The rise of America's prison-industrial complex

New Left Review

Volumn , Issue 7, 2001, Pages 109-123

  Ladipo, David ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0013005702     PISSN: 00286060     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (47)

1. The US Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates that, if current incarceration rates continue, 30 per cent of black American men will have been in prison at some stage of their lives.
2. Allen Beck, Chief Statistician at the US Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics, has estimated that only one ninth of the increase in prison rolls could be explained by higher offence rates; fully half was due to 'a greater likelihood of a prison sentence upon arrest' and a further third to increased length of sentences. Cited in Marc Mauer, Race to Incarcerate, The Sentencing Project, New York 1999, p. 34.
3. Allen Beck, Chief Statistician at the US Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics, has estimated that only one ninth of the increase in prison rolls could be explained by higher offence rates; fully half was due to 'a greater likelihood of a prison sentence upon arrest' and a further third to increased length of sentences. Cited in Marc Mauer, Race to Incarcerate, The Sentencing Project, New York 1999, p. 34.
4. US Bureau of Justice Statistics, Truth in Sentencing in State Prisons, January 1999; New York Times, 28 February 1999.
5. US Bureau of Justice Statistics, Truth in Sentencing in State Prisons, January 1999; New York Times, 28 February 1999.
6. There is considerable variation between countries in terms of crime definitions, the rates of crime reporting and levels of police record-keeping. Hence the most reliable comparisons of inter-country differences come not from crime statistics but from victimization studies, which ask people about their experience of crimes irrespective of whether they were subsequently reported to the police By using similar methods of sample selection, consistent survey procedures and the same methods of data analysis, the 1996 ICVS has led to a vast improvement in the reliability of inter-country crime comparisons. See Peter Mayhew and Jan van Dijk, Criminal Victimization in Eleven Industrialized Countries, Ministry of Justice, The Netherlands, 1997.
7. Franklin Zimring and Gordon Hawkins, Incapacitation: Penal Confinement and the Restraint of Crime, Oxford 1995.
8. In the interpretation of correlation coefficients, the square of the coefficient shows how much of the variation in one variable can be explained by variations in the other. 1996 was the latest date for which state-level crime and incarceration rate data could be obtained.
9. William Sabol and James Lynch, Crime Policy Report: Did Getting Tough on Crime Pay?, Urban Institute, August 1997; Allen Beck and Christopher Mumola, Prisoners in 1998, US Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin, August 1999; Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), National Drug Control Strategy, 1998, table 3.
10. William Sabol and James Lynch, Crime Policy Report: Did Getting Tough on Crime Pay?, Urban Institute, August 1997; Allen Beck and Christopher Mumola, Prisoners in 1998, US Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin, August 1999; Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), National Drug Control Strategy, 1998, table 3.
11. William Sabol and James Lynch, Crime Policy Report: Did Getting Tough on Crime Pay?, Urban Institute, August 1997; Allen Beck and Christopher Mumola, Prisoners in 1998, US Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin, August 1999; Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), National Drug Control Strategy, 1998, table 3.
12. From 37 per cent to 48 per cent, with respect to cocaine, and from 24 per cent to 35 per cent for heroin. National Institute of Drug Abuse, Monitoring The Future Survey 1999, table II.
13. Kevin Zeese and Paul Lewin, The Effective National Drug Control Strategy, Common Sense for Drug Policy, 1999, fig. 1; ONDCP, National Drug Control Strategy, 1999, part 2.
14. Kevin Zeese and Paul Lewin, The Effective National Drug Control Strategy, Common Sense for Drug Policy, 1999, fig. 1; ONDCP, National Drug Control Strategy, 1999, part 2.
15. New York Times, 28 February 1999.
16. Race to Incarcerate, p. 105.
