Customer Reviews

Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis

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Christian Parenti's "Lockdown America" is one of many excellent recent books on crime policy. As do David Cole and Elliott Currie, Parenti contributes to showing the failures of the one-dimensional crime policies of the past 20-30 years, during which time the only acceptable variation on "get tough" has been "get tougher."

"Lockdown" consists of three parts. First, Parenti surveys the development of crime policy over the past 30-odd years. His account is sterngthened by his placement of crime policy in a broader context of important social and economic trends such as growing income inequality and the decline of manufacturing employment, especially in large cities.

The other two segments focus on two groups who are on the front lines of crime policy--the police and prisons. Parenti describes a number of disturbing trends, such as:

-the spread of "zero-tolerance" policing policies, and the enormous increase in lawlessness and violence on the part of the supposed keepers of the law.

-the growing militarization of police forces as seen in the proliferation of paramilitary SWAT teams and similar units, many of which, again, are responsible for wildly excessive use of force.

-the rampant degree to which prison guards engage in violence against inmates as well as formenting such violence among inmates themselves.

Parenti's reporting is first-rate. While his book is not a complete picture of the crime issue--he is somewhat short on solutions--his account is a valuable complement to the more policy-oriented work of Cole or Currie. "Lockdown America" deserves to be widely read.

LOCKDOWN AMERICA is an exquisitly crafted gripping read. It traces the last thirty years of law and order politics in the US. I actually found LOCKDOWN hard to put down, Parenti's style combines straightforward, streetwise language with literary and analytic flar. Chocked full of information and obscure sources, the book is grimmly hummorious and politically uncomprising. Most importantly, LOCKDOWN AMERICA provides a thorough and unique explanation for why America is the world's number one jailer.

Factually, this is an excellent book. Parenti is a gifted writer, and the criminal justice system has long needed an expose of this type. His writing and research are on the firmest ground when writing about the prison system, which should be read by everyone who thinks prison is somehow a "country club." It's also high time that somebody criticized William Bratton and the rather brutal police tactics he legitimized.

Although Parenti makes no secret of his far-left intellectual leanings, it does undermine his credibility in places. His recounting of the Amadou Diallo case, for example, misstates the facts, and he seems to believe that crime is something invented by big-city cops to harass young black men. Crime is real, and, as anyone who lives in a city can attest, the fear of it is also real--not just for whites but, to an even greater extent, for law-abiding blacks. To Parenti, agressive policing is a sop to yuppies and "gentrification" proponents so that the well-to-do can walk to their corner Starbucks unmolested. No--we'd all like to live in a crime-free environment, and we all have that right.

That said, this is an important book, and well worth reading and discussing.

This is a brilliant book that resolutely demonstrates the fact that the United States is a vicious police state controlled by an oligarchy of business and military interests. Christian Parenti is a worthy successor to his father, Michael. Unlike academics like Chomsky who criticize policy while ironically defining the limits of dissent with their unsubstantiated characterizations of the US system as a "democracy", Parenti has lived the terrors and shared, like Che, the fate of the people on whom they have been visited, the poor of our inner cities, the immigrants, and the workers. This authenticity and revolutionary consciousness in no way diminishes from the intellectual rigor of his analysis. Christian Parenti's insights, for instance, regarding the bifurcation of social control methods in the US, one for the middle classes grounded in Foucalt-style guilt trips and one for the unwanted masses characterized more directly by physical state terror is original and well developed. I recommend this book most highly.

Interested in a no-nonsense book that demystifies the forces behind contemporary America's police and prison systems? "Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis" by Christian Parenti skillfully connects the dots of US capitalist turmoil and repression with the increasingly ugly, militaristic, and inhumane face of today's policies for "correcting" marginalized people. As someone with a strong interest in these subjects, I found "Lockdown America" original, thought-provoking, and extremely worthwhile reading; a friend with no previous knowledge of the area told me the book provided her with an accessible and compelling background to the deeper issues behind mainstream headlines. Not for the faint-of-heart, "Lockdown America" broadsides readers with chilling accounts from our country's political and economic Fall-Out Zone (fortified with scores of direct-account interviews Parenti conducted with prisoners, activists, front-line officials and bureaucrats). Thankfully, Parenti doesn't let these stories (and therefore his readers) dangle helplessly and hopelessly; rather, he plugs them into a potent analysis of America's reigning social, political, and economic structures and thereby writes a challenging, conscious-raising, action-prompting book. I highly recommend it.

Lockdown America: Police And Prisons In The Age Of Crisis surveys and documents the absurdities, counter- productivity, and humanitarian outrages of contemporary American practices of militarized policing, prisons, fortified borders, and "war on drugs" campaign. Written with an accessible and vivid text making clear the links between crime and politics in a period of gathering economic crisis, Lockdown America is a highly recommended and clarion call in behalf of badly needed reforms for the sake of justice, public safety, and the humane treatment of incarcerated individuals.

This is the best book I've ever read that deals with the burgeoning police-state in the U.S. Parenti ranges far and wide by giving a sound structural analysis as to why police and their paramilitary style tactics have oversaturated our streets.

Economics and politics are often at the crux of most social problems; Parenti understands this and gives the reader an intellectually fascinating and stimulating journey documenting just how our country has been transformed over the last thirty years into a civil libertarian's nightmare.

As Lockdown America demonstrates, the "social dynamite" and "social junk" need to be quartered and corralled by the ruling class, otherwise the owning class would be forced to put down rebellions and riots. The new American prison boom is dealt with by Parenti along with a myriad of other criminal justice issues.

As mentioned above, the most accurate and satisfying aspect of the book is the manner in which it intelligently ties a politico-economic critique into its analysis of criminal justice (sic).

Go beyond nonsense television programs that purport to deal with crime and society, by devouring Parenti's book.

This is the best book I have ever read dealing with the burgeoning police state in the US. Parenti ranges far and wide by giving a sound structural analysis as to why police and their paramilitary style tactics have oversaturated our streets. Economics is often at the crux of most social problems; Parenti understands this and gives the reader an intellectually fascinating and stimulating journey, showing how our country has been transformed over the last thirty years into a civil libertarians nightmare.
The "social dynamite" and "social junk" need to be quartered and corralled, otherwise the owning class would be forced to put down rebellions and riots. The new American prison boom is dealt with by Parenti along with a myriad of other criminal justice issues. As mentioned above, the most accurate and satisfying aspect of the book is the manner in which he intelligently ties a politico-economic critique into his analysis of criminal "justice".
Go beyond nonsense television programs, which purport to deal with crime and society, by devouring Parenti's book.

The first time I traveled to California, in 1959, entering by auto at Lake Tahoe, I was terrified by what appeared to be an armed camp. Coming from rural Oklahoma where authoritarian tradition rather than armed authorities of the state reigned, I had never imagined such a police presence. And that was only the California Highway Patrol before that agency's militarization by Ronald Reagen. Peanuts, compared to the present state of lockdown. Christian Parenti's brilliant and engrossing book, LOCKDOWN AMERICA, is a great gift appearing at this time when the popular sentiment of vigilante justice looks benign compared to the arbitrary and cruel "justice" system of the state.

This is a very well written, very thoughtful study of the last 30 years of the criminal justice buildup in this country. This book goes beyond complaining -- it explains with history, theory and rich empirical detail why the US has so many prisons. I've read several books on law and order, this is the best. Excellent for college students or regular folks.