290 pages. By Christian Parenti.
Verso (2008).


Radical analysis of the ruling class war on the poor via the criminal justice system. Well supported by the facts and first hand reporting. Covers paramilitary policing and SWAT teams, urban pacification and zero tolerance policing, the INS/Border Patrol and Prisons.

From the Publisher:

Lockdown America documents the horrors and absurdities of militarized policing, prisons, a fortified border, and the war on drugs. Its accessible and vivid prose makes clear the links between crime and politics in a period of gathering economic crisis.

What People Are Saying
Craig Aaron, The Progressive, December 1999

While there has been no shortage of books in recent years on the failures of the American criminal justice system, what separates Parenti's from the others are his gripping descriptions of gang sweeps, border raids, and jailhouse violence... His excellent on-the-ground reporting is paired with a radical--but rarely raving--class analysis of the police and prison crisis.

ISBN-10: 1844672492
ISBN-13: 978-1844672493