"Historian Heather Ann Thompson offers the first definitive telling of the Attica prison uprising, the state's violent response, and the victims' decades-long quest for justice--in time for the forty-fifth anniversary of the events"-- Provided by publisher.
On September 9, 1971, nearly 1,300 prisoners took over the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York to protest years of mistreatment. Holding guards and civilian employees hostage, the...
In 1971, the inmates of Attica revolted, took hostages, and forced the authorities into four days of desperate negotiation. The rebels demanded and were granted the presence of a group of observers to act as unofficial mediators. Tom Wicker, then the Associate Editor of the New York Times, was one of those summoned. This is his account.
"In the summer of 1971, New York's Attica State Prison is a symbol of everything broken in America -- abused prisoners, rampant racism and a blind eye turned towards the injustices perpetrated against the powerless. But when the guards at Attica overreact to a minor incident, the prisoners decide they've had enough and revolt -- taking their jailers hostage and making demands for humane conditions."--Provided by publisher.
Few stories are more central to understanding our history of racially biased incarceration and violent social activism than the life of Sam Melville. Melville was both reviled and admired as one of the most feared radicals in post-World War II history. His importance in the 1960s is widely recognized by historians and scholars as epitomizing the controversies, the promise, and the problems of the New Left. This memoir by Melville's son opens a window...
"The Attica Turkey Shoot tells a story that New York State did not want you to know. In 1971, following a prison riot at the Attica Correctional Facility, state police and prison guards slaughtered thirty-nine hostages and inmates and tortured more than one thousand men after they had surrendered. State officials pretended that they could not successfully prosecute the law officers who perpetrated this carnage, and then those same officials scurried...
"Deanne Quinn Miller was five years old when her father-William "Billy" Quinn-was murdered in the first minutes of the Attica Prison Riot, the only corrections officer to die at the hands of inmates. But how did he die? Who were the killers? Those questions haunted Dee and wreaked havoc on her psyche for thirty years. Finally, when she joined the Forgotten Victims of Attica, she began to find answers. This began the process of bringing closure not...
Like Watergate and Vietnam, it is an icon of recent history. Gov. Rockefeller's brutal re-taking of the prison-a nine-minute, 1600 bullet assault that took the lives of 29 inmates and 10 guards held hostage- put an end to the four-day rebellion. But the struggles for justice, by both prisoners and guards, endured for three decades.
"The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture has denounced the use of solitary confinement beyond fifteen days as a form of cruel and degrading treatment that often rises to the level of torture. Yet the United States holds more than eighty thousand people in isolation on any given day. Now sixteen authors vividly describe the miserable realities of life in solitary. In a book that will add a startling new dimension to the debates around human rights and...
"In the United States today, one in every 31 adults is under some form of penal control, including one in eleven African American men. How did the "land of the free" become the home of the world's largest prison system? Challenging the belief that America's prison problem originated with the Reagan administration's War on Drugs, Elizabeth Hinton traces the rise of mass incarceration to an ironic source: the social welfare programs of Lyndon Johnson's...
A Chicago Cook County Jail chaplain and mass-incarceration sociologist examines the lifelong realities of a criminal record, demonstrating how America's justice system is less about rehabilitation and more about structured disenfranchisement.
"A searing expose of the effects of mass incarceration on the families of those locked up - including the 2.7 million American children who have a parent in jail - told through the stories of three families struggling to live the best lives they can within the confines of a brutal system"-- Provided by publisher.
"Found guilty of the rape and murder of a woman he had never met, Nick Yarris was sentenced to death. With appeal after appeal failing, he spent twenty-two years waiting to die. This is the incredible true story of how he survived Death Row." -- Page [4] of cover.
"Fifteen-year-old Diamond stopped going to school the day she was expelled for lashing out at peers who constantly harassed and teased her for something everyone on the staff had missed: she was being trafficked for sex. After months on the run, she was arrested and sent to a detention center for violating a court order to attend school. Black girls represent 16 percent of female students but almost half of all girls with a school-related arrest....
"In thirteen intimate narratives, Six by Ten explores the mental, physical, and spiritual impacts of America's widespread embrace of solitary confinement. Through stories from those subjected to solitary confinement, family members on the outside, and corrections officers, Six by Ten examines the darkest hidden corners of America's mass incarceration culture and illustrates how solitary confinement inflicts lasting consequences on families and communities...
Insane takes journalist Alisa Roth deep inside our prisons and jails to show how and why they have become warehouses for people with mental illness, institutions rife with improper treatment and outright abuse. She brings readers from the overwhelmed mental health units of the Los Angeles County Jail to a women's prison in Oklahoma with one of the fastest-growing populations of people with mental illness in the country. Roth provides the first comprehensive...
Law professor Alexander argues that the War on Drugs and policies that deny convicted felons equal access to employment, housing, education, and public benefits create a permanent under caste based largely on race. As the United States celebrates the nation's "triumph over race" with the election of Barack Obama, the majority of young black men in major American cities are locked behind bars or have been labeled felons for life. Although Jim Crow...
"We all know that orange is the new black and mass incarceration is the new Jim Crow, but how much do we actually know about the structure, goals, and impact of our criminal justice system? Understanding Mass Incarceration offers the first comprehensive overview of the incarceration apparatus put in place by the world's largest jailer: the United States. Drawing on a growing body of academic and professional work, Understanding Mass Incarceration...
A man who spent thirty years on death row for a crime he did not commit describes how he became a victim of a flawed legal system, recounting the years he shared with fellow inmates who were eventually executed before his exoneration.
