In A Whole New Way: Undoing Mass Incarceration by a Path Untraveled

In A Whole New Way: Undoing Mass Incarceration by a Path Untraveled PDF Author: George Carrano
Publisher: Easton Studio Press LLC
ISBN: 1632261189
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
In a Whole New Way is a photographic self-portrait by New Yorkers who are serving a term of probation. The book also lifts the veil on this “second-chance” justice intervention that has spread from its origins in 1841 Boston to most of the world today. If all Americans serving a term of probation were gathered in one locale, they would constitute the third-largest city in the country. Yet few of us understand what the sanction involves. Nor do many Americans realize that the originally rehabilitative practice became punitive following the 1972–92 crime wave. In many jurisdictions, it still is. Probation unfortunately has become a staging area for incarceration rather than its alternative. In a Whole New Way shows how hundreds of determined city residents on probation, along with neighborhood allies, undertook to change this. Equipped with cameras and new artistic sensibilities provided by the editors’ nonprofit Seeing for Ourselves, they set off in a whole new way to reform the sanction of probation, returning it to the rehabilitative and positive program it was originally intended to be. In the process, they found themselves transformed. The result of their journey is this unique collection of stunning photographs, accentuated by deeply personal captions and lengthier testimonies, that reveal the reality of life in probation. The stories of these participants powerfully undercut their own—and probation’s—derogatory popular image. The true goal of this book is to reform the entire justice system toward decarceration. In a Whole New Way is both the sequel to the editors’ Project Lives (2015), the globally acclaimed volume resulting from a similar effort with New Yorkers living in public housing—a work catapulting Seeing for Ourselves to the front tier of “participatory photography” practitioners worldwide—and the source of today’s award-winning eponymous documentary film, airing on select public television stations in 2023.

In A Whole New Way: Undoing Mass Incarceration by a Path Untraveled

In A Whole New Way: Undoing Mass Incarceration by a Path Untraveled PDF Author: George Carrano
Publisher: Easton Studio Press LLC
ISBN: 1632261189
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Get Book Here

Book Description
In a Whole New Way is a photographic self-portrait by New Yorkers who are serving a term of probation. The book also lifts the veil on this “second-chance” justice intervention that has spread from its origins in 1841 Boston to most of the world today. If all Americans serving a term of probation were gathered in one locale, they would constitute the third-largest city in the country. Yet few of us understand what the sanction involves. Nor do many Americans realize that the originally rehabilitative practice became punitive following the 1972–92 crime wave. In many jurisdictions, it still is. Probation unfortunately has become a staging area for incarceration rather than its alternative. In a Whole New Way shows how hundreds of determined city residents on probation, along with neighborhood allies, undertook to change this. Equipped with cameras and new artistic sensibilities provided by the editors’ nonprofit Seeing for Ourselves, they set off in a whole new way to reform the sanction of probation, returning it to the rehabilitative and positive program it was originally intended to be. In the process, they found themselves transformed. The result of their journey is this unique collection of stunning photographs, accentuated by deeply personal captions and lengthier testimonies, that reveal the reality of life in probation. The stories of these participants powerfully undercut their own—and probation’s—derogatory popular image. The true goal of this book is to reform the entire justice system toward decarceration. In a Whole New Way is both the sequel to the editors’ Project Lives (2015), the globally acclaimed volume resulting from a similar effort with New Yorkers living in public housing—a work catapulting Seeing for Ourselves to the front tier of “participatory photography” practitioners worldwide—and the source of today’s award-winning eponymous documentary film, airing on select public television stations in 2023.

Justice Restored

Justice Restored PDF Author: Howell W. Woltz
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781515293941
Category : Correctional law
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
International bestseller "Justice Restored," by veteran author and journalist, Howell Woltz, ("Justice Denied", "The Way Back to America", "The Path" and "Gulag Amerika") is his most explosive expos� to date of America's failed judicial system. Woltz proves in this highly readable expos� that U.S. prosecutors knowingly (or uncaringly) "get it wrong" in 8 out of every 10 cases they bring before U.S. courts. After speaking out on this issue publicly, (TEDx talk in 2014), Woltz was threatened by U.S. officials in an effort to silence him. This ultimately led to his leaving the country to continue his work (Woltz now lives in Poland), though his facts have been acknowledged true by reviewing state and federal courts. 5,760 capital cases--almost every such case over a 23 year period--has now been reviewed by state and federal courts and 73% of them were proven to have "reversible error", while 9% of the defendants were proven by the record itself to have been innocent when targeted by the prosecutor. (see, A BROKEN SYSTEM: ERROR RATES IN CAPITAL CASES, Prof. James S. Liebman, Columbia University). After indisputably proving the need for reform in the early pages of Justice Restore, Woltz then lays out a 10 step plan to restore our system of justice to what it once was. These steps back to Rule of Law are each buttressed by a heartbreaking personal story of a wrongfully convicted citizen the author personally assisted in seeking justice."Justice Restored: 10 steps to end mass incarceration in America" has been endorsed by The Center for Teaching the Rule of Law, and is considered a must read for every U.S. citizen.As admitted by the federal government, "The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that 71 million people--approximately 25 percent of the American population--have a criminal record." (BNA Criminal Law Reporter, May of 2010).With only 5% of the world's population, the United States holds 25% of its prisoners--a record for human history. No nation has ever incarcerated so many of its own citizens.Woltz has given a clear roadmap for ending this national disaster in "Justice Restored"and in an interview on Public Radio, he recently stated, "If anyone had told me 30 years ago that I could write a book on the unlikely topic of 'mass incarceration in America'--or that it would become a best-seller--I would have never believed it. 1/4 of the American population, however, has now suffered these injustices personally--as well as their families--and they are the ones who have made 'Justice Restored' an international bestseller."Buy Justice Restored today. Available on Amazon in the U.S. and Europe.To learn more about the author, visit Justice Restored's website:www.justicerestored.com

