Essays of a Penitentiary Philosopher

Essays of a Penitentiary Philosopher PDF Author: Phillip Torsrud
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595485189
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
If you want to know why our nation's leaders have failed to solve America's crime problem, these essays expose a number of areas where either not enough thought is being given, or the thinking is just wrong. While crime dominates America's media and political scene, there is very little intelligent insight on the topic coming from those who would know most about it, criminals. These essays change that. The essays begin by addressing crime as part of a larger social fabric that cannot be fixed by the simple passing of a few more laws. After focusing on the big picture, the essays become more specific, examining different ways to make a more efficient and effective legal system. In part two, these essays expand to address a number of other social issues like the war in Iraq, labor issues, health care and the environment. The reader is forced to continuously re-examine their beliefs. Torsrud strips down problems to their core, creating arguments that are insightful, hard to challenge, and at times even humorous.

Essays of a Penitentiary Philosopher

Essays of a Penitentiary Philosopher PDF Author: Phillip Torsrud
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595485189
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 136

Get Book Here

Book Description
If you want to know why our nation's leaders have failed to solve America's crime problem, these essays expose a number of areas where either not enough thought is being given, or the thinking is just wrong. While crime dominates America's media and political scene, there is very little intelligent insight on the topic coming from those who would know most about it, criminals. These essays change that. The essays begin by addressing crime as part of a larger social fabric that cannot be fixed by the simple passing of a few more laws. After focusing on the big picture, the essays become more specific, examining different ways to make a more efficient and effective legal system. In part two, these essays expand to address a number of other social issues like the war in Iraq, labor issues, health care and the environment. The reader is forced to continuously re-examine their beliefs. Torsrud strips down problems to their core, creating arguments that are insightful, hard to challenge, and at times even humorous.

The Life Inside

The Life Inside PDF Author: Andy West
Publisher: Picador
ISBN: 9781529032024
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
An Irish Times and The i Book of 2022'Tense and intimate . . . an education' - Geoff Dyer'Enriching, sobering and at times heartrending. A wonder' - Sir Lenny Henry'Authentic, fascinating and deeply moving' - Terry Waite__________Can someone in prison be more free than someone outside? Would we ever be good if we never felt shame? What makes a person worthy of forgiveness?Andy West teaches philosophy in prisons. Every day he has conversations with people inside about their lives, discusses their ideas and feelings, and listens as they explore new ways to think about their situation.When Andy steps into a prison, he also confronts his inherited shame: his father, uncle and brother all spent time behind bars. While Andy has built a different life for himself, he still fears that their fate will also be his. As he discusses pressing questions of truth, identity and hope with his students, he searches for his own form of freedom too.Moving, sympathetic, wise and frequently funny, The Life Inside is an elegantly written and unforgettable memoir. Through a blend of storytelling and gentle philosophical questioning, it offers a new insight into our stretched justice system, our failing prisons and the complex lives being lived inside.__________'Inspiring' - The Observer'Strives with humour and compassion to understand the phenomenon of prison' - Sydney Review of Books'Expands both heart and mind' - Ciaran Thapar'A fascinating and enlightening journey . . . A legitimate page-turner' - 3AM

The Panopticon Writings

The Panopticon Writings PDF Author: Jeremy Bentham
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1789600138
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
The Panopticon project for a model prison obsessed the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham for almost 20 years. In the end, the project came to nothing; the Panopticon was never built. But it is precisely this that makes the Panopticon project the best exemplification of Bentham's own theory of fictions, according to which non-existent fictitious entities can have all too real effects. There is probably no building that has stirred more philosophical controversy than Bentham's Panopticon. The Panopticon is not merely, as Foucault thought, "a cruel, ingenious cage", in which subjects collaborate in their own subjection, but much more-constructing the Panopticon produces not only a prison, but also a god within it. The Panopticon is a machine which on assembly is already inhabited by a ghost. It is through the Panopticon and the closely related theory of fictions that Bentham has made his greatest impact on modern thought; above all, on the theory of power. The Panopticon writings are frequently cited, rarely read. This edition contains the complete "Panopticon Letters", together with selections from "Panopticon Postscript I" and "Fragment on Ontology", Bentham's fullest account of fictions. A comprehensive introduction by Miran Bozovic explores the place of Panopticon in contemporary theoretical debate.

The Panopticon

The Panopticon PDF Author: Jenni Fagan
Publisher: Hogarth
ISBN: 0385347952
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
Named one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists Anais Hendricks, fifteen, is in the back of a police car. She is headed for the Panopticon, a home for chronic young offenders. She can't remember what’s happened, but across town a policewoman lies in a coma and Anais is covered in blood. Raised in foster care from birth and moved through twenty-three placements before she even turned seven, Anais has been let down by just about every adult she has ever met. Now a counterculture outlaw, she knows that she can only rely on herself. And yet despite the parade of horrors visited upon her early life, she greets the world with the witty, fierce insight of a survivor. Anais finds a sense of belonging among the residents of the Panopticon—they form intense bonds, and she soon becomes part of an ad-hoc family. Together, they struggle against the adults that keep them confined. But when she looks up at the watchtower that looms over the residents, Anais realizes her fate: She is an anonymous part of an experiment, and she always was. Now it seems that the experiment is closing in. Now with Extra Libris material, including a reader’s guide and bonus content

Discipline and Punish

Discipline and Punish PDF Author: Michel Foucault
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307819299
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
A brilliant work from the most influential philosopher since Sartre. In this indispensable work, a brilliant thinker suggests that such vaunted reforms as the abolition of torture and the emergence of the modern penitentiary have merely shifted the focus of punishment from the prisoner's body to his soul.

