Angela Y. Davis, August 5, 2003

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.

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Tara Herivel, Paul Wright (Editors); May 5, 2009

In Prison Profiteers, co-editors Tara Herivel and Paul Wright “follow the money to an astonishing constellation of prison administrators and politicians working in collusion with private parties to maximize profits” (Publishers Weekly). From investment banks, guard unions, and the makers of Taser stun guns to health care providers, telephone companies, and the U.S. military (which relies heavily on prison labor), this network of perversely motivated interests has turned the imprisonment of one out of every 135 Americans into a lucrative business.

Called “an essential read for anyone who wants to understand what’s gone wrong with criminal justice in the United States” by ACLU National Prison Project director Elizabeth Alexander, this incisive and deftly researched volume shows how billions of tax dollars designated for the public good end up lining the pockets of those private enterprises dedicated to keeping prisons packed.

“An important analysis of a troubling social trend” (Booklist) that is sure to inform and outrage any concerned citizen, Prison Profiteers reframes the conversation by exposing those who stand to profit from the imprisonment of millions of Americans.

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Demico Boothe, February 1, 2007

African-American males are being imprisoned at an alarming and unprecedented rate. Out of the more than 11 million black adult males in the U.S. population, nearly 1.5 million are in prisons and jails with another 3.5 million more on probation or parole or who have previously been on probation or parole. Black males make up the majority of the total prison population, and due to either present or past incarceration is the most socially disenfranchised group of American citizens in the country today. This book, which was penned by Demico Boothe while he was still incarcerated, details the author’s personal story of a negligent upbringing in an impoverished community, his subsequent engagement in criminal activity (drug dealing), his incarceration, and his release from prison and experiencing of the crippling social disenfranchisement that comes with being an ex-felon. The author then relates his personal experiences and realizations to the seminal problems within the African-American community, federal government, and criminal justice system that cause his own experiences to be the same experiences of millions of other young black men. This book focuses on the totality of how and why the U.S. prison system became the largest prison system in the world, and is filled with relevant statistical and historical references and controversial facts and quotes from notable persons and sources.

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The United States has more people locked away in prison per capita than any other country. Prison building is a multi-billion-dollar industry, and in some states more money is spent on prisons and prisoners than on education. Nearly one quarter of all prison inmates worldwide are housed in U.S. jails or penitentiaries, even though the United States has only five percent of the world’s population. Yet, in spite of the vast amount of resources spent on locking people up and the number of people in prison, the United States leads the developed world in the number of homicides and violent assaults.

For the last eighteen years, Jens Soering has experienced the inside of many different prison environments, from a youth remand center in London to America’s notorious Supermax prisons, to medium-security institutions. What he has seen and experienced has convinced him that not only do prisons not rehabilitate prisoners who may be useful for society once their sentence has ended, but prisons turn petty criminals into hardened convicts—all at enormous expense to society. Meanwhile, other nations control their crime rates at a fraction of the cost of the United States correctional system.

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