Incarceration

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Below are groups and resources (books, articles, websites, etc.) related to this topic. Click on an item’s title to go its resource page with author, publisher, description/abstract and other details, a link to the full text if available, as well as links to related topics in the Subject Index. You can also browse the Title, Author, Subject, Chronological, Dewey, LoC, and Format indexes, or use the Search box.
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Connexions Library

Addiction and Control
Skorodin, Morton
Article
2009
Prisons are very profitable. There are private prisons nowadays. The people that own them have, as their mission, first and foremost, the making of money. They need as many people as possible in priso...
American Methods: Torture and the Logic of Domination
Williams, Kristian
Book
2006
A damning audit of the US record in underwriting human rights violations around the globe and at home, and about the centrality of rape, racism, and conquest to both the state and US national culture.
Barred from Prison
Culhane, Claire
Article
1979
An account of what occured inside the B.C. Penitentiary during a prison uprising in September 1976.
Bradley Manning, Solitary Confinement and Selective Outrage: What about the Others?
Casella, Jean; Ridgeway, James
Article
2011
Calls attention to the widespread use of solitary confinement with Bradley Manning as a specific example.
Bradley Manning's Torture Commonplace In U.S. Prisons
Ross, Sherwood
Article
2011
The corrosive, solitary confinement being inflicted upon PFC Bradley Manning in the Quantico, Va., brig is no exceptional torture devised exclusively for him. Across the length and breadth of the Grea...
Crime and Punishment in America: Why the Solutions to America's Most Stubborn Social Crisis Have Not Worked... and What Will
Currie, Elliott
Book
1998
Currie explores why being 'tough on crime' will only serve to exacerbate the problem.
Deaths in Custody and Detention: Volume 33, No. 4 (2006) of Social Justice: A Journal of Crime, Conflict, and World Order
Serial Publication (Periodical)
2006
A special issue on the investigation of, and inquiry into, deaths in custody and detention (including state hospitals and mental health, police and prison custody, and young offenders' institutions). ...
Dillon, Read & Co. Inc. and the Aristocracy of Prison Profits: Six-part article
Fitts, Catherine Austin
Article
2006
Inside the Financial World, Government Agencies and their Private Contractors Lies a Hidden System of Money Laundering, Drug Trafficking and Rigged Stock Market Riches.
The English Government and the Fenian Prisoners
Marx, Karl
Article
1870
On the treatment of Fenian prisoners.
Forced Passages: Imprisoned Radical Intellectuals and the U.S. Prison Regime
Rodriguez, Dylan
Book
2005
The dramatic rise and consolidation of America's prison system has devastated lives and communities, but it has also transformed prisons into sites of political discourse and resistance, as they have ...
The Fortress Economy: The Economic Role of the U. S. Prison System
Lichtenstein, Alexander C.; Kroll, Michael A.
Book
1990
The economic role of the US Prison System examined.
History is a Weapon: Lockdown America in 22 Minutes
Parenti, Christian
Audio
2001
A talk by Christian Parenti, author of Lockdown America: Police And Prisons in the Age of Crisis, about the thirty year explosion in prisons in the United States, at the Stop The ACA(American Correcti...
How Private Prisons Profit From the Criminalization of Immigrants: Lobbying for Lock-Up
Carlsen, Laura
Article
2012
How a nation uses its power to deny a person’s freedom has always been a critical measure of authoritarian rule. Massive incarceration based on race, ethnic origin or nationality, political beliefs, c...
I Am Barack Obama's Political Prisoner Now: The Denial of My Parole
Peltier, Leonard
Article
2009
Given the complexion of the three recent federal parolees, it might seem that my greatest crime was being Indian. But the truth is that my gravest offense is my innocence.
Imprisoned Intellectuals: America's Political Prisoners Write on Life, Liberation, and Rebellion
James, Joy (ed.)
Book
2003
Anthology of writings by imprisoned intellectuals.
Incarcerated Inside Israel: Palestinians Tortured and Isolated
Peebles, Graham
Article
2012
Detention without trial, the presumption of guilt, denial of family visits, solitary confinement, torture, violent interrogation, and denial of access to appropriate health care, such is the Israeli j...
An Interview With Noam Chomsky on Obama's Human Rights Record: Nothing Can Justify Torture
Bailey, Eric
Article
2012
America's human rights record under the administration of President Obama and the military intervention policies that have seen increased use during the Arab Spring.
Intractable: Hell Has a Name: Life Inside Australia's First Super-Max Prison
Matthews, Bernie
Book
2006
A firsthand account spanning two generations of high-security confinement in the 1970s NSW Australian prison system.
Jails for Jesus
Shapiro, Samantha M.
Article
2003
