions that held growing numbers of working people from around the country and the world—overwhelmingly poor, disproportionately non-white, and displaced by economic crisis. Ethan Blue paints a vivid portrait of everyday life inside Texas and California’s penal systems. Each element of prison life—from numbing boredom to hard labor, from meager pleasure in popular culture to crushing pain from illness or violence—demonstrated a contest between keepers and the kept. From the moment they arrived to the day they would leave, inmates struggled over the meanings of race and manhood, power and poverty, and of the state itself. In this richly layered account, Blue compellingly argues that punishment in California and Texas played a critical role in producing a distinctive set of class, race, and gender identities in the 1930s, some of which reinforced the social hierarchies and ideologies of New Deal America, and others of which undercut and troubled the established social order. He reveals the underside of the modern state in two very different prison systems, and the making of grim institutions whose power would only grow across the century.
Download or read book Death by Prison written by Christopher Seeds and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2022-07-19 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In recent decades, life imprisonment without the possibility of parole (LWOP) has developed into a distinctive penal form in the United States, one firmly entrenched in US policy-making, judicial and prosecutorial decision-making, correctional practice, and public discourse. LWOP is now a routine part of contemporary US criminal justice, even engrained in the nation's cultural imaginary, but how it came to be so remains in question. Fifty years ago, imprisoning a person until death was an extraordinary sentence; today, it accounts for an increasing percentage of all US prisoners. What explains the shifts in penal practice and the social imagination by which we have become accustomed to imprisoning individuals until death without any reevaluation or reasonable expectation of release? Combining a wide historical lens with detailed state- and institutional-level research, Death by Prison offers a provocative new foundation for questioning this deeply problematic practice that has escaped close scrutiny for too long. The rise of life without parole, this book demonstrates, is not simply a matter of growth: it is a phenomenon of change, inclusive of changes in definitions, practices, and meanings. Death by Prison shows that the complex processes by which life without parole became imprisonment until death and perpetual confinement became a routine part of American punishment must be understood not only in terms of punitive attitudes and political efforts but as a matter of background conditions and transformations in penal institutions. The book also reveals how the social and sociological relevance of life without parole extends beyond its punitive element: imbued in the history of life without parole are a variety of forms of disregard--for human dignity, for social consequences, and for the myriad responsibilities that go along with state punishment"--
Download or read book Forever Prisoners written by Elliott Young and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2021 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The United States locks up more than half a million non-citizens every year for immigration-related offenses; on any given day, more than 50,000 immigrants are held in detention in hundreds of ICE detention facilities spread across the country. This book provides an explanation of how, where, and why non-citizens were put behind bars in the United States from the late nineteenth century to the present. Through select granular experiences of detention over the course of more than 140 years, this book explains how America built the world's largest system for imprisoning immigrants. From the late nineteenth century, when the US government held hundreds of Chinese in federal prisons pending deportation, to the early twentieth century, when it caged hundreds of thousands of immigrants in insane asylums, to World War I and II, when the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) declared tens of thousands of foreigners "enemy aliens" and locked them up in Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) camps in Texas and New Mexico, and through the 1980s detention of over 125,000 Cuban and almost 23,000 Haitian refugees, the incarceration of foreigners nationally has ebbed and flowed. In the last three decades, tough-on-crime laws intersected with harsh immigration policies to make millions of immigrants vulnerable to deportation based on criminal acts, even minor ones, that had been committed years or decades earlier. Although far more immigrants are being held in prison today than at any other time in US history, earlier moments of immigrant incarceration echo present-day patterns"--
Download or read book Mass Incarceration on Trial written by Jonathan Simon and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mass Incarceration on Trial examines a series of landmark decisions about prison conditions-culminating in Brown v. Plata, decided in May 2011 by the U.S. Supreme Court-that has opened an unexpected escape route from this trap of "tough on crime" politics. This set of rulings points toward values that could restore legitimate order to American prisons and, ultimately, lead to the demise of mass incarceration. This book offers a provocative and brilliant reading to the end of mass incarceration.
