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Explaining U.S. Imprisonment
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Explaining U.S. Imprisonment



July 2009 | 304 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc

Explaining U.S. Imprisonment examines women in prison, minorities, the historical path to the modern prison, a wide range of contemporary issues, and social influences on prison reform. While focusing on prisons, this one-of-a-kind book is written within the context of the sociology of punishment and covers cutting-edge topics such as detaining immigrants, the War on Terror, and prison in the 21st century.

Features

  • Uses a historical and social framework to place U.S. corrections and imprisonment policies in context
  • Includes first-hand accounts from inmates, as well as primary source documents written by early prison reformers
  • Integrates research on women, men, and minorities throughout, rather than separating each topic into a stand-alone chapter
  • Begins chapters with thought-provoking quotes to set the stage for the content that follows

Explaining U.S. Imprisonment is ideal for use as a supplementary text in undergraduate and graduate courses on corrections, imprisonment, and theories of punishment. It is also appropriate for use in courses on criminal justice, incarceration, minority issues in law, sociology of law, and the study of the modern prison system.


 
INTRODUCTION
 
1: THE ORIGINS OF U.S. IMPRISONMENT: BEYOND THE PENITENTIARY
Colonial Justice

 
The War of Independence (1775-1783)

 
Prisons, Slavery and the Antebellum South

 
Religious Reform in the North

 
The Civil War

 
Reconstruction

 
Women’s Prison

 
Debating Imprisonment

 
Conclusion

 
 
2: PENAL REFORM AND PRISON SCIENCE: ENGINEERING ORDER AND BUILDING AMERICA
Penal Reformism: The National Prison Association

 
‘Prison Science’: Reformism and Social Engineering

 
The First World War: Conscientious Objectors and Prison

 
The Federal Bureau of Prisons

 
The Depression: Prisons, Labour and Social Structure

 
World War II: Questions of National Security

 
Women’s Reformatories

 
Reform, Science and Nation-Building

 
Conclusion

 
 
3: PRISON CULTURE: SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL CHANGE
The Prison Community

 
Importation vs. Deprivation

 
Gender

 
Race

 
Sexuality

 
Research Methods, Governance and Social Control

 
Conclusion: Contextualizing Sociological Accounts of Imprisonment

 
 
4: AN ERA OF UNCERTAINTY: RIOTS, REFORM AND REPRESSION
Attica

 
Activism Before and After Attica

 
The Administration of Justice

 
The Demise of Rehabilitation

 
Penal Revisionism and Prisoners’ Rights: Theory v. Practice

 
Conclusion

 
 
5: THE PUNITIVE TURN: LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS FOR MASS IMPRISONMENT
The Reagan Years

 
Legislating Punishment

 
Private Prisons

 
Prison Building and Supermax

 
Challenging Imprisonment in an Era of Punitivism

 
Conclusion

 
 
6: A CULTURE OF CONTROL
Prisons and Politics in the 1990s

 
Punishment and Modern Society: Explaining the Culture of Control

 
Neo-conservatives, the Culture Wars and Prison

 
Managing Prisons

 
Experiencing Incarceration and Challenging the Culture of Control

 
Conclusion

 
 
7: CHALLENGING THE CULTURE OF CONTROL?
Prisons in the Twenty-first Century

 
The Costs of Imprisonment: An Emerging Critique

 
Prison Conditions and Public Safety

 
The Courts: An Alternative Source of Critique

 
Hurricane Katrina

 
Governing Through Crime

 
Opening the Prison: Convict Voices

 
Conclusion: Governing Through Imprisonment?

 
 
8: THE NEW DETENTION: SECURING THE BORDER
Context

 
The Law

 
Detaining Immigrants

 
The War on Terror

 
Scholarly Accounts of the War on Terror: A Failure of the Criminological Imagination?

 
Conclusion

 
 
CONCLUSION

good overview for advanced penology course

Professor Martin Horn
Law Police Science Dept, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
October 22, 2010

Fits my needs as well as an afordable package with the second book.

Professor Patrick Faiella
Public Service Social Sci Div, Massasoit Community College - Brockton
October 20, 2010

Sage College Publishing

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