Incarceration in the United States
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- Incarceration in the United States
- Mass Incarceration in the United States
A guide for the course Unlocking Knowledge: Theorizing Prison from the Inside (Spring 2023).
Books
Arresting Citizenship by
ISBN: 9780226137667Publication Date: 2014-06-03The numbers are staggering: One-third of America's adult population has passed through the criminal justice system and now has a criminal record. Many more were never convicted, but are nonetheless subject to surveillance by the state. Never before has the American government maintained so vast a network of institutions dedicated solely to the control and confinement of its citizens. ? A provocative assessment of the contemporary carceral state for American democracy, Arresting Citizenship argues that the broad reach of the criminal justice system has fundamentally recast the relation between citizen and state, resulting in a sizable?and growing?group of second-class citizens. From police stops to court cases and incarceration, at each stage of the criminal justice system individuals belonging to this disempowered group come to experience a state-within-a-state that reflects few of the country's core democratic values. Through scores of interviews, along with analyses of survey data, Amy E. Lerman and Vesla M. Weaver show how this contact with police, courts, and prisons decreases faith in the capacity of American political institutions to respond to citizens' concerns and diminishes the sense of full and equal citizenship?even for those who have not been found guilty of any crime. The effects of this increasingly frequent contact with the criminal justice system are wide-ranging?and pernicious?and Lerman and Weaver go on to offer concrete proposals for reforms to reincorporate this large group of citizens as active participants in American civic and political life.The New Jim Crow by
ISBN: 9781595588197Publication Date: 2012-01-16Once in a great while a book comes along that changes the way we see the world and helps to fuel a nationwide social movement. The New Jim Crow is such a book. Praised by Harvard Law professor Lani Guinier as "brave and bold," this book directly challenges the notion that the election of Barack Obama signals a new era of colorblindness. With dazzling candor, legal scholar Michelle Alexander argues that "we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it." By targeting black men through the War on Drugs and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control—relegating millions to a permanent second-class status—even as it formally adheres to the principle of colorblindness. In the words of Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP, this book is a "call to action." Called "stunning" by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David Levering Lewis, "invaluable" by the Daily Kos, "explosive" by Kirkus, and "profoundly necessary" by the Miami Herald, this updated and revised paperback edition of The New Jim Crow, now with a foreword by Cornel West, is a must-read for all people of conscience.The Angela Y. Davis Reader by
ISBN: 0631203605Publication Date: 1998-12-10For three decades, Angela Y. Davis has written on liberation theory and democratic praxis. Challenging the foundations of mainstream discourse, her analyses of culture, gender, capital, and race have profoundly influenced democratic theory, antiracist feminism, critical studies and political struggles. Even for readers who primarily know her as a revolutionary of the late 1960s and early 1970s (or as a political icon for militant activism) she has greatly expanded the scope and range of social philosophy and political theory. Expanding critical theory, contemporary progressive theorists - engaged in justice struggles - will find their thought influenced by the liberation praxis of Angela Y. Davis. The Angela Y. Davis Reader presents eighteen essays from her writings and interviews which have appeared in If They Come in the Morning, Women, Race, and Class, Women, Culture, and Politics, and Black Women and the Blues as well as articles published in women's, ethnic/black studies and communist journals, and cultural studies anthologies. In four parts - "Prisons, Repression, and Resistance", "Marxism, Anti-Racism, and Feminism", "Aesthetics and Culture", and recent interviews - Davis examines revolutionary politics and intellectualism. Davis's discourse chronicles progressive political movements and social philosophy. It is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary political philosophy, critical race theory, social theory, ethnic studies, American studies, African American studies, cultural theory, feminist philosophy, gender studies.From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime by
ISBN: 9780674969223Publication Date: 2016-05-02Co-Winner of the Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize A New York Times Notable Book of the Year A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice A Wall Street Journal Favorite Book of the Year A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year A Publishers Weekly Favorite Book of the Year In the United States today, one in every thirty-one adults is under some form of penal control, including one in eleven African American men. How did the "land of the free" become the home of the world's largest prison system? Challenging the belief that America's prison problem originated with the Reagan administration's War on Drugs, Elizabeth Hinton traces the rise of mass incarceration to an ironic source: the social welfare programs of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society at the height of the civil rights era. "An extraordinary and important new book." --Jill Lepore, New Yorker "Hinton's book is more than an argument; it is a revelation...There are moments that will make your skin crawl...This is history, but the implications for today are striking. Readers will learn how the militarization of the police that we've witnessed in Ferguson and elsewhere had roots in the 1960s." --Imani Perry, New York Times Book Review
Reports and Articles
- The Prison Industry: How It Started, How It Works, How It Harms, Worth Rises"Have you ever wondered who designs and builds the solitary cells we banish people to? Or who manufactures the ankle monitors that some women are forced to wear while giving birth? Well, we have answers. Today, Worth Rises published the most comprehensive resource that has been written about the prison industry. Our new report, The Prison Industry: How It Started, How It Works, How It Harms, covers the history, business, and impact of the prison industry."
- Mass Incarceration: A Syllabus, Jstor DailyThe United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, both in absolute numbers and on a per capita basis. Reveal Digital’s American Prison Newspapers collection is designed to elevate incarcerated voices and offer new breadth and depth to our understanding of prisons and imprisonment. On Wednesday, March 23rd, 2022, our own formerly incarcerated engagement editor Morgan Godvin joined interdisciplinary prison scholar Ashley Rubin for a conversation about this history of mass incarceration. The event, hosted and moderated by our friends at Knowable Magazine, is archived available to watch here.