Prison by Any Other Name

Prison by Any Other Name PDF Author: Maya Schenwar
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1620973111
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
A crucial indictment of widely embraced "alternatives to incarceration" that exposes how many of these new approaches actually widen the net of punishment and surveillance "But what does it mean—really—to celebrate reforms that convert your home into your prison?" —Michelle Alexander, from the foreword 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 many of these so-called reforms actually widen the net, weaving in new strands of punishment and control, and bringing new populations, who would not otherwise have been subject to imprisonment, under physical control by the state. As mainstream public opinion has begun to turn against mass incarceration, political figures on both sides of the spectrum are pushing for reform. But—though they're promoted as steps to confront high rates of imprisonment—many of these measures are transforming our homes and communities into prisons instead. In Prison by Any Other Name, activist journalists Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law reveal the way the kinder, gentler narrative of reform can obscure agendas of social control and challenge us to question the ways we replicate the status quo when pursuing change. A foreword by Michelle Alexander situates the book in the context of criminal justice reform conversations. Finally, the book offers a bolder vision for truly alternative justice practices.

Break Every Yoke

Break Every Yoke PDF Author: Joshua Dubler
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190949155
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Changes in the American religious landscape enabled the rise of mass incarceration. Religious ideas and practices also offer a key for ending mass incarceration. These are the bold claims advanced by Break Every Yoke, the joint work of two activist-scholars of American religion. Once, in an era not too long past, Americans, both incarcerated and free, spoke a language of social liberation animated by religion. In the era of mass incarceration, we have largely forgotten how to dream-and organize-this way. To end mass incarceration we must reclaim this lost tradition. Properly conceived, the movement we need must demand not prison reform but prison abolition. Break Every Yoke weaves religion into the stories about race, politics, and economics that conventionally account for America's grotesque prison expansion of the last half century, and in so doing it sheds new light on one of our era's biggest human catastrophes. By foregrounding the role of religion in the way political elites, religious institutions, and incarcerated activists talk about incarceration, Break Every Yoke is an effort to stretch the American moral imagination and contribute resources toward envisioning alternative ways of doing justice. By looking back to nineteenth century abolitionism, and by turning to today's grassroots activists, it argues for reclaiming the abolition "spirit."

Understanding Mass Incarceration

Understanding Mass Incarceration PDF Author: James Kilgore
Publisher: New Press, The
ISBN: 1620971224
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
A brilliant overview of America’s defining human rights crisis and a “much-needed introduction to the racial, political, and economic dimensions of mass incarceration” (Michelle Alexander) Understanding Mass Incarceration offers the first comprehensive overview of the incarceration apparatus put in place by the world’s largest jailer: the United States. Drawing on a growing body of academic and professional work, Understanding Mass Incarceration describes in plain English the many competing theories of criminal justice—from rehabilitation to retribution, from restorative justice to justice reinvestment. In a lively and accessible style, author James Kilgore illuminates the difference between prisons and jails, probation and parole, laying out key concepts and policies such as the War on Drugs, broken windows policing, three-strikes sentencing, the school-to-prison pipeline, recidivism, and prison privatization. Informed by the crucial lenses of race and gender, he addresses issues typically omitted from the discussion: the rapidly increasing incarceration of women, Latinos, and transgender people; the growing imprisonment of immigrants; and the devastating impact of mass incarceration on communities. Both field guide and primer, Understanding Mass Incarceration is an essential resource for those engaged in criminal justice activism as well as those new to the subject.

