States of Confinement : Policing, Detention, and Prisons

The United States has the highest incarceration and execution rate in the industrialized world: 70 percent of the nearly two million people incarcerated in prisons and immigration detention centers are people of color. States of Confinement uncovers the political, social, and economic biases in policing and punishment. The distinguished contributors--Angela Y. Davis, Manning Marable, Gary Marx, Robert Meeropol, Julie Su, and Judi Bari--discuss profiling and sentencing disparities in American society. They explose racial profiling and sentencing disparities that target African American and Latinos, the sexual exploitation of women in custody, racist and homophobic violence, the policing of Asian Americans and Arabs, the conditions of HIV-positive prisoners, and the use of the Grand Jury and police to undermine political activity.Statistics like these, and the often unsafe conditions under which people are imprisoned, make an analysis of incarceration urgent and timely. The distinguished authors of this collection use their diverse experiences and expertise to discuss troubling abuses of police powers in our society.

Joy James is Associate Professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder.