About Mass Incarceration and Prison Studies
Mass Incarceration and Prison Studies is a curated database that provides a rare breadth of study for students to investigate both crucial global trends in mass incarceration, and the detailed prison infrastructure of specific countries. Mass Incarceration and Prison Studies is organized around a selection of key historical and contemporary events and themes, bringing together archival and reference materials, court cases, first-hand accounts, videos, Supreme Court audio files, research on rehabilitation, training materials and artistic works.
Statistically, the U.S. incarcerates more people than other countries around the world. The collection examines prison populations in the US and globally, and their relationship to major prison labor systems; and how correctional facilities may serve as central service providers for those with mental health issues. Other events include: the use of the death penalty; the history of correctional institutions for juvenile offenders; internment camps and ethnic groups; prison gangs and riots; the loss of rights for prisoners. Materials are featured on specific prisons such as Alcatraz, Sing Sing, Rikers, Norway’s prison, Halden fengsel and its rehabilitation within the prison system. Students have the opportunity to survey the topic of DNA for prisoner exoneration; the U.S. War on Drugs; prison culture and identity; and the prison industrial complex.
Browsing by “Subjects” offers a comprehensive way to access this new collection. The wide array of subjects includes: AIDS, alternatives to imprisonment, children of prisoners, commercial products made in prisons, forced resettlement and transgender persons.
Content Highlights & Sources
Marina Parker’s BBC Worldwide film “Execution,” the story of capital punishment through the eyes of young people.
Materials related to Japanese Internment Camps include archival abstracts of witness testimony; biographical witness information; testimony of congressmen and of Pulitzer Prize winning writer Studs Terkel.
The award-winning playwright/novelist Kia Corthron’s play “Megastasis” about the War on Drugs.
“The women political prisoners and their situation in the female wing of the ‘Tres Alamos’ detention camp,” describing the camp operated from 1974 to 1976 during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile.
An exclusive, in-depth interview with Katherine Vockins, the founder of Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) at Sing Sing prison.
The books “Women in Solitary” presenting the powerful testimony of six women who were in solitary confinement in New York State Prisons and “Regulating Police Detention: Voices from behind closed doors” including the voices of detainees.
Archives, Foundations, and Rare Books
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Senate House, University of London
Selections on the history of prisons and incarceration from the Bromhead Library Special Collections; Family Welfare Association Library Special Collections -
National Archives Records Administration
Records of the National Recovery Administration, 1927 - ca. 1939 (RG9). Records Relating to Prison Labor, 1934 - 1935 (PI 44 334) -
Russell Sage Foundation
Imprisoning America: The Social Effects of Mass Incarceration Why Are So Many Americans in Prison?
Publishers
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ABC-CLIO
Prisons and Prison Systems: A Global Encyclopedia -
Bristol University Press
Reshaping Probation and Prisons -
Fordham University Press
Death and Other Penalties: Philosophy in a Time of Mass Incarceration -
L’Harmattan
Le Prisonnier : Récit d'une Incarcération
Vivre avec la Prison : des Familles Face à L'Incarcération d'un Proche
Une Mère en Prison ou L'Apprentissage de la Résistance : Uruguay 1972-1976 : Récit
Les Usages Sociaux du Théâtre Hors ses Murs -
National Academy Press
The Growth of Incarceration in the United States -
New York University Press
Downsizing Prisons: How to Reduce Crime and End Mass Incarceration
5 Grams: Crack Cocaine, Rap Music, and the War on Drugs -
Oxford University Press
Children of the Prison Boom: Mass Incarceration and the Future of American Inequality
Harsh Justice: Criminal Punishment and the Widening Divide Between America and Europe
Concentration Camps: A Short History -
PM Press
Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women -
Routledge
Contrasts in Punishment: An Explanation of Anglophone Excess and Nordic Exceptionalism -
Temple University Press
The Disenfranchisement of Ex-Felons -
University of Bristol. Policy Press
Imprisonment Worldwide: The Current Situation And An Alternative Future
Competition for Prisons: Public Or Private?
Getting Out and Staying Out: Results Of The Prisoner Resettlement Pathfinders -
University of California Press
Interrupted Life: Experiences of Incarcerated Women in the United States
Video
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BBC Worldwide
Miami Mega-Jail, Part 1 & 2; Tough Justice: Texas Style -
Daedalus Productions
Through the Wire; Lock Up: The Prisoners of Rikers Island -
Music Video Distributors
Not for Rent! -
Parallel Lines
Thanatos Rx -
TVF International
He Didn't Do It
Three Sons Behind Bars -
Windrose
Behind the Bars -
L’Harmattan
La Récidive en Question
Editorial Board
Hannah Elsisi, Lecturer in Modern Middle East History, King’s College London
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/hannah-elsisi
Julie Murphy Erfani, Associate Professor, Arizona State University
https://isearch.asu.edu/profile/40266
Catherine Filloux, Playwright, Social Justice
https://www.catherinefilloux.com/
Amy S. Green, Chairperson & Associate Professor, John Jay U. School of Criminal Justice
https://www.jjay.cuny.edu/faculty/amy-green-0
Anna Gunderson, Professor of Political Science, Louisiana State University
https://www.lsu.edu/hss/polisci/faculty_and_staff/gunderson.php
Vivian D. Nixon, Executive Director, College & Community Fellowship
https://www.collegeandcommunity.org/vivian-nixon
James Oleson, Associate Professor, University of Auckland
http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/people/jole011
Andrew Taylor, Research Scientist, Research Analyst at Vera Institute of Justice
https://www.vera.org/people/andrew-taylor
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