An Essay on Crimes and Punishments

An Essay on Crimes and Punishments PDF Author: Cesare Beccaria
Publisher: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.
ISBN: 1584776382
Category : Criminal justice, Administration of
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
Reprint of the fourth edition, which contains an additional text attributed to Voltaire. Originally published anonymously in 1764, Dei Delitti e Delle Pene was the first systematic study of the principles of crime and punishment. Infused with the spirit of the Enlightenment, its advocacy of crime prevention and the abolition of torture and capital punishment marked a significant advance in criminological thought, which had changed little since the Middle Ages. It had a profound influence on the development of criminal law in Europe and the United States.

America Unraveled

America Unraveled PDF Author: Phillip Torsrud
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 147594960X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
Most Americans are concerned about their politicians' inability to identify, much less solve their nation's problems. America Unraveled explores a number of America's most pressing social issues, the economy, justice system, culture, and many historical events occurring between 2008 and 2012. Incompetence is attacked in a bipartisan manner with the author's loyalty going to truth, common sense, and logic. Why should any American have allegiance to Democrats or Republicans when they seem so preoccupied with serving the private interests of their big money supporters. If you are looking for real constructive criticism, this book is for you. Phillip Torsrud has also written Preemptive Strike which is a novel on human trafficking, and Essays of a Penitentiary Philosopher which explores the structural failings of America's Justice system. While many of the topics addressed in America Unraveled are complicated, the simple and direct style of writing makes the reading not only easy, but enjoyable.

The Biopolitics of Punishment

The Biopolitics of Punishment PDF Author: Rick Elmore
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 0810144891
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
This volume marks a new chapter in the long-standing debate between Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault regarding argumentative methods and their political implications. The essays chart the undertheorized dialogue between the two philosophers on questions of life, death, punishment, and power—an untapped point of departure from which we might continue to read the convergence and divergence of their work. What possibilities for political resistance might this dialogue uncover? And how might they relate to contemporary political crises? With the resurgence of fascism and authoritarianism across the globe, the rise of white supremacist and xenophobic violence, and the continued brutality of state-sanctioned and extrajudicial killings by police, border patrols, and ordinary citizens, there is a pressing need to critically analyze our political present. These essays bring to bear the critical force of Derrida’s and Foucault’s biopolitical thought to practices of mass incarceration, the death penalty, life without parole, immigration and detention, racism and police violence, transphobia, human and animal relations, and the legacies of colonization. At the heart of their biopolitics, the volume shows, lies the desire to deconstruct and resist in the name of a future that is more just and less policed. It is this impulse that makes reading their work together, at this moment, both crucial and worthwhile.

Power/Knowledge

Power/Knowledge PDF Author: Michel Foucault
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 039473954X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Michel Foucault has become famous for a series of books that have permanently altered our understanding of many institutions of Western society. He analyzed mental institutions in the remarkable Madness and Civilization; hospitals in The Birth of the Clinic; prisons in Discipline and Punish; and schools and families in The History of Sexuality. But the general reader as well as the specialist is apt to miss the consistent purposes that lay behind these difficult individual studies, thus losing sight of the broad social vision and political aims that unified them. Now, in this superb set of essays and interviews, Foucault has provided a much-needed guide to Foucault. These pieces, ranging over the entire spectrum of his concerns, enabled Foucault, in his most intimate and accessible voice, to interpret the conclusions of his research in each area and to demonstrate the contribution of each to the magnificent -- and terrifying -- portrait of society that he was patiently compiling. For, as Foucault shows, what he was always describing was the nature of power in society; not the conventional treatment of power that concentrates on powerful individuals and repressive institutions, but the much more pervasive and insidious mechanisms by which power "reaches into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes and everyday lives" Foucault's investigations of prisons, schools, barracks, hospitals, factories, cities, lodgings, families, and other organized forms of social life are each a segment of one of the most astonishing intellectual enterprises of all time -- and, as this book proves, one which possesses profound implications for understanding the social control of our bodies and our minds.

Solitary

Solitary PDF Author: Albert Woodfox
Publisher: Grove Press
ISBN: 0802146902
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 481

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Book Description
“An uncommonly powerful memoir about four decades in confinement . . . A profound book about friendship [and] solitary confinement in the United States.” —New York Times Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award Solitary is the unforgettable life story of a man who served more than four decades in solitary confinement—in a 6-foot by 9-foot cell, twenty-three hours a day, in Louisiana’s notorious Angola prison—all for a crime he did not commit. That Albert Woodfox survived at all was a feat of extraordinary endurance. That he emerged whole from his odyssey within America’s prison and judicial systems is a triumph of the human spirit. While behind bars in his early twenties, Albert was inspired to join the Black Panther Party because of its social commitment and code of living. He was serving a fifty-year sentence in Angola for armed robbery when, on April 17, 1972, a white guard was killed. Albert and another member of the Panthers were accused of the crime and immediately put in solitary confinement. Without a shred of evidence against them, their trial was a sham of justice. Decades passed before Albert was finally released in February 2016. Sustained by the solidarity of two fellow Panthers, Albert turned his anger into activism and resistance. The Angola 3, as they became known, resolved never to be broken by the corruption that effectively held them for decades as political prisoners. Solitary is a clarion call to reform the inhumanity of solitary confinement in the United States and around the world.