352 pages. By Scott Christianson.
Northeastern Univ Press (1998).


One of the better books documenting the history of prisons in the United States. Solidly documents America as a prison nation to the present. Puts the prison system in a historical context.

From The Publisher:

From Columbus's voyages to the New World through today's prison expansion movements, captivity has played an important, yet disconcerting, role in American history. In this sweeping examination of imprisonment in the United States over five centuries, Scott Christianson exposes the hidden record of the nation's prison heritage, illuminating the forces underlying the paradox of a country that sanctifies individual liberty while it continues to build and maintain a growing complex of totalitarian institutions.

From Publisher's Weekly

The key word in the subtitle is "imprisonment," for although much of this book is a history of the U.S. prison system, it is also an examination of the whole notion of imprisonment, whether as a slave, as (according to the author) a member of a utopian community such as the Shakers or as an inmate at Sing Sing. Christianson (a former newspaper reporter now associated with the New York State Defenders Association) offers an accessible, if curiously unfocused, account that includes a quick history of the African slave trade, a glimpse at how the British treated American prisoners of war during the Revolutionary War, grim scenes from early prisons in New York and Pennsylvania, descriptions of Civil War, stories of famous wardens and convicts (the Scottsboro Boys, Sacco and Vanzetti, Marcus Garvey), accounts of notorious prison riots and--finally--the rise of the prison business, which Christianson convincingly argues is now a mainstay of the American economy. The book sometimes wanders far afield (what's the early history of the Mormon Church doing here?) while other germane subjects are left uncovered (he gives limited serious attention, for instance, to the theories of criminology and prison architecture that made 19th-century America a mecca for penologists, or to how typical prisoners now spend their days). The author is a skillful storyteller with an eye for unexpected information, but his apparent zeal to impart a lot of information often interferes with his message.

ISBN-10: 1555534686
ISBN-13: 978-1555534684