Synopses & Reviews
In this revised edition of his seminal book on race, class, and the criminal justice system, Marc Mauer, executive director of one of the United States’ leading criminal justice reform organizations, offers the most up-to-date look available at three decades of prison expansion in America.
Including newly written material on recent developments under the Bush administration and updated statistics, graphs, and charts throughout, the book tells the tragic story of runaway growth in the number of prisons and jails and the overreliance on imprisonment to stem problems of economic and social development. Called “sober and nuanced” by Publishers Weekly, Race to Incarcerate documents the enormous financial and human toll of the “get tough” movement, and argues for more humane—and productive—alternatives.
Review
"An important book. The numbers tell a shocking story." —
San Diego Union-Tribune"Insightful. . . . Sheds new light on the relationship between drug use, sales, arrests, and race." —Emerge
"Race to Incarcerate explains why prisoners have become commodities and why present policies are draining black communities of their young men." —Julian Bond, Chair of the NAACP Board of Directors
Synopsis
As we enter a new century, Race to Incarcerate, now in paperback, tells the chilling story of the unprecedented explosion in the prison population during the last twenty-five years. In an important book [that] lays out convincing arguments (The San Diego Union-Tribune), Marc Mauer, assistant director of The Sentencing Project, analyzes the main trends of America's war on drugs in the last two decades, showing how those policies have emphasized rigid control -- through police and prisons -- over drug treatment and economic development, resulting in a five-fold increase in the use of incarceration since 1973.
Written in conjunction with the leading national organization monitoring American criminal-justice policies, Race to Incarcerate is an informative -- and often disturbing -- glimpse of the U.S. prison system and those it affects (Black Issues Book Review).
Synopsis
A stunning examination of how the United States became the incarceration capital of the world, from one of the country's leading experts on sentencing policy, race, and the criminal justice system
In this revised edition of his seminal book on race, class, and the criminal justice system, Marc Mauer, former executive director of one of the United States' leading criminal justice reform organizations, offers the most up-to-date look available at three decades of prison expansion in America.
Race to Incarcerate tells the tragic story of runaway growth in the number of prisons and jails and the overreliance on imprisonment to stem problems of economic and social development. Called "sober and nuanced" by Publishers Weekly, Race to Incarcerate documents the enormous financial and human toll of the "get tough" movement, and argues for more humane--and productive--alternatives.
About the Author
Marc Mauer is the executive director of The Sentencing Project, a national organization based in Washington, D.C., that promotes criminal justice reform. Mauer is one of the country’s leading experts on sentencing policy, race, and the criminal justice system. He has directed programs on criminal justice policy reform for thirty years and is the author of some of the most widely cited reports and publications in the field.
Race to Incarcerate (The New Press), Mauer’s groundbreaking book on how sentencing policies led to the explosive expansion of the U.S. prison population, was a semifinalist for the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award in 1999; a graphic adaptation by Sabrina Jones was published by The New Press in 2013. Mauer is a co-editor, with Meda Chesney-Lind, of
Invisible Punishment: The Collateral Consequences of Mass Imprisonment (The New Press). He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.