The Society of Prisoners

The Society of Prisoners PDF Author: Renaud Morieux
Publisher:
ISBN: 019872358X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 442

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Book Description
Very little has been written of the history of prisoners of war before the twentieth century, and Renaud Morieux seeks to correct this in this new history of war captivity in the eighteenth century, mining archives in Britain and France to take a fresh look at international relations through the histories of prisoners and host communities.

The Society of Prisoners

The Society of Prisoners PDF Author: Renaud Morieux
Publisher:
ISBN: 019872358X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 442

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Book Description
Very little has been written of the history of prisoners of war before the twentieth century, and Renaud Morieux seeks to correct this in this new history of war captivity in the eighteenth century, mining archives in Britain and France to take a fresh look at international relations through the histories of prisoners and host communities.

The Society of Prisoners

The Society of Prisoners PDF Author: Renaud Morieux
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191035467
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 442

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Book Description
In the eighteenth century, as wars between Britain, France, and their allies raged across the world, hundreds of thousands of people were captured, detained, or exchanged. They were shipped across oceans, marched across continents, or held in an indeterminate limbo. The Society of Prisoners challenges us to rethink the paradoxes of the prisoner of war, defined at once as an enemy and as a fellow human being whose life must be spared. Renaud Morieux redefines how we understand the notion of what a prisoner of war was before international legal and social conventions were introduced - in the eighteenth century, the distinction between a prisoner of war, a hostage, a criminal, and a slave was not always clear-cut. Morieux then uses war captivity as a lens through which to observe the eighteenth-century state, how it transformed itself, and why it endured. In so doing, he invites the reader to trace the history of the prisoners via a journey between Britain, France, the West Indies, and St Helena.

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.

The Society of Captives

The Society of Captives PDF Author: Gresham M. Sykes
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400828279
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
The Society of Captives, first published in 1958, is a classic of modern criminology and one of the most important books ever written about prison. Gresham Sykes wrote the book at the height of the Cold War, motivated by the world's experience of fascism and communism to study the closest thing to a totalitarian system in American life: a maximum security prison. His analysis calls into question the extent to which prisons can succeed in their attempts to control every facet of life--or whether the strong bonds between prisoners make it impossible to run a prison without finding ways of "accommodating" the prisoners. Re-released now with a new introduction by Bruce Western and a new epilogue by the author, The Society of Captives will continue to serve as an indispensable text for coming to terms with the nature of modern power.

We Are Not Slaves

We Are Not Slaves PDF Author: Robert T. Chase
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469653583
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 543

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Book Description
Hank Lacayo Best Labor Themed Book, International Latino Book Awards Best Book Award, Division of Critical Criminology and Social Justice, American Society of Criminology In the early twentieth century, the brutality of southern prisons became a national scandal. Prisoners toiled in grueling, violent conditions while housed in crude dormitories on what were effectively slave plantations. This system persisted until the 1940s when, led by Texas, southern states adopted northern prison design reforms. Texas presented the reforms to the public as modern, efficient, and disciplined. Inside prisons, however, the transition to penitentiary cells only made the endemic violence more secretive, intensifying the labor division that privileged some prisoners with the power to accelerate state-orchestrated brutality and the internal sex trade. Reformers' efforts had only made things worse--now it was up to the prisoners to fight for change. Drawing from three decades of legal documents compiled by prisoners, Robert T. Chase narrates the struggle to change prison from within. Prisoners forged an alliance with the NAACP to contest the constitutionality of Texas prisons. Behind bars, a prisoner coalition of Chicano Movement and Black Power organizations publicized their deplorable conditions as "slaves of the state" and initiated a prison-made civil rights revolution and labor protest movement. These insurgents won epochal legal victories that declared conditions in many southern prisons to be cruel and unusual--but their movement was overwhelmed by the increasing militarization of the prison system and empowerment of white supremacist gangs that, together, declared war on prison organizers. Told from the vantage point of the prisoners themselves, this book weaves together untold but devastatingly important truths from the histories of labor, civil rights, and politics in the United States as it narrates the transition from prison plantations of the past to the mass incarceration of today.

Prisoners, Solitude, and Time

Prisoners, Solitude, and Time PDF Author: Ian O'Donnell
Publisher: Clarendon Studies in Criminolo
ISBN: 9780199684489
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Examining two overlapping aspects of the prison experience that, despite their central importance, have not attracted the scholarly attention they deserve, this book assesses both the degree to which prisoners can withstand the rigours of solitude and how they experience the passing of time. In particular, it looks at how they deal with the potentially overwhelming prospect of a long, or even indefinite, period behind bars. While the deleterious effects of penal isolation are well known, little systematic attention has been given to the factors associated with surviving, and even triumphing over, prolonged exposure to solitary confinement. Through a re-examination of the roles of silence and separation in penal policy, and by contrasting the prisoner experience with that of individuals who have sought out institutional solitariness (for example as members of certain religious orders), and others who have found themselves held in solitary confinement although they committed no crime (such as hostages and some political prisoners), Prisoners, Solitude, and Time seeks to assess the impact of long-term isolation and the rationality of such treatment. In doing so, it aims to stimulate interest in a somewhat neglected aspect of the prisoner's psychological world. The book focuses on an aspect of the prison experience - time, its meanderings, measures, and meanings - that is seldom considered by academic commentators. Building upon prisoner narratives, academic critiques, official publications, personal communications, field visits, administrative statistics, reports of campaigning bodies, and other data, it presents a new framework for understanding the prison experience. The author concludes with a series of reflections on hope, the search for meaning, posttraumatic growth, and the art of living.

