Prison Nation: The Warehousing of America's Poor - Paperback

by Paul Wright (Editor), Tara Herivel (Editor)

Prison Nation is a distant dispatch from a foreign and forbidden place--the world of America's prisons. Written by prisoners, social critics and luminaries of investigative reporting, Prison Nation testifies to the current state of America's prisoners' living conditions and political concerns. These concerns are not normally the concerns of most Americans, but they should be. From substandard medical care the inadequacy of resources for public defenders to the death penalty, the issues covered in this volume grow more urgent every day. Articles by outstanding writers such as Mumia Abu-Jamal, Noam Chomsky, Mark Dow, Judy Green, Tracy Huling and Christian Parenti chronicle the injustices of prison privatization, class and race in the justice system, our quixotic drug war, the rarely discussed prison AIDS crisis and a judicial system that rewards mostly those with significant resources or the desire to name names. Correctional facilities have become a profitable growth industry, for companies like Wackenhut that run them and companies like Boeing that use cheap prison labor. With fascinating narratives, shocking tales and small stories of hope, Prison Nation paints a picture of a world many Americans know little or nothing about.

Author Biography

Paul Wright is a Washington state prisoner, jailhouse lawyer, political activist and journalist. Paul is the co-founder of Prison Legal News, a monthly magazine published since 1990 that is prisoner written, edited and published. His last book was The Celling of America. Tara Herivel is a prisoners' rights activist and lawyer who has written for Prison Legal News and other progressive periodicals in the Seattle area.