Lockdown America : Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis

by PARENTI, CHRISTIAN

• ISBN13: 9781859847183
• ISBN10: 1859847188
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-09-17
• Publisher: Verso

Summary

Consider the following: Over 1.7 million Americans live in prison, a three hundred percent increase since 1980; In some US cities, one third of all young Black men are in jail, on probation or awaiting trial; In California, spending on prisons has eclipsed allocations for higher education; Starbucks, Jansport and Microsoft all use prison labor to package their products; Corrections Corporations of America, the nation's largest private jailer, has been dubbed a 'theme stock for the 90s.' Why is criminal justice so central to American politics? Lockdown America not only documents the horrors and absurdities of militarized policing, prisons, a fortified border, and the federalization of the war on crime, it also explains the political and economic history behind the massive crackdown. Written in accessible and vivid prose, Lockdown America will propel readers toward a deeper understanding of the links between crime and politics in a period of gathering economic crisis.

Author Biography

Christian Parenti teaches at the New College of California in San Francisco. His writing appears in The Nation, The Progressive, In These Times, Salon, and the Christian Science Monitor

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Preface	xi
PART I: CRISIS
Nixon's Splendid Little War: Social Crisis and Containment	3	(26)
From Crisis to Rollback	29	(16)
A War for All Seasons: The Return of Law and Order	45	(24)
PART II: POLICE
Discipline in Playland, Part I---Zero Tolerance: The Science of Kicking Ass	69	(21)
Discipline in Playland, Part II---Policing the Themepark City	90	(21)
Carrying the Big Stick: SWAT Teams and Paramilitary Policing	111	(28)
Repatriating la Migra's War: The Militarized Border Comes Home	139	(24)
PART III: PRISON
The Rise of Big House Nation: From Reform to Revenge	163	(7)
Prison as Abattoir: Official Terror	170	(12)
Balkans in a Box: Rape, Race War, and Other Forms of Management	182	(29)
Big Bucks from the Big House: The Prison Industrial Complex and Beyond	211	(34)
Notes	245	(37)
Index	282