Are Prisons Obsolete?

Are Prisons Obsolete? PDF Author: Angela Y. Davis
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
ISBN: 1609801040
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 100

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Book Description
With her characteristic brilliance, grace and radical audacity, Angela Y. Davis has put the case for the latest abolition movement in American life: the abolition of the prison. As she quite correctly notes, American life is replete with abolition movements, and when they were engaged in these struggles, their chances of success seemed almost unthinkable. For generations of Americans, the abolition of slavery was sheerest illusion. Similarly,the entrenched system of racial segregation seemed to last forever, and generations lived in the midst of the practice, with few predicting its passage from custom. The brutal, exploitative (dare one say lucrative?) convict-lease system that succeeded formal slavery reaped millions to southern jurisdictions (and untold miseries for tens of thousands of men, and women). Few predicted its passing from the American penal landscape. Davis expertly argues how social movements transformed these social, political and cultural institutions, and made such practices untenable. In Are Prisons Obsolete?, Professor Davis seeks to illustrate that the time for the prison is approaching an end. She argues forthrightly for "decarceration", and argues for the transformation of the society as a whole.

Prisoners of Politics

Prisoners of Politics PDF Author: Rachel Elise Barkow
Publisher: Belknap Press
ISBN: 0674919238
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
A CounterPunch Best Book of the Year A Lone Star Policy Institute Recommended Book “If you care, as I do, about disrupting the perverse politics of criminal justice, there is no better place to start than Prisoners of Politics.” —James Forman, Jr., author of Locking Up Our Own The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. The social consequences of this fact—recycling people who commit crimes through an overwhelmed system and creating a growing class of permanently criminalized citizens—are devastating. A leading criminal justice reformer who has successfully rewritten sentencing guidelines, Rachel Barkow argues that we would be safer, and have fewer people in prison, if we relied more on expertise and evidence and worried less about being “tough on crime.” A groundbreaking work that is transforming our national conversation on crime and punishment, Prisoners of Politics shows how problematic it is to base criminal justice policy on the whims of the electorate and argues for an overdue shift that could upend our prison problem and make America a more equitable society. “A critically important exploration of the political dynamics that have made us one of the most punitive societies in human history. A must-read by one of our most thoughtful scholars of crime and punishment.” —Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy “Barkow’s analysis suggests that it is not enough to slash police budgets if we want to ensure lasting reform. We also need to find ways to insulate the process from political winds.” —David Cole, New York Review of Books “A cogent and provocative argument about how to achieve true institutional reform and fix our broken system.” —Emily Bazelon, author of Charged

Prisioners in Prison Societies

Prisioners in Prison Societies PDF Author: Ulla Bondeson
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 1412831881
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Prisoners in Prison Societies is a study of criminal career patterns over time, demonstrating specifically how and in what ways imprisonment has a positive correlation with later recidivism. The book combines original research and a ten-year follow-up study of Swedish inmates, surveying their attitudes on everything from political ideology to prison reform. The work is much more than a survey of prisoner attitudes, however; it includes official statements and administrative staff assessments at the institutions examined. As a result, it is many sided and avoids the usual special pleading of criminological writings. Among its unique features, Prisoners in Prison Societies analyzes thirteen correctional institutions, ranging from training schools to youth and adult prisons as well as a preventative detention facility. These four types cover representative samples of male and female, young and old offenders. In individual and group interviews, conducted with a time interval,, the author finds that the from of incarceration is less significant in determining prisoner behavior than the fact of incarceration as such. Whether one looks at the data across variables or in longitudinal terms, the fact of criminalization rather than the foal of rehabilitation creates conditions of permanent incarceration. A leitmotif of the book is comparison of penal institutions and policies in the Unites States and Sweden, with and encyclopedic presentation of the sociological and criminological literature. From the American tradition Bondeson distinguishes between program research and sanction research. Her notion of prisonization, as a special form of socialization, derives from the work of scholars from Clemmer to Goffman, her work utilizes notions of informal social systems within formal systems, especially how the former preempt the latter. The interplay of hard and original research at the prison level, coupled with a sweeping command of the basic literature makes this book unique in contemporary criminology.

Inside Private Prisons

Inside Private Prisons PDF Author: Lauren-Brooke Eisen
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231542313
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 476

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Book Description
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.