President Bush wants faith-based programs to take over social services. But what happens when evangelical Christians try their hand at running prisons?
The Jericho `98 March: Amnesty and Freedom for All Political Prisoners
Bloom, Steve
Article
1998
Pushing for justice and freedom for political prisoners in the United States.
Justice Behind the Walls: Human Rights in Canadian Prisons
Jackson, Michael
Book
2003
An account of the state of justice in Canadian prisons, weaving together the threads of correctional history, penal philosophy, landmark court decisions, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and legisl...
Live From Death Row
Abu-Jamal, Mumia
Book
1995
A collection of prison writing by Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was sentenced to death in 1982 for the murder of a police officer after a dubious trial.
Lock 'Em Up: The Prison State
Yates, Michael
Article
2010
Without a doubt, most of those enmeshed in the (in)justice system are not dangers to society and would not have been in it at all in a society that wasn't so racist and so shot through with every kind...
Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis
Parenti, Christian
Book
1999
Why is criminal justice so central to American politics? Lockdown America not only documents the horrors and absurdities of militarized policing, prisons, a fortified border, and the federalization of...
Make the Don a Museum of Horrors
Diemer, Ulli
Article
1977
A museum depicting what prison is really like might motivate us to demand radical changes to the way we deal with offenders.
Mass Incarceration and Black Oppression in America: The New Jim Crow and Liberal Reformism
Article
2012
The singular focus on mass incarceration as the embodiment of racial oppression has a purpose: it poses the fight for black freedom as a matter of "dismantling" that system, much as the civil rights m...
Maximum, Minimum, Medium: A Journey Through Canadian Prisons
Melnitzer, Julius
Book
1995
Serving a nine-year sentence, Melnitzer documented his experience in three different prisons, along with his own introspections.
Memoirs from the Women's Prison
Saadawi, Nawal el
Book
1994
Nawal El Saadawi was imprisoned in 1981 by Anwar Sadat for alleged "crimes against the State." She offers both firsthand witness to women's resistance to state violence and insights into the formation...
Men in Prison
Serge, Victor
Book
1931
Victor Serge's novel based on his own experiences as a politcal prisoner.
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Alexander, Michelle
Book
2010
Argues that Jim Crow and legal racial segregation have been replaced by mass race-based incarceration as a system of social control.
The New Jim Crow: A talk
Alexander, Michelle
Article
2010
Nothing short of a broad-based social movement can address this problem. Such a movement has to be multi-racial: Latinos and women, especially women of color, are the fastest growing segment of the pr...
A New Way of Life and the New Underground Railroad: Making a Break for Freedom During the Era of Mass Incarceration
Moore-Backman, Chris
Article
2014
This radio documentary is the third segment in Truthout's serialization of Chris Moore-Backman's Bringing Down the New Jim Crow based on Michelle Alexander's book of the same name. The series explores...
No Longer Barred From Prison
Culhane, Claire
Book
1991
An account of one individual's determined efforts to get inside prisons to see what is actually happening there. As her story makes clear, the penal system cannot tolerate such close scrutiny: she her...
Obama and the Boy in the Metal Box: The Incarceration of John Walker Lindh
Teitelman, Michael
Article
2010
Clemency for John Walker Lindh would open up to public scrutiny an outrageous injustice that high officials in the Bush administration deliberately perpetrated on an American citizen after the 9/11 at...
Obama's Liberty Problem: Why Indefinite Detention By Executive Order Should Scare the Hell Out of People
Quigley, Bill; Warren, Vince
Article
2010
The proposal to create a special new legal system by Executive Order will threaten the liberty of every single US citizen who is not in Guantanamo because it will damage the due process guarantees wh...
One Thousand Years of Solitude: Life in the SHU
Mariner, Joanne
Article
2012
Indefinite solitary confinement: a large-scale experiment in sensory deprivation and social isolation.
The Oxford History of the Prison: The Practice of Punishment in Western Society
Morris, Norval; Rothman, David J. (eds.)
Book
1997
Thematic chapters explore a variety of aspects and institutions.
The Persecution of Pvt. Bradley Manning: A Sick Game
Lindorff, Dave
Article
2011
The torture and prolonged confinement without trial of Pvt. Manning are the tactics of a totalitarian state. They are exactly what is done in countries like China, Iran, and Burma.
The Prison-Industrial Complex
Schlosser, Eric
Article
1998
Correctional officials see danger in prison overcrowding. Others see opportunity. The nearly two million Americans behind bars "the majority of them nonviolent offenders" mean jobs for depressed regio...
Prison Labor: Workin' For The Man: Article in Covert Action Quarterly #54, Fall 1995
