Gates of Injustice: The Crisis in America's Prisons (Prentice Hall Paperback)

If you want to know about the u.S. prison system, this is the book to read. It's passionate and comprehensive, full of great research and touching human stories. A great achievement. Gates of Injustice is an extraordinarily compelling expose of the American prison system now completely updated in this new paperback editon: how more than 2,000,000 Americans came to be incarcerated; what it's really like on the inside; what it's like for the families left on the outside; and how an enormous "prison-industrial complex" has grown to support and promote imprisonment in place of virtually every other alternative. Reuters journalist Alan Elsner shows how prisons really work, how race-based gangs are able to control institutions and prey on weaker inmates, and how an epidemic of abuse and brutality has exploded across American prisons. Readers will discover the plight of 300,000 mentally ill people in prisons, virtually abandoned with little medical treatment. They'll also meet the fastest growing segment of the prison population: women. Readers go inside "supermax" prisons that cut inmates off from all human contact, and uncover the official corruption and brutality that riddles jail systems in major cities like Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, and New York. Finally, they'll learn prisons accelerate the spread of infectious diseases throughout the broader society--just one of the many ways the prison epidemic touches everyone, even if they've never met anyone who's gone to jail. CONTENTS......Page 10 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION......Page 12 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION......Page 14 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS......Page 18 1 THE SECOND TOUGHEST SHERIFF IN AMERICA......Page 22 2 BECOMING A PRISON NATION......Page 32 3 ENTERING THE GATES......Page 52 4 THE VULNERABLE......Page 84 5 THE SANITY OF THE SYSTEM......Page 102 6 AN UNHEALTHY SITUATION......Page 124 7 WOMEN BEHIND BARS......Page 152 8 SUPERMAX......Page 174 9 SHORT-TERM PROBLEMS......Page 202 10 MONEY, MONEY, MONEY......Page 222 11 AFTER PRISON......Page 240 12 SOME MODEST SUGGESTIONS......Page 252 ENDNOTES......Page 264 A......Page 286 B......Page 287 C......Page 288 E......Page 290 G......Page 291 H......Page 292 I......Page 293 L......Page 294 M......Page 295 N......Page 296 P......Page 297 R......Page 299 S......Page 300 T......Page 301 U......Page 302 W......Page 303 Z......Page 304 This work is an expose of the U.S. prison system. It tells how more than 2 million Americans came to be incarcerated, what it's really like on the inside, and how a giant "prison-industrial complex" promotes imprisonment over other solutions. The author takes the reader inside "supermax" prisons that deny inmates human contact and reveals official corruption and brutality within U.S. jails. The book also teaches how prisons help to spread infectious diseases throughout society, one of the ways the prison crisis touches even those who have never had a brush with the law. In this book the author provides new insight into the powerful political and social forces driving imprisonment in America, and also charts a path for reform that could make America not merely more humane, but safer Examines the American prison system, where rapes, assaults, and deaths are regular occurrences, as well as the powerful political and social forces driving imprisonment. This book charts the negative impact on both inmates and society of what is essentially a wasteful and inhumane system, and offers a series of practical proposals for reform. Elsner provides new insight into the powerful political and social forces driving imprisonment in America. Most importantly, he charts a path for reform ... one that could make America not merely more humane, but safer. For any individual concerned with human rights issues, this is an extraordinary, comprehensive, shocking, expose of the American prison system. Sheriff Gerald Hege liked to boast that he ran the toughest-and pinkest-jail in America.