Decarcerating America

Decarcerating America PDF Author: Ernest Drucker
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1620972794
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
“A powerful call for reform.” —NPR An all-star team of criminal justice experts present timely, innovative, and humane ways to end mass incarceration Mass incarceration will end—there is an emerging consensus that we’ve been locking up too many people for too long. But with more than 2.2 million Americans behind bars right now, how do we go about bringing people home? Decarcerating America collects some of the leading thinkers in the criminal justice reform movement to strategize about how to cure America of its epidemic of mass punishment. With sections on front-end approaches, as well as improving prison conditions and re-entry, the book includes pieces by leaders across the criminal justice reform movement: Danielle Sered of Common Justice describes successful programs for youth with violent offenses; Robin Steinberg of the Bronx Defenders argues for more resources for defense attorneys to diminish plea bargains; Kathy Boudin suggests changes to the parole model; Jeannie Little offers an alternative for mental health and drug addiction issues; and Eric Lotke offers models of new industries to replace the prison economy. Editor Ernest Drucker applies the tools of epidemiology to help us cure what he calls "a plague of prisons." Decarcerating America will be an indispensable roadmap as the movement to challenge incarceration in America gains critical mass—it shows us how to get people out of prisons, and the more appropriate responses to crime. The ideas presented in this volume are what we are fighting for when we fight against the New Jim Crow.

Mass Incarceration on Trial

Mass Incarceration on Trial PDF Author: Jonathan Simon
Publisher: New Press, The
ISBN: 1595587926
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
For nearly forty years the United States has been gripped by policies that have placed more than 2.5 million Americans in jails and prisons designed to hold a fraction of that number of inmates. Our prisons are not only vast and overcrowded, they are degrading—relying on racist gangs, lockdowns, and Supermax-style segregation units to maintain a tenuous order. 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. Simon argues that much like the school segregation cases of the last century, these new cases represent a major breakthrough in jurisprudence—moving us from a hollowed-out vision of civil rights to the threshold of human rights and giving court backing for the argument that, because the conditions it creates are fundamentally cruel and unusual, mass incarceration is inherently unconstitutional. Since the publication of Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow, states around the country have begun to question the fundamental fairness of our criminal justice system. This book offers a provocative and brilliant reading to the end of mass incarceration.

Smart Decarceration

Smart Decarceration PDF Author: Matthew Epperson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190653116
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Smart Decarceration is a forward-thinking, practical volume that provides innovative concepts and concrete strategies for ushering in an era of decarceration -- a proactive and effective undoing of the era of mass incarceration. The text grapples with tough questions and takes up the challenge of transforming America's approach to criminal justice in the 21st century. This timely work consists of chapters written from multiple perspectives and disciplines including advocates, researchers, academics, practitioners, and persons with incarceration histories who are now leaders in the movement. The primary purpose of this book is to inform both academic and public understanding -- to place the challenge of smart decarceration at the center of the current national discourse, taking into account the realities of the current sociopolitical context -- and to propose beginning action steps. This is achieved by first outlining and addressing questions such as: What if incarceration were not an option for most?; Whose voices are essential in this era of decarceration?; What is the state of evidence for solutions?; How do we generate and adopt empirically driven reforms?; How do we redefine and rethink justice in the United States? Smart Decarceration offers a way forward in building a field for decarceration through provocative but reasoned challenges to existing approaches to criminal justice reforms, lively focus on potential solutions, and action steps for reform.

Locked Down, Locked Out

Locked Down, Locked Out PDF Author: Maya Schenwar
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
ISBN: 1626562717
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
An analysis of the U.S. prison system through real-life stories, and a look at the complex work of community-based social justice projects. Through the stories of prisoners and their families, including her own family’s experiences, Maya Schenwar shows how the institution that locks up 2.3 million Americans and decimates poor communities of color is shredding the ties that, if nurtured, could foster real collective safety. As she vividly depicts here, incarceration takes away the very things that might enable people to build better lives. But looking toward a future beyond imprisonment, Schenwar profiles community-based initiatives that successfully deal with problems—both individual harm and larger social wrongs—through connection rather than isolation, moving toward a safer, freer future for all of us. “Maya Schenwar’s stories about prisoners, their families (including her own), and the thoroughly broken punishment system are rescued from any pessimism such narratives might inspire by the author’s brilliant juxtaposition of abolitionist imaginaries and radical political practices.” —Angela Y. Davis, author of Are Prisons Obsolete? “Locked Down, Locked Out paints a searing portrait of the real-life human toll of mass incarceration, both on prisoners and on their families, and—equally compellingly—provides hope that collectively we can create a more humane world freed of prisons. Read this deeply personal and political call to end the shameful inhumanity of our prison nation.” —Dorothy Roberts, author of Shattered Bonds and Killing the Black Body “This book has the power to transform hearts and minds, opening us to new ways of imagining what justice can mean for individuals, families, communities, and our nation as a whole. Maya Schenwar’s personal, openhearted sharing of her own family’s story, together with many other stories and real-world experiments with transformative justice, makes this book compelling, highly persuasive, and difficult to put down. I turned the last page feeling nothing less than inspired.” —Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow

Justice Restored

Justice Restored PDF Author: Howell W. Woltz
Publisher: Hybrid Global Publishing
ISBN: 9781938015472
Category : Correctional law
Languages : en
Pages : 147

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Book Description
Justice Restored is an expose, history lesson, and powerful call-to-action not only to reduce the number of people in prison, but to fix the underlying causes that stack a deeply corrupt criminal justice system against the very citizens it's meant to protect. Each of the book's ten chapters lays out one aspect of the system