Since 1980; the number of people in U.S. prisons has increased more than 450%. Despite a crime rate that has been falling steadily for decades; California has led the way in this explosion; with what a state analyst called “the biggest prison building project in the history of the world.†Golden Gulag provides the first detailed explanation for that buildup by looking at how political and economic forces; ranging from global to local; conjoined to produce the prison boom. In an informed and impassioned account; Ruth Wilson Gilmore examines this issue through statewide; rural; and urban perspectives to explain how the expansion developed from surpluses of finance capital; labor; land; and state capacity. Detailing crises that hit California’s economy with particular ferocity; she argues that defeats of radical struggles; weakening of labor; and shifting patterns of capital investment have been key conditions for prison growth. The results—a vast and expensive prison system; a huge number of incarcerated young people of color; and the increase in punitive justice such as the “three strikes†law—pose profound and troubling questions for the future of California; the United States; and the world. Golden Gulag provides a rich context for this complex dilemma; and at the same time challenges many cherished assumptions about who benefits and who suffers from the state’s commitment to prison expansion.
#1719161 in Books John T Noonan 2000-03-08 2000-03-08Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.00 x 1.00 x 6.00l; 1.33 #File Name: 0520224914436 pagesThe Lustre of Our Country The American Experience of Religious Freedom
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Five StarsBy Paul JohnsonJust what I was looking for and expected.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. A must read for anyone concerned with this topicBy Michael SweeneyThis is an excellent treatment of a vitally important issue by one of the great jurists and intellectuals of our generation.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Contains Some Fine Distillations of The Ultimate Nature of Religious FreedomBy Peter P. FuchsReligious Freedom is all about balance; or perhaps a societal equilibrium. It is a matter of emphasis that speaks to a deeper philosophical attitude. Such balance is as distant from religion despising tropes as it is from cryptic ambitions for theocracy; often thinly disguised. It is a manly approach of respect for your fellow human being; whether with men OR women. Since it involves the virtue that descends from the masculine side of human nature; namely that of respect for boundary and territory; it is ultimately grounded in a philosophy that is based in an experience of fraternity qua the universal human experience of the fraternal -- and that includes women. That to my mind is the real background on a broad level for reflections just as are contained in a book like this. And the proof of this assumptions is that it contains a great line which encapsulates this very attitude:""Public argument is not the same as personal conviction. But public argument that employs religious belief for its own ends; that makes `an Engine' of religion; precisely parallels the exploitation of religion by government that JM denounced in the memorial as wickedness."It does not seem that the author desired to focus on the broad background for such thinking. It is a frankly Masonic balance that is described in that excellent line. And the considerable presence of Masons amongst the Founding community is the likely genesis of the assumptions; whether the writer was attracted to actually joining the fraternity or not. It is an attitude; and it had a source. Freemasonry; plain and simple.
