Explaining U.S. Imprisonment

Mary Bosworth is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Wesleyan University. Her research interests include prisons, race, and gender. She is the author of Engendering Resistance: Agency and Power in Women's Prisons (1999).

INTRODUCTION 1: THE ORIGINS OF U.S. IMPRISONMENT: BEYOND THE PENITENTIARY Colonial Justice The War of Independence (1775-1783) Prisons, Slavery and the Antebellum South Religious Reform in the North The Civil War Reconstruction Women's Prison Debating Imprisonment Conclusion 2: PENAL REFORM AND PRISON SCIENCE: ENGINEERING ORDER AND BUILDING AMERICA Penal Reformism: The National Prison Association 'Prison Science': Reformism and Social Engineering The First World War: Conscientious Objectors and Prison The Federal Bureau of Prisons The Depression: Prisons, Labour and Social Structure World War II: Questions of National Security Women's Reformatories Reform, Science and Nation-Building Conclusion 3: PRISON CULTURE: SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL CHANGE The Prison Community Importation vs. Deprivation Gender Race Sexuality Research Methods, Governance and Social Control Conclusion: Contextualizing Sociological Accounts of Imprisonment 4: AN ERA OF UNCERTAINTY: RIOTS, REFORM AND REPRESSION Attica Activism Before and After Attica The Administration of Justice The Demise of Rehabilitation Penal Revisionism and Prisoners' Rights: Theory v. Practice Conclusion 5: THE PUNITIVE TURN: LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS FOR MASS IMPRISONMENT The Reagan Years Legislating Punishment Private Prisons Prison Building and Supermax Challenging Imprisonment in an Era of Punitivism Conclusion 6: A CULTURE OF CONTROL Prisons and Politics in the 1990s Punishment and Modern Society: Explaining the Culture of Control Neo-conservatives, the Culture Wars and Prison Managing Prisons Experiencing Incarceration and Challenging the Culture of Control Conclusion 7: CHALLENGING THE CULTURE OF CONTROL? Prisons in the Twenty-first Century The Costs of Imprisonment: An Emerging Critique Prison Conditions and Public Safety The Courts: An Alternative Source of Critique Hurricane Katrina Governing Through Crime Opening the Prison: Convict Voices Conclusion: Governing Through Imprisonment? 8: THE NEW DETENTION: SECURING THE BORDER Context The Law Detaining Immigrants The War on Terror Scholarly Accounts of the War on Terror: A Failure of the Criminological Imagination? Conclusion CONCLUSION