Private prisons in America
Subtitle: a critical race perspective
By: Michael A. Hallett.
Series: Critical perspectives in criminology
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 2006
Place of publication: Urbana
Language: eng
Number of pages: 188
ISBN-13: 9780252030697; 9780252073083
Subjects: Corrections -- Contracting out -- United States.; Discrimination in criminal justice administration -- United States.
Description: Under the auspices of a governmentally sanctioned "war on drugs," incarceration rates in the United States have risen dramatically since 1980. Increasingly, correctional administrators at all levels are turning to private, for-profit corporations to manage the swelling inmate population. Policy discussions of this trend toward prison privatization tend to focus on cost-effectiveness, contract monitoring, and enforcement, but Hallett reveals that these issues are only part of the story. Demonstrating that imprisonment serves numerous agendas other than "crime control," Hallett's analysis suggests that private prisons are best understood not as the product of increasing crime rates, but instead as the latest chapter in a troubling history of discrimination aimed primarily at African American men. – from publisher description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Race, crime & for-profit imprisonment; title: For-profit imprisonment in American history; title: Capitalist crime control : social disorganization as market opportunity; title: Money and power : the political economy of for-profit prisons; title: Bad faith; title: globalization, devolution, and privatization in criminal justice : a critical look at "faith-based" corrections; title: The easy inmate market : the micro-politics of private prisons; title: Commerce with criminals : the new colonialism in criminal justice.