Erlich, Reese
Article
1995
Article analysing the roots of prison labour in America.
Prison Nation: The Warehousing of America's Poor
Herivel, Tara; Wright, Paul
Book
2002
Essays on the cruelty and inhumanity of the American prison system.
Prisoners' Rights Group
Culhane, Claire
Article
1978
Prisons: A Social Crime and Failure
Goldman, Emma
Article
1917
The methods of coping with crime have no doubt undergone several changes, but mainly in a theoretic sense. In practice, society has retained the primitive motive in dealing with the offender; that is,...
Prisons in Canada
Gosselin, Luc
Book
1996
Gosselin provides a political and historical view of the prison system and its inherent contradictions. He argues that the penal system is used by the State to maintain its authority. He remarks on co...
Race, Incarceration, and American Values
Loury, Glenn C., with Pamela Karlan, Tommie Shelby and Loïc Wacquant
Book
2008
Glenn Loury argues that the extraordinary mass incarceration rate in the USA is not a response to rising crime rates. Instead, it is the product of a decision to become a more punitive society. He con...
Rampant Racism in the Criminal Justice System
Quigley, Bill
Article
2010
The biggest crime in the U.S. criminal justice system is that it is a race-based institution where African-Americans are directly targeted and punished in a much more aggressive way than white people.
The Real War on Crime: The Report of the National Criminal Justice Commission
Donziger, Steven R.
Book
1996
A thorough examination of the American criminal justice system.
The Rise and Fall of California's Radical Prison Movement
Cummins, Eric
Book
1994
A history of California's prison movement from 1950 to 1980, highlighting the role prison reading and writing played in the creation of radical inmate ideology.
The Shocking Ways the Corporate Prison Industry Games the System
Khalek, Rania
Article
2011
The United States, with just 5 percent of the world’s population, currently holds 25 percent of the world's prisoners, and for the last 30 years America’s business entrepreneurs have found a lucrative...
Solitary Confinement FAQ
Rodriguez, Sal
Article
2012
Solitary confinement is the practice of isolating inmates in closed cells for 22-24 hours a day, virtually free of human contact, for periods of time ranging from days to decades.
Statement of Claire Culhane, Provincial Court, New Westminster, B.C.
Article
1977
This is a statement by Claire Culhane in provincial court where she pleaded not guilty to a charge of trespassing on penitentiary land.
Submission to the Sub-Committee on the Penitentiary Systems In Canada Hearings
Article
1977
A list of recommendations on how to fix certain issues in the prison system.
Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire
Perkinson, Robert
Book
2010
A history of imprisonment, race, and politics from slavery to the present, with an emphasis on Texas, the most locked-down state in the USA.
The Unbelievable Inhumanity of Solitary Confinement And Punishment for as Little as Reading a Book
Gottesdiener, Laura
Article
2012
The majority of those in solitary confinement were given the punishment for nonviolent, low-level offenses such as having unauthorized books or disobeying an order or growing their mustaches too long.
Unlocking Uncle Sam's House of Horrors: Smashing Plato's Cave
Neville, Richard
Article
2011
The effects of Wikileaks in showing the public what is really happening.
Unruly Women: The Politics of Confinement and Resistance
Faith, Karlene
Book
1994
Investigates the ways in which women who transgress the social order are disciplined, punished, silenced and confined. Covers material from the witch hunts to contemporary discriminatory treatment of ...
US Justice on Trial: Why Cameron Should Tell Obama to Get Stuffed
Rodley, Yvone
Article
2011
The US justice system and extradition treaty.
The Violence of Incarceration
Scraton, Phil; McCulloch, Mude (eds.)
Book
2008
Argues that the revelations of extreme brutality perpetrated by allied soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo represent the inevitable end-product of domestic incarceration predicated on the us...
When the Prisoners Ran Walpole: A true story in the movement for prison abolition
Bissonette, Jamie
Book
2008
In the months before they took over running the Walople maximum-security facility in 1973, prisoners and outside advocates created programs that sent more prisoners home for good. This account reveals...
Why is Leonard Peltier Still in Prison? : Justice is 33 Years Overdue for America's Most Famous Political Prisoner
Bollinger, Michelle
Article
2009
Leonard Pletier is a political prisoner who has spent more than 33 years in U.S. prisons for a crime he didn't commit.
Writers in Prison
Davies, Ioan
Book
1990
An analysis of the work of imprisoned writers.
Yemenis Have Moms Too: Michelle Obama, Open Your Heart
Evans, Jodie ;Davis, Charles
Article
2013
Abdurahman al-Shubati disappeared more than a decade ago, just 18-years-old and teaching abroad, separated from his family for the first time in life. Join us in calling on Michelle Obama to open her...

