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The Culture of Urban Control: Jail Overcrowding in the Crime Control Era explores and analyzes the growth and expansion of the United States’ largest single-site urban jail system. Through an analysis of a United States Federal Court initiated consent decree this research provides a narrative of criminal justice policy, politics and legal maneuvering between the years of 1993 and 2003 associated with overcrowding within the Cook County Jail. As a result of increased policing presence and subsequent arrests during the crime control era of the 1990’s, the Cook County Department of Corrections experienced a continually overcrowded correctional facility resulting in pre-trial and post-convic...
Life imprisonment has replaced capital punishment as the most common sentence imposed for heinous crimes worldwide. As a consequence, it has become the leading issue in international criminal justice reform. In the first global survey of prisoners serving life terms, Dirk van Zyl Smit and Catherine Appleton argue for a human rights–based reappraisal of this exceptionally harsh punishment. The authors estimate that nearly half a million people face life behind bars, and the number is growing as jurisdictions both abolish death sentences and impose life sentences more freely for crimes that would never have attracted capital punishment. Life Imprisonment explores this trend through systemati...
Texas has one of the world’s largest prison systems, in operation for more than 170 years and currently employing more than 28,000 people. Hundreds of thousands of people have been involved in the prison business in Texas: inmates, correctional officers, public officials, private industry representatives, and volunteers have all entered the secure facilities and experienced a different world. Previous books on Texas prisons have focused either on records and data of the prisons, personal memoirs by both inmates and correctional officers, or accounts of prison breaks. Tall Walls and High Fences is the first comprehensive history of Texas prisons, written by a former law enforcement officer ...
The Gothic and the Everyday aims to regenerate interest in the Gothic within the experiential contexts of history, folklore, and tradition. By using the term 'living', this book recalls a collection of experiences that constructs the everyday in its social, cultural, and imaginary incarnations
Few state issues have attracted as much controversy and national attention as the application of the death penalty in Texas. In the years since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, Texas has led the nation in passing death sentences and executing prisoners. The vigor with which Texas has implemented capital punishment has, however, raised more than a few questions. Why has Texas been so fervent in pursuing capital punishment? Has an aggressive death penalty produced any benefits? Have dangerous criminals been deterred? Have rights been trampled in the process and, most importantly, have innocents been executed? These important questions form the core of Lethal Injection: Capital Punishm...
A Thoroughly Revised and Updated Ninth Edition of the Leading Text in the FieldDelinquency in Society is a balanced and up-to-date examination of the historical, social, and theoretical contexts of delinquency. A comprehensive and systematic overview of juvenile delinquency, criminal behavior, and status-offending youths, the text includes an overview of critical theories on delinquency and juvenile crime as well as a review of historical and institutional responses to delinquency. Clear, accessible language, a student-friendly approach, and fully updated research make the text suitable for students in undergraduate and graduate criminology and sociology programs. The text's focus on interdi...
In this sensitively told tale of suffering, brutality, and inhumanity, Worse Than Slavery is an epic history of race and punishment in the deepest South from emancipation to the Civil Rights Era—and beyond. Immortalized in blues songs and movies like Cool Hand Luke and The Defiant Ones, Mississippi’s infamous Parchman State Penitentiary was, in the pre-civil rights south, synonymous with cruelty. Now, noted historian David Oshinsky gives us the true story of the notorious prison, drawing on police records, prison documents, folklore, blues songs, and oral history, from the days of cotton-field chain gangs to the 1960s, when Parchman was used to break the wills of civil rights workers who journeyed south on Freedom Rides.
This book provides the best of both worlds-- authored text sections with carefully selected accompanying readings covering criminological theory from past to present and beyond. The articles, from leading journals in criminology and criminal justice, reflect both classic studies and state-of-the-art research. Key Features " Begins with an introductory chapter that presents a succinct overview of criminological theory, and briefly describes the organization and content of the book " Features 'How to Read a Research Article'--a perfect introduction to understanding how real-world research is organized and delivered in the journal literature " Includes a 'mini-chapter' for each Section, with fi...
Thoroughly updated and revised, Prisons: Today and Tomorrow, Second Edition offers a balanced and comprehensive examination of prisons and prisoners. Through the use of current case studies and research, this text examines the many purposes of prisons-punishment, deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitation-as well as controversial issues such as whether these purposes are actually met. Through its engaging approach and realistic style, this book highlights the most pressing obstacles found in the modern prison system, and thereby probes students to consider the realities of prison life and its effects on individuals. Featuring chapters contributed by leading authorities in the field, this book is a must read for any student planning to enter the fields of criminal justice and corrections.
Research on prisons prior to the prison boom of the 1980s and 1990s focused mainly on inmate subcultures, inmate rights, and sociological interpretations of inmate and guard adaptations to their environment, with qualitative studies and ethnographic methods the norm. In recent years, research has expanded considerably to issues related to inmates' mental health, suicide, managing special types of offenders, risk assessment, and evidence-based treatment programs. The Oxford Handbook of Prisons and Imprisonment provides the only single source that bridges social scientific and behavioral perspectives, providing graduate students with a more comprehensive understanding of the topic, academics w...