shopping cart
Save up to 30% on our Staff Picks
Call us:  800-878-7323 HELP
McAfee SECURE helps keep you safe from identity theft, credit card fraud, spyware, spam, viruses and online scams.
Original Essays | November 9, 2009

Jesse Bullington: IMG Abash'd the Devil Stood



I don't believe in evil. It's a word I use, certainly, because words are shortcuts and we all take the short way round from time to time, but that's... Continue »
  1. $10.49 Sale Trade Paper add to wish list

Are Prisons Obsolete? (Seven Stories' Open Media Book)

by Angela Y. Davis

Are Prisons Obsolete? (Seven Stories' Open Media Book) Cover

ISBN13: 9781583225813
ISBN10: 1583225811
Condition: Standard
All Product Details

Only 2 left in stock at $11.95!

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Amid rising public concern about the proliferation and privitization of prisons, and their promise of enormous profits, world-renowned author and activist Angela Y. Davis argues for the abolition of the prison system as the dominant way of responding to Americas social ills.

In thinking about the possible obsolescence of the prison,Davis writes, we should ask how it is that so many people could end up in prison without major debates regarding the efficacy of incarceration.Whereas Reagan-era politicians with tough on crimestances argued that imprisonment and longer sentences would keep communities free of crime, history has shown that the practice of mass incarceration during that period has had little or no effect on official crime rates: in fact, larger prison populations led not to safer communities but to even larger prison populations.

As we make our way into the twenty-first centurytwo hundred years after the invention of the penitentiary the question of prison abolition has acquired an unprecedented urgency. Backed by growing numbers of prisons and prisoners, Davis analyzes these institutions in the U.S., arguing that the very future of democracy depends on our ability to develop radical theories and practices that make it possible to plan and fight for a world beyond the prison industrial complex.

Review:

"In this extraordinary book, Angela Davis challenges us to confront the human rights catastrophe in our jails and prisons. As she so convincingly argues, the contemporary U.S. practice of super-incarceration is closer to new age slavery than to any recognizable system of 'criminal justice.'"Mike Davis, author of "Dead Cities"and "City of Quartz."

Synopsis:

World-renowned activist Angela Davis discusses how mass incarceration has had little or no effect on crime, how disproportionate numbers of the poor and minorities end up in prison, and the obscene profits the system generates.

Synopsis:

Civil rights activist Angela Davis lays bare the situation and argues for a radical rethinking of US rehabilitation programmes.

About the Author

Angela Yvonne Davis is a professor of history of consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Over the last thirty years, she has been active in numerous organizations challenging prison-related repression. Her advocacy on behalf of political prisoners led to three capital charges, sixteen months in jail awaiting trial, and a highly publicized campaign then acquittal in 1972. In 1973, the National Committee to Free Angela Davis and All Political Prisoners, along with the Attica Brothers, the American Indian Movement, and other organizations founded The National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, of which she remained co-chairperson for many years. In 1998, she was one of the twenty-five organizers of the historic Berkeley conference "Critical Resistance: Beyond the Prison Industrial Complex"and since that time she has served as convener of a research group bearing the same name under the auspices of the University of California Humanities Research Institute. Davis is author of many books, including Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma"Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday. Her new book, forthcoming from Random House, is Prisons and Democracy.

Product Details

ISBN:
9781583225813
Author:
Davis, Angela Y.
Publisher:
Seven Stories Press
Author:
Davis, Angela Y.
Author:
Davis, Angela Yvonne
Location:
New York
Subject:
General
Subject:
Criminals
Subject:
Law Enforcement
Subject:
Penology
Subject:
United States - 20th Century
Subject:
Corrections
Subject:
Prisons
Subject:
Poor
Subject:
Alternatives to imprisonment
Subject:
Political Freedom & Security - Law Enforcement
Subject:
Prisons -- United States.
Subject:
Prisoners -- United States.
Copyright:
Edition Description:
Uitgawe and Rev
Series:
Open media book
Series Volume:
114
Publication Date:
August 2003
Binding:
Paperback
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Pages:
128
Dimensions:
7 x 5 in

Other books you might like

  1. $5.95 Used Trade Paper add to wish list

    No More Prisons

    William Upski Wimsatt
  2. $5.95 Used Trade Paper add to wish list

    The Prisoner's Wife

    Asha Bandele
  3. $9.50 Used Trade Paper add to wish list
  4. $10.50 Used Trade Paper add to wish list
  5. $7.95 Used Trade Paper add to wish list

    Worse Than Slavery

    David Oshinsky
  6. $16.95 New Trade Paper add to wish list

    Assata: An Autobiography

    Assata Shakur

Related Aisles

  • back to top

Powell's City of Books is an independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, that fills a whole city block with more than a million new, used, and out of print books. Shop those shelves — plus literally millions more books, DVDs, and eBooks — here at Powells.com.