Are Prisons Obsolete? (Open Media Series) and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more



or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering
More Buying Choices
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Start reading Are Prisons Obsolete? (Open Media Series) on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.
Sorry, this item is not available in
Image not available for
Color:
Image not available

To view this video download Flash Player

 

Are Prisons Obsolete? [Paperback]

Angela Y. Davis
3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)

List Price: $11.95
Price: $10.37 & FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save: $1.58 (13%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
Want it tomorrow, May 23? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details
Free Two-Day Shipping for College Students with Amazon Student

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
Kindle Edition $7.99  
Paperback $10.37  
Rent Your Textbooks
Save up to 70% when you rent your textbooks on Amazon. Keep your textbook rentals for a semester and rental return shipping is free.

Book Description

August 5, 2003 1583225811 978-1583225813
With her characteristic brilliance, grace and radical audacity, Angela Y. Davis has put the case for the latest abolition movement in American life: the abolition of the prison. As she quite correctly notes, American life is replete with abolition movements, and when they were engaged in these struggles, their chances of success seemed almost unthinkable. For generations of Americans, the abolition of slavery was sheerest illusion. Similarly,the entrenched system of racial segregation seemed to last forever, and generations lived in the midst of the practice, with few predicting its passage from custom. The brutal, exploitative (dare one say lucrative?) convict-lease system that succeeded formal slavery reaped millions to southern jurisdictions (and untold miseries for tens of thousands of men, and women). Few predicted its passing from the American penal landscape. Davis expertly argues how social movements transformed these social, political and cultural institutions, and made such practices untenable.
In Are Prisons Obsolete?, Professor Davis seeks to illustrate that the time for the prison is approaching an end. She argues forthrightly for "decarceration", and argues for the transformation of the society as a whole.

Frequently Bought Together

Are Prisons Obsolete? + The New Jim Crow:  Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Price for both: $24.72

Buy the selected items together


Editorial Reviews

Review

"In this brilliant, thoroughly researched book, Angela Davis swings a wrecking ball into the racist and sexist underpinnings of the American prison system. Her arguments are well wrought and restrained, leveling an unflinching critique of how and why more than 2 million Americans are presently behind bars, and the corporations who profit from their suffering. Davis explores the biases that criminalize communities of color, politically disenfranchising huge chunks of minority voters in the process. Uncompromising in her vision, Davis calls not merely for prison reform, but for nothing short of 'new terrains of justice.' Another invaluable work in the Open Media Series by one of America's last truly fearless public intellectuals." Cynthia McKinney, former Congresswoman from Georgia -- Review

About the Author

ANGELA YVONNE DAVIS is a professor of history of consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Over the last thirty years, she has been active in numerous organizations challenging prison-related repression. Her advocacy on behalf of political prisoners led to three capital charges, sixteen months in jail awaiting trial, and a highly publicized campaign then acquittal in 1972. In 1973, the National Committee to Free Angela Davis and All Political Prisoners, along with the Attica Brothers, the American Indian Movement and other organizations founded The National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, of which she remained co-chairperson for many years.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 128 pages
  • Publisher: Seven Stories Press (August 5, 2003)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1583225811
  • ISBN-13: 978-1583225813
  • Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.4 x 7 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 4.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #49,447 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

3.6 out of 5 stars
(21)
3.6 out of 5 stars
Share your thoughts with other customers
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
58 of 63 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars An Urgent Appeal for Alternatives to Incarceration. January 19, 2004
Format:Paperback
It is almost too much for the human mind to fully comprehend that there are more than 2 million people--a group larger than the population of many countries-- presently behind bars in America. While serving as an elected official, I was given an extensive "tour" of one of the local prisons. I tried not to show the horror -and sorrow- I felt at the sight of so many human beings locked away in high tech cages, for fear my "tour" would be cut short.

This thoroughly researched book by Angela Davis articulates everything I instinctively felt when I got a first hand glimpse of prison life. With the patience and restraint of a Saint, Angela Davis challenges thinking people to face the human rights catastrophe in our jails and prisons.

It is the authors hope that this book will encourage readers to question their own assumptions about prison. It is my hope that this book will be widely read by everyone involved in the field of education and politics. It should be on the recommended reading list of all high schools, colleges and universities.

Suza Francina, former Mayor, Ojai, California, and author, The New Yoga for People Over 50.

Was this review helpful to you?
35 of 39 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Following the over throw of reconstruction, the re-empowered white ruling class in the South needed a large pool of cheap labor. The Thirteenth Amendment, which outlawed slavery, contained one glaring exception--slavery was still completely legal for those who had been convicted of a crime. Suddenly, new legislation was enacted which criminalized a wide variety of behaviors not previously considered criminal--having no job, vagrancy, no visible means of support, etc.

