Prisons in America

"These essays treat the legal, financial, ethical, political, institutional, and social dimensions of the most important element of America's correctional crisis: prison overcrowding. The collection may become a standard work in the field, especially for those who question the feasibility and wisdom of building more prisons. The need for rational policy-making that links prison sentences with available prison space comes through clearly and forcefully. Chapters by well-known authorities describe the extent of overcrowding in prisons and jails, review current law regarding the constituitonality of overcrowded prison facilities, and summarize research on causes and consequences. . . . Highly recommended." Choice

Prison building creates profits and gets "law and order" candidates elected, often with political contributions that came from those profits. But, Professor Davey argues, crime rates rise and fall approximately the same way in all fifty states regardless of whether they invest in expensive imprisonment programs. A cost-benefit analysis of recent investments in prisons concludes that the real winners are not the taxpayers.

In the last 15 years, the prison population in the U.S. increased by more than 188 percent. The increase has been fueled largely by increases in the number of individuals convicted of drug-related offenses. These offenders constitute a disproportionate number of recidivists who, in turn, are responsible for a relatively large proportion of criminal activity in our society. The vast majority of these offenders were arrested for committing violent crimes, and most of the offenders are poor, unemployed, uneducated, come from dysfunctional families, and are African-American. Contrary to public opinion, many of these offenders are tired of their "revolving door" relationship with the police, courts, and correctional institutions. However, without appropriate social and therapeutic support, there is little hope of altering their behavior. This volume seeks to address specific issues relevant to prisons in America and includes contributions by practitioners in the field of prison-based drug treatment and therapy programs. The work is an important contribution to the literature examining the extent to which rehabilitation (i.e., prison-based drug treatment programs) has effectively reduced recidivism, drug relapse, and violent crime in our society.

This critical perspective on prison education is a marked departure from a literature dominated by descriptions of the criminal mind and correctional education strategies to cure it. Davidson's contributors are prisoners or former prisoners who finished their schooling in prison, some taking advanced degrees, or social scientists who taught in prisons but are not professional correctional educators. Conventionally, prison education is about correcting cognitive deficiencies and improving job opportunities. Here the issues are schooling as surveillance, as politics, and as a means to reconstruct a historical consciousness that remembers personal histories. The essays examine prison schools as they originated and developed, identify processes of differentiation and segregation, expose contradictions, and recount occurrences of prison resistance. There are chapters on prison education as critical pedagogy, literacy and higher education, women prisoners and education, and the irony that most prisoners believe in the American Dream while often being victims of socioeconomic inequity.

Penologists, social services administrators, and students of criminal justice as well as of Indian studies will welcome this groundbreaking study, the product of close observation of and direct involvement on behalf of Indians in the Nebraska state penal system. Opening with a group profile, it discusses in detail the special concerns of that population: cultural and spiritual activities (Indians incarcerated in Nebraska were among the first to seek court permission to practice their religion behind bars), the seriously underestimated rates of alcoholism and drug addiction and the need for culturally appropriate treatment, and high rates of recidivism and their effect on parole. The final chapters present comparative data on Indians incarcerated in other states and offer recommendations for dealing with recurrent problems. Indians in Prison is particularly timely for its focus on how the social environments of Indian youth contribute to their delinquency and substance abuse and how Indians in prison perceive rehabilitation strategies, parole, and the law.