A Plague of Prisons : The Epidemiology of Mass Incarceration in America

Acknowledgments -- 1 An Epidemiological Riddle -- 2 Cholera in London: The Ghost Maps of Dr. Snow -- 3 AIDS: The Epidemiology of a New Disease -- 4 A Different Kind of Epidemic -- 5 Anatomy of an Outbreak: New York's Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Prison Pump -- 6 Orders of Magnitude: The Relative Impact of Mass Incarceration -- 7 A Self-Sustaining Epidemic: Modes of Reproduction -- 8 Chronic Incapacitation: The Long Tail of Mass Incarceration -- 9 The Contagion of Punishment: Collateral Damage to Children and Families of Prisoners.;When Dr. John Snow first traced an outbreak of cholera to a water pump in the Soho district of London in 1854, the field of epidemiology was born. Taking the same public health approaches and tools that have successfully tracked epidemics of flu, tuberculosis, and AIDS over the intervening one hundred and fifty years, Ernest Drucker makes the case that our current unprecedented level of imprisonment has become an epidemic?a plague upon our body politic. Drucker, an internationally recognized public health scholar and Soros Justice Fellow, spent twenty years treating drug addiction and another twenty studying AIDS in some of the poorest neighborhoods of the South Bronx and worldwide. Hecompares mass incarceration to other, well-recognized epidemics using basic public health concepts:?prevalence and incidence, "?outbreaks, "?contagion, "?transmission," and?potential years of life lost."He argues that imprisonment?originally conceived as a response to individuals' crimes?has become mass incarceration: a destabilizing force that undermines the families and communities it targets, damaging the very social structures that prevent crime. Sure to provoke debate, this book shifts the paradigm of how we think about punishment by demonstrating that our unprecedented rates of incarceration have the contagious and self-perpetuating features of the plagues of previous centuries. "When Dr. John Snow first traced an outbreak of cholera to a water pump in the Soho district of London in 1854, the field of epidemiology was born. Taking the same public health approaches and tools that have successfully tracked epidemics of flu, tuberculosis, and AIDS over the intervening one hundred and fifty years, Ernest Drucker makes the case that our current unprecedented level of imprisonment has become an epidemic--a plague upon our body politic. Drucker, an internationally recognized public health scholar and Soros Justice Fellow, spent twenty years treating drug addiction and another twenty studying AIDS in some of the poorest neighborhoods of the South Bronx and worldwide. He compares mass incarceration to other, well-recognized epidemics using basic public health concepts: 'prevalence and incidence, ' 'outbreaks, ' 'contagion, ' 'transmission, ' and 'potential years of life lost.' He argues that imprisonment--originally conceived as a response to individuals' crimes--has become mass incarceration: a destabilizing force that undermines the families and communities it targets, damaging the very social structures that prevent crime. Sure to provoke debate, this book shifts the paradigm of how we think about punishment by demonstrating that our unprecedented rates of incarceration have the contagious and self-perpetuating features of the plagues of previous centuries"--Provided by publisher The public health expert and prison reform activist offers “meticulous analysis” on our criminal justice system and the plague of American incarceration (The Washington Post). An internationally recognized public health scholar, Ernest Drucker uses the tools of epidemiology to demonstrate that incarceration in the United States has become an epidemic―a plague upon our body politic. He argues that imprisonment, originally conceived as a response to the crimes of individuals, has become “mass incarceration”: a destabilizing force that damages the very social structures that prevent crime. Drucker tracks the phenomenon of mass incarceration using basic public health concepts―“incidence and prevalence,” “outbreaks,” “contagion,” “transmission,” “potential years of life lost.” The resulting analysis demonstrates that our unprecedented rates of incarceration have the contagious and self-perpetuating features of the plagues of previous centuries. Sure to provoke debate and shift the paradigm of how we think about punishment, A Plague of Prisons offers a novel perspective on criminal justice in twenty-first-century America. “How did America’s addiction to prisons and mass incarceration get its start and how did it spread from state to state? Of the many attempts to answer this question, none make as much sense as the explanation found in [this] book.” ―The Philadelphia Inquirer When Dr. John Snow first traced an outbreak of cholera to a water pump in the Soho district of London in 1854, the field of epidemiology was born. Taking the same public health approaches and tools that have successfully tracked epidemics of flu, tuberculosis, and AIDS over the intervening one hundred and fifty years, the author makes the case that our current unprecedented level of imprisonment has become an epidemic, a plague upon our body politic. The author, an internationally recognized public health scholar and Soros Justice Fellow, spent twenty years treating drug addiction and another twenty studying AIDS in some of the poorest neighborhoods of the South Bronx and worldwide. He compares mass incarceration to other, well-recognized epidemics using basic public health concepts: 'prevalence and incidence, ' 'outbreaks, ' 'contagion, ' 'transmission, ' and 'potential years of life lost.' He argues that imprisonment, originally conceived as a response to individuals' crimes, has become mass incarceration: a destabilizing force that undermines the families and communities it targets, damaging the very social structures that prevent crime. This book shifts the paradigm of how we think about punishment by demonstrating that our unprecedented rates of incarceration have the contagious and self-perpetuating features of the plagues of previous centuries This books makes the case that our current unprecedented level of imprisonment has become an epidemic—a plague upon our body politic. Ernest Drucker, an internationally recognized public health scholar and researcher, compares mass incarceration to other well-recognized epidemics using basic public health concepts—"prevalence and incidence," "outbreaks," "contagion," "transmission," and "potential years of life lost." He argues that imprisonment--originally conceived as a response to individuals' crimes—has become "mass incarceration": a destabilizing force that undermines the families and communities it targets, damaging the very social structures that prevent crime Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 1 An Epidemiological Riddle 16 2 Cholera in London: The Ghost Maps of Dr. Snow 26 3 AIDS: The Epidemiology of a New Disease 34 4 A Different Kind of Epidemic 52 5 Anatomy of an Outbreak: New York鈥檚 Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Prison Pump 65 6 Orders of Magnitude: The Relative Impact of Mass Incarceration 83 7 A Self-Sustaining Epidemic: Modes of Reproduction 93 8 Chronic Incapacitation: The Long Tail of Mass Incarceration 123 9 The Contagion of Punishment: Collateral Damage to Children and Families of Prisoners 156 10 Ending Mass Incarceration: A Public Health Model 178 Notes 206 Index 228 Acknowledgments -- 1 An Epidemiological Riddle -- 2 Cholera in London: The Ghost Maps of Dr. Snow -- 3 AIDS: The Epidemiology of a New Disease -- 4 A Different Kind of Epidemic -- 5 Anatomy of an Outbreak: New York's Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Prison Pump -- 6 Orders of Magnitude: The Relative Impact of Mass Incarceration -- 7 A Self-Sustaining Epidemic: Modes of Reproduction -- 8 Chronic Incapacitation: The Long Tail of Mass Incarceration -- 9 The Contagion of Punishment: Collateral Damage to Children and Families of Prisoners. 10 Ending Mass Incarceration: A Public Health Model -- Notes -- Index. An epidemiological riddle Cholera in London : the ghost maps of Dr. Snow AIDS : the epidemiology of a new disease A different kind of epidemic Anatomy of an outbreak : New York's Rockefeller drug laws and the prison pump Orders of magnitude : the scale of mass incarceration A self-sustaining epidemic Chronic incapacitation : the long tail of mass incarceration The contagion of punishment : collateral damage to children and families of prisoners Ending mass incarceration : a public health model. Ernest Drucker argues that mass incarceration is an epidemic which negatively affects families and neighborhoods.