How to Reform Our Prison System

How to Reform Our Prison System PDF Author: H. J. B. Montgomery
Publisher: Forgotten Books
ISBN: 9781330583654
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 24

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Book Description
Excerpt from How to Reform Our Prison System As they are to-day, English prisons are not only manu-factories of crime, but forcing-houses for professional criminals. The human, not to say humane, note is absent from them. Routine, a deadly, dull, stupid routine, based on no logical principle, and having no objective point whatever, reigns supreme. Three centuries ago Paolo Sarpi, who was directed by the Venetian Government to investigate and report upon the prisons of Venice, wrote: "The object of punishment should be the emendation, not the destruction of the criminal." These were wise words, but they do not appear to have borne much fruit in 300 years. The time, accordingly, appears to be opportune for directing attention to the defects of the English prison system, not only as regards reformation, but in other details. That system simply tends to make what I may term the accidental criminal an habitual criminal, to case-harden the old offender. It is a system lacking throughout in sympathy, which attempts nothing, and apparently cares nothing, in regard to the improvement of character, or in reference to preparing the incarcerated man or woman for return to the world. It is solely and only concerned about the performance of the daily routine and the safe custody of the prisoners. Its tendency is to atrophy every human feeling and lofty aspiration, and to induce and accelerate a moral and mental degeneracy. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

How to Reform Our Prison System

How to Reform Our Prison System PDF Author: H. J. B. Montgomery
Publisher: Forgotten Books
ISBN: 9781330583654
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 24

Get Book Here

Book Description
Excerpt from How to Reform Our Prison System As they are to-day, English prisons are not only manu-factories of crime, but forcing-houses for professional criminals. The human, not to say humane, note is absent from them. Routine, a deadly, dull, stupid routine, based on no logical principle, and having no objective point whatever, reigns supreme. Three centuries ago Paolo Sarpi, who was directed by the Venetian Government to investigate and report upon the prisons of Venice, wrote: "The object of punishment should be the emendation, not the destruction of the criminal." These were wise words, but they do not appear to have borne much fruit in 300 years. The time, accordingly, appears to be opportune for directing attention to the defects of the English prison system, not only as regards reformation, but in other details. That system simply tends to make what I may term the accidental criminal an habitual criminal, to case-harden the old offender. It is a system lacking throughout in sympathy, which attempts nothing, and apparently cares nothing, in regard to the improvement of character, or in reference to preparing the incarcerated man or woman for return to the world. It is solely and only concerned about the performance of the daily routine and the safe custody of the prisoners. Its tendency is to atrophy every human feeling and lofty aspiration, and to induce and accelerate a moral and mental degeneracy. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

How to Reform Our Prison System

How to Reform Our Prison System PDF Author: H. J. B. Montgomery
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Crime and criminals
Languages : en
Pages : 20

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Book Description


Solutions

Solutions PDF Author: Joe Biden
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780692459218
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Mass incarceration. In recent years it's become clear that the size of America's prison population is unsustainable -- and isn't needed to protect public safety. In this remarkable bipartisan collaboration, the country's most prominent public figures and experts join together to propose ideas for change. In these original essays, many authors speak out for the first time on the issue. The vast majority agree that reducing our incarcerated population is a priority. Marking a clear political shift on crime and punishment in America, these sentiments are a far cry from politicians racing to be the most punitive in the 1980s and 1990s. Mass incarceration threatens American democracy. Hiding in plain sight, it drives economic inequality, racial injustice, and poverty. How do we achieve change? From using federal funding to bolster police best practices to allowing for the release of low-level offenders while they wait for trial, from eliminating prison for low-level drug crimes to increasing drug and mental health treatment, the ideas in this book pave a way forward. Solutions promises to further the intellectual and political momentum to reform our justice system.

The Growth of Incarceration in the United States

The Growth of Incarceration in the United States PDF Author: Committee on Causes and Consequences of High Rates of Incarceration
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 9780309298018
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 800

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Book Description
After decades of stability from the 1920s to the early 1970s, the rate of imprisonment in the United States has increased fivefold during the last four decades. The U.S. penal population of 2.2 million adults is by far the largest in the world. Just under one-quarter of the world's prisoners are held in American prisons. The U.S. rate of incarceration, with nearly 1 out of every 100 adults in prison or jail, is 5 to 10 times higher than the rates in Western Europe and other democracies. The U.S. prison population is largely drawn from the most disadvantaged part of the nation's population: mostly men under age 40, disproportionately minority, and poorly educated. Prisoners often carry additional deficits of drug and alcohol addictions, mental and physical illnesses, and lack of work preparation or experience. The growth of incarceration in the United States during four decades has prompted numerous critiques and a growing body of scientific knowledge about what prompted the rise and what its consequences have been for the people imprisoned, their families and communities, and for U.S. society. The Growth of Incarceration in the United States examines research and analysis of the dramatic rise of incarceration rates and its affects. This study makes the case that the United States has gone far past the point where the numbers of people in prison can be justified by social benefits and has reached a level where these high rates of incarceration themselves constitute a source of injustice and social harm. The Growth of Incarceration in the United States examines policy changes that created an increasingly punitive political climate and offers specific policy advice in sentencing policy, prison policy, and social policy. The report also identifies important research questions that must be answered to provide a firmer basis for policy. This report is a call for change in the way society views criminals, punishment, and prison. This landmark study assesses the evidence and its implications for public policy to inform an extensive and thoughtful public debate about and reconsideration of policies.