Once these "Black Codes" were in place, prisons in the South were rapidly filled with Blacks. Prior to the Civil War, prisoners in the South were overwhelmingly White. After Reconstruction, they were overwhelmingly Black.

These new prisoners were "leased" to White plantation owners, at a flat fee. With no capital invested in these new slaves, many were simply worked to death. The economic incentive to ensure that the prisons were full was inescapable.

In this short, but powerful, book, Angela Davis makes the case that this pattern of incarcerating Blacks, set during the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, carries through to the present. Today the economics of incarceration are more subtle. Money is not primarily made through the labor of prisoners (although that still happens). Today, the real money is made by the underwriters who sell the bonds to finance prison construction, the myriad of industries which supply the country's 2 million prisoners with everything from soap to light bulbs, and by rural America, where the last three decades of de-industrialization has left prison as one of the very few decent paying union jobs available to formerly blue collar workers.

Ms. Davis draws on a plethora of academic studies (several dozen of which are cited in footnotes, which provide anyone interested with a comprehensive study guide for understanding the historical antecedents and current realities of America's love affair with the prison.

Her bottom line--abandon the whole flawed system. The last chapter, which attempts to answer the immediate question posed to anyone who dares raise this option, is the book's weakest. Too much rhetoric; not enough solid proposals. Nonetheless, the historical breadth, backed by detailed facts, of Ms. Davis' book make it well worth reading.

Was this review helpful to you?
31 of 36 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Why Prisons Aren't About Justice September 15, 2004
Format:Paperback
This book, while providing historical context, is not overly academic and is very readable. Davis presents some startling facts about the prison as a replacement for the plantation and about the intrinsic racism of capital punishment.

The division between prison reform and prison abolition is an artificial one that need not slow the progress of either prison reform or the development of abolitionist theory. I've heard Davis speak on the subject as well. She emphasizes the need to both insist that correctional institutions be reformed AND to acknowledge that there is no "just" way to incarcerate people at the rate that the US currently does.

Read this book to expand you field of vision about the alternatives to the current criminal justice system and to place these issues in historical context.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars Are Prisons Obsolete?
This page turner was a quick, informative easy read. I couldn't help but find myself agreeing with most of the topics surrounding the prison system as we know it today in this... Read more
Published 26 days ago by monique ross mccoy
2.0 out of 5 stars A treatise based on weak associations and academic absurdities
I had trouble reading this because of the intellectually weak and absurd associations. Racism is a subject that evokes strong emotions, but if you want to argue a position that... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Steamer John
5.0 out of 5 stars Are Prisons Obsolete? Another Brilliant Contribution from Angela...
I teach Restorative Justice at the university level, and our students need to understand how un-democratic and perniciously vile the prison system has been to persons of color and... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Elizabeth Jackson
4.0 out of 5 stars Left wanting more ideas.
I loved this book and it has left me really thinking about these issues. I appreciated all the information, from historical to current. Definitely worth reading. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Merianm
4.0 out of 5 stars Great Reading
The book is definitely a must read. It was new, but arrived very quickly. If you are looking for a reason to make prisons obsolete, this is NOT the book to read. Read more
Published 3 months ago by EDubble
2.0 out of 5 stars OK book
Very onesided book. Not exactly an open mind, but does present a different perspective. Writer seems to live in a more idealistic world.
Published 4 months ago by Brigham70
1.0 out of 5 stars Just theory
While this book does raise a valid argument, its solution to the problem seems impossible. Angela Davis hates prison, she spend time in a prison after guns she purchases were used... Read more
Published 6 months ago by jackthestripper
5.0 out of 5 stars Logical and timely
This book is a logical, well-documented and timely exposé of the uselessness and insidiousness of the prison system: bastion of the dehumanised society, prisons should be... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Penelope
2.0 out of 5 stars Terribly written, hard to read
I'm currently reading this book for a criminology class and I'm finding it terribly difficult to read even a page. For starters, the sentence structure is terrible. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Hayashi
1.0 out of 5 stars Social Justice class textbook
This book has long, drawn-out, repitive chapters that make it very difficult to read. The same information can be found online via graphs and charts, Davis just puts them into... Read more
Published on February 17, 2011 by Brit
Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews


Forums

There are no discussions about this product yet.
Be the first to discuss this product with the community.
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 





Look for Similar Items by Category


Want to discover more products? You may find many from assata shakur shopping list.