Understanding Mass Incarceration: A People's Guide to the Key Civil Rights Struggle of Our Time

A brilliant overview of America's defining human rights crisis and a "much-needed introduction to the racial, political, and economic dimensions of mass incarceration" (Michelle Alexander)

Understanding Mass Incarceration offers the first comprehensive overview of the incarceration apparatus put in place by the world's largest jailer: the United States.

Drawing on a growing body of academic and professional work, Understanding Mass Incarceration describes in plain English the many competing theories of criminal justice--from rehabilitation to retribution, from restorative justice to justice reinvestment. In a lively and accessible style, author James Kilgore illuminates the difference between prisons and jails, probation and parole, laying out key concepts and policies such as the War on Drugs, broken windows policing, three-strikes sentencing, the school-to-prison pipeline, recidivism, and prison privatization. Informed by the crucial lenses of race and gender, he addresses issues typically omitted from the discussion: the rapidly increasing incarceration of women, Latinos, and transgender people; the growing imprisonment of immigrants; and the devastating impact of mass incarceration on communities.

Both field guide and primer, Understanding Mass Incarceration is an essential resource for those engaged in criminal justice activism as well as those new to the subject.

Author: James Kilgore
Publisher: New Press
Published: 09/01/2015
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.85lbs
Size: 6.90h x 6.90w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9781620970676

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 07/01/2015
Publishers Weekly 07/13/2015

About the Author
James Kilgore is a formerly incarcerated person who currently teaches in the Center for African Studies at the University of Illinois. He is the author of a number of novels and an educational text about Zimbabwe. He lives with his family in Champaign, Illinois.