Prison by Any Other Name

Prison by Any Other Name PDF Author: Maya Schenwar
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 162097701X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
With a new afterword from the authors, the critically praised indictment of widely embraced “alternatives to incarceration” Electronic monitoring. Locked-down drug treatment centers. House arrest. Mandated psychiatric treatment. Data driven surveillance. Extended probation. These are some of the key alternatives held up as cost effective substitutes for jails and prisons. But in a searing, “cogent critique” (Library Journal), Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law reveal that many of these so-called reforms actually weave in new strands of punishment and control, bringing new populations who would not otherwise have been subject to imprisonment under physical control by the state. Whether readers are seasoned abolitionists or are newly interested in sensible alternatives to retrograde policing and criminal justice policies and approaches, this highly praised book offers “a wealth of critical insights” that will help readers “tread carefully through the dizzying terrain of a world turned upside down” and “make sense of what should take the place of mass incarceration” (The Brooklyn Rail). With a foreword by Michelle Alexander, Prison by Any Other Name exposes how a kinder narrative of reform is effectively obscuring an agenda of social control, challenging us to question the ways we replicate the status quo when pursuing change, and offering a bolder vision for truly alternative justice practices.

An Expensive Way to Make Bad People Worse

An Expensive Way to Make Bad People Worse PDF Author: Jens Soering
Publisher: Lantern Books
ISBN: 9781590560761
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
The author, himself a former inmate in the American Corrections System, writes about the state of the American prisons and the justice system and the American public's misconceptions about the system.

Carceral Con

Carceral Con PDF Author: Kay Whitlock
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520974808
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
A critical examination of how contemporary criminal justice reforms expand rather than shrink structurally violent systems of policing, surveillance, and carceral control in the United States. Public opposition to the structural racist, gendered, and economic violence that fuels the criminal legal system is reaching a critical mass. Ignited by popular uprisings, protests, and campaigns against state violence, demands for transformational change have escalated. In response, a now deeply entrenched so-called bipartisan industry has staked its claim to the reform terrain. Representing itself as a sensible bridge across bitterly polarized political divides and party lines, the bipartisan reform industry has sought to control the nature and scope of local, state, and federal reforms. Along the way, it creates an expanding web of neoliberal public-private partnerships, with the promotion and implementation of efforts managed by billionaires, public officials, policy factories, foundations, universities, and mega nonprofit organizations. Yet many bipartisan reforms constitute deceptive sleights of hand that not only fail to produce justice but actively reproduce structural racial and economic inequality. Carceral Con pulls the veil away from the reform public relations machine, providing a riveting overview of the repressive US carceral state and a critical examination of the reform terrain, quagmires, and choices that face us. This book vividly illustrates how contemporary bipartisan reform agendas leave the structural apparatus of mass incarceration intact while widening the net of carceral control and surveillance. Readers are also provided with information and insights useful for examining the likely impacts of reforms today and in the future. What can we learn from reforms of the past? What strategies hold most promise for dismantling structural inequalities, corporate control, and state violence? What approaches will reduce reliance on carceral control and also bring about community safety? Utilizing an abolitionist lens, Carceral Con makes the compelling case for liberatory approaches to envisioning and creating a just society.

Carceral Con

Carceral Con PDF Author: Kay Whitlock
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520343476
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
Introduction : world-making and "criminal justice reform" -- Correctional control and the challenge of reform -- Follow the money -- Criminalization, policing, and profiling -- The slippery slope of pretrial reform -- Courts, sentencing, and "diversion" -- Imprisonment and release -- Threshold.

Big House on the Prairie

Big House on the Prairie PDF Author: John M. Eason
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022641034X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
Now more than ever, we need to understand the social, political, and economic shifts that have driven the United States to triple its prison construction in just over three decades. John Eason goes a very considerable distance here in fulfilling this need, not by detailing the aftereffects of building huge numbers of prisons, but by vividly showing the process by which a community seeks to get a prison built in their area. What prompted him to embark on this inquiry was the insistent question of why the rapid expansion of prisons in America, why now, and why so many. He quickly learned that the prison boom is best understood from the perspective of the rural, southern towns where they tend to be placed (North Carolina has twice as many prisons as New Jersey, though both states have the same number of prisoners). And so he sets up shop, as it were, in Forrest City, Arkansas, where he moved with his family to begin the splendid fieldwork that led to this book. A major part of his story deals with the emergence of the rural ghetto, abetted by white flight, de-industrialization, the emergence of public housing, and higher proportions of blacks and Latinos. How did Forrest City become a site for its prison? Eason takes us behind the decision-making scenes, tracking the impact of stigma (a prison in my backyard-not a likely desideratum), economic development, poverty, and race, while showing power-sharing among opposed groups of elite whites vs. black race leaders. Eason situates the prison within the dynamic shifts rural economies are undergoing, and shows how racially diverse communities can achieve the siting and building of prisons in their rural ghetto. The result is a full understanding of the ways in which a prison economy takes shape and operates."

How to Reform Our Prison System (Classic Reprint)

How to Reform Our Prison System (Classic Reprint) PDF Author: H. J. B. Montgomery
Publisher: Forgotten Books
ISBN: 9780266491835
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 24

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Book Description
Excerpt from How to Reform Our Prison System A pithy aphorism of Carlyle occurs to me as singularly appropriate for the first class I have referred to. Many a man thinks that it is goodness which keeps him from crime, when it is only his full stomach. On half allowance he would be as ugly and knavish as anybody. Don't mistake potatoes for principles. Ruskin must have had the third class in view when he wrote: The plea of ignorance will never take away our responsibilities. It is written, If thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not He that pondereth the heart consider it? And He that keepeth thy soul, doth not He know it As regards the second class, the self-complacent Englishman, the only way to rouse him is, I think, to shock him by flinging cold, hard facts at him. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.