17. 'Used State Guns Wind Up in Bad Hands, Study Says', New York Times, 15 May 1994.
18. Despite an officially lower unemployment rate than most European economies, the level of job insecurity in the US is considerably higher, rating 52 points in a recent Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development index, compared to an average of 44. The index was based on employee responses to questions about whether they were 'frequently worried' about the future of their jobs, and 'how satisfied' they were with their job security. OECD Jobs Study, OECD, Paris 1998.
19. Tupac Shakur, Tupacalypse Now, Amaru/Jive Records.
20. Washington Post, 5 October 1992.
21. Abram de Swaan, In Care of the State, Cambridge 1990, pp. 41-2. I include here asylums and workhouses as well as prisons.
22. 'Jails Give Life to Rural Economies', Guardian, 15 October 1994.
23. Christian Parenti, Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis, London 1999. Economic data on Crescent City comes from interviews with staff of the Del Norte County Assessor's Office, January-February 1996.
24. US Bureau of Justice Statistics and US Department of Defense.
25. John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, London 1986, p. 129.
26. Jerome Miller, Search and Destroy: African-American Males in the Criminal Justice System, Cambridge 1996, p. 229.
27. David Garland, 'The Limits of the Sovereign State', British Journal of Criminology, 1996, vol. 36, no. 4, p. 455.
28. 'Letter to our shareholders', Corrections Corporation of America 1997 Annual Report; cited in Lockdown America, p. 218.
29. 'Letter to our shareholders', Corrections Corporation of America 1997 Annual Report; cited in Lockdown America, p. 218.
30. Covert Action Quarterly, no. 54, Fall 1995;
31. Lockdown America, p. 218-9.
32. Lockdown America, p. 226.
33. Covert Action Quarterly, no. 54.
34. ibid.
35. For a good history of the introduction of ballot initiatives see Mike Davis, Prisoners of the American Dream, London 1986.
36. See Jerome Miller, Search and Destroy, p. 150.
37. Cindy Struckman-Johnson et al., 'Sexual Coercion Reported by Men and Women in Prison', Journal of Sex Research, 1996, vol. 33, no. 1, pp. 67-76.
38. Stop Prison Rape Amicus brief in support of Petitioner, Farmer vs. Brennan, no. 92-7247, Supreme Court of the United States, October Term, 1993; cited in Lockdown America, p. 185; on rape as a tool in juvenile facilities, see Dwight Edgar Abbot, with Jack Carter, I Cried, You Didn't listen: A Survivor's Exposé of the California Youth Authority, Los Angeles 1991.
39. Stop Prison Rape Amicus brief in support of Petitioner, Farmer vs. Brennan, no. 92-7247, Supreme Court of the United States, October Term, 1993; cited in Lockdown America, p. 185; on rape as a tool in juvenile facilities, see Dwight Edgar Abbot, with Jack Carter, I Cried, You Didn't listen: A Survivor's Exposé of the California Youth Authority, Los Angeles 1991.
40. Stop Prison Rape Amicus brief in support of Petitioner, Farmer vs. Brennan, no. 92-7247, Supreme Court of the United States, October Term, 1993; cited in Lockdown America, p. 185; on rape as a tool in juvenile facilities, see Dwight Edgar Abbot, with Jack Carter, I Cried, You Didn't listen: A Survivor's Exposé of the California Youth Authority, Los Angeles 1991.
41. Blucker vs. Washington et al., 95C50110, US District Court, Northern District of Illinois; 'Jury Awards No Damages in Illinois Prison Rape Lawsuit', Associated Press, 29 August 1997; 'No Award in Prison Rape Case', St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 30 August 1997;
42. Blucker vs. Washington et al., 95C50110, US District Court, Northern District of Illinois; 'Jury Awards No Damages in Illinois Prison Rape Lawsuit', Associated Press, 29 August 1997; 'No Award in Prison Rape Case', St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 30 August 1997;
43. 'Damages Denied in Prison Rape', Chicago Tribune, 29 August 1997;
44. cited in Lockdown America, p. 187.
45. 'Prison's Hidden Horror', Boston Globe, 1 May 1994.
46. Lockdown America, p. 241.
47. According to a recent report by the Sentencing Project, 46 states prohibit inmates from voting while serving a felony sentence, 32 states prohibit felons from voting while they are on parole and 29 of these states exclude felony probationers as well. See Sentencing Project at http://www.sentencingproject.org