Abstract
Abstract: By 2009, more than 2 million Americans were in prison and an additional 5 million were in jail, on probation, or on parole. Statistics such as these have resulted in a general unease with the way that the United States punishes its citizens, but the causes of America’s prison binge are specific, and the pains prison generates are not experienced uniformly across racial and gender lines. This essay reviews three books on contemporary trends in American prisons and imprisonment: Sharon Shalev’s Supermax: Controlling Risk through Solitary Confinement, Victoria Law’s Resistance behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women, and Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Each of these three books identifies major structural problems within the current paradigm of mass imprisonment.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
