Invisible Punishment
The Collateral Consequences of Mass Imprisonment
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- $24.99
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- $24.99
Publisher Description
In a series of newly commissioned essays from the leading scholars and advocates in criminal justice, Invisible Punishment explores, for the first time, the far-reaching consequences of our current criminal justice policies. Adopted as part of “get tough on crime” attitudes that prevailed in the 1980s and '90s, a range of strategies, from “three strikes” and “a war on drugs,” to mandatory sentencing and prison privatization, have resulted in the mass incarceration of American citizens, and have had enormous effects not just on wrong-doers, but on their families and the communities they come from. This book looks at the consequences of these policies twenty years later.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Arguments against the current system of what the editors deem "mass imprisonment" drive this collection of 16 essays from respected criminologists and sociologists. Assistant director of the Sentencing Project Mauer (Race to Incarcerate) and Chesney-Lind (Girls, Delinquency, and Juvenile Justice) focus the debate on areas that often get neglected by the media: "Black Economic Progress in the Era of Mass Imprisonment"; "The House of the Dead: Tuberculosis and Incarceration"; and "Entrepreneurial Corrections: Incarceration as a Business." Some of the statistics are staggering: more than 47 million Americans have federal or state criminal records, roughly one-fourth of the adult population. As has been well-documented, a disproportionate number of these are people of color, and several essays investigate the impact on the social and material life of their families and communities: the title's "invisible punishment." Contributors are mainly academics but also include policy analysts and journalists familiar with the ramifications of the legal and corrections systems, making this a sometimes dense but mostly accessible compendium.