Connexions Directory of Groups & Websites

Journal of Prisoners on Prisons
The Journal of Prisoners on Prisons (JPP) is a prisoner written, academically oriented and peer reviewed, non-profit journal, based on the tradition of the penal press. It brings the knowledge produce...

Sources Library

Tunisian journalist in desert prison could die from untreated asthma attacks
Sources News Release
2010
Tunisian journalist Fahem Boukadous has been in extremely poor health since police arrested him on 15 July to begin serving a four-year jail sentence for covering protests in the Gafsa mining region o...
Uyghur journalist and website editor sentenced to fifteen years in jail
Sources News Release
2010
Reporters Without Borders said it was outraged at the harshness of a 15-year prison sentence handed down to journalist Gheyret Niyaz by a court in Urumqi, in Xinjiang province, China.

From the Connexions Archives

Bulldozer
Periodical profile published 1982
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1982
Intended as a vehicle for prison reform, Bulldozer publishes letters, poems and articles by and about prisoners in North American maximum security institutions.
Bulldozer
Periodical profile published 1984
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1984
The Journal of Prisoners on Prisons
Periodical profile published 1989
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1989
Odyssey
Periodical profile published 1983
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1983
Odyssey Newsletter
Periodical profile published 1982
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1982
The Odyssey Newsletter is published by a group of long term prisoners who "feel that prisons and the justice system in Canada must be changed through non-violent means."
Odyssey Newsletter
Periodical profile published 1984
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1984
Odyssey Newsletter
Periodical profile published 1981
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1981
This newsletter is published by "a group of prisoners who feel that prisons and the justice system in Canada can be changed by non-violent means."
Rap About Prisoners
Periodical profile published 1976
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1976
Representing people both inside and outside the prison system.
Toronto Native Times
Periodical profile published 1980
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1980
Covers a wide range of Native issues.