The world of mass incarceration as we know it today has not always been this way. If it was different before, it can be changed again. Hillyer's book puts in historical perspective many attributes of the modern day prison system in the United States. She shows what it used to be, and hints at how it could change again.
Throughout the twentieth century, even the harshest prison systems in the United States were rather porous. Incarcerated people were regularly released from prison for Christmas holidays; the wives of incarcerated men could visit for seventy-two hours relatively unsupervised; and governors routinely commuted the sentences of people convicted of murder. By the 1990s, these practices had become rarer as politicians and the media-in contrast to corrections officials-described the public as potential victims who required constant protection against the threat of violence. In A Wall Is Just a Wall Reiko Hillyer focuses on gubernatorial clemency, furlough, and conjugal visits to examine the…
The kind of imprisonment happening in the United States today is not new. Through careful historical research, Young shows the numerous previous cases of indefinite incarceration that have so quickly exited the generic American psyche. In doing so, he draws attention to who is still entrapped as a forever prisoner, and appeals to our humanity to consider why and how this is so.
Stories of non-US citizens caught in the jaws of the immigration bureaucracy and subject to indefinite detention are in the headlines daily. These men, women, and children remain almost completely without rights, unprotected by law and the Constitution, and their status as outsiders, even though many of have lived and worked in this country for years, has left them vulnerable to the most extreme forms of state power. Although the rhetoric surrounding these individuals is extreme, the US government has been locking up immigrants since the late nineteenth century, often for indefinite periods and with limited ability to challenge their…
Combining first-hand stories from incarcerated students with those who teach them, I felt inspired by this book. In the hardest circumstances, people make meaning and maintain hope. Plus, the opening chapter is an alumnus of my program, the Emerson Prison Initiative. Congratulations, Alexander, on being a published offer several times over!
Higher Education and the Carceral State: Transforming Together explores the diversity of ways in which university faculty and students are intervening in the system of mass incarceration through the development of transformative arts and educational programs for students in correctional institutions.
Demonstrating the ways that higher education can intervene in and disrupt the deeply traumatic experience of incarceration and shift the embedded social-emotional cycles that lead to recidivism, this book is both inspiration and guide for those seeking to create and sustain programs as well as to educate students about the types of programs universities bring to prisons.
Countries around the world have disparate experiences with education in prison. For decades, the United States has been locked in a pattern of exceptionally high mass incarceration. Though education has proven to be an impactful intervention, its role and the level of support it receives vary widely. As a result, effective opportunities for incarcerated people to reroute their lives during and after incarceration remain diffuse and inefficient. This volume highlights unique contributions from the field of education in prison globally.
In this volume academics and practitioners highlight new approaches and interesting findings from carceral interventions across twelve countries. From a college degree granting program in Mexico to educational best practices in Norway and Belgium that support successful reentry, innovations in education are being developed in prison spaces around the world. As contributors from many countries share their insights about providing effective educational programs to incarcerated people, the United States can learn from the models and struggles beyond its borders.
