While Schenwar and Law occasionally overwhelm the reader with data, their anecdotes drive home their points. Each chapter, aptly titled to show its net-widening approach, such as Confined in Community, or Locked down in Treatment, has plenty of eye-popping stories from scholars, activists, and formerly incarcerated people they interviewed—and there are dozens to give the book heft and credibility ... The book asks what kinds of true alternatives could help remove criminalization from the equation and get us away from the need 'to create new Somewhere Elses to put people,' a concept they attribute to activist Mariame Kaba. This, I found, was the most frustrating part of the book. Perhaps because some of the alternatives in this section didn’t speak to me or solve enough problems ... offers us a deeper understanding of the way racial and social controls keep people disenfranchised and locked up even if they are no longer behind bars. It asks us to change our thinking, and such a request could not come at a more opportune or turbulent time.
While Schenwar and Law occasionally overwhelm the reader with data, their anecdotes drive home their points. Each chapter, aptly titled to show its net-widening approach, such as Confined in Community, or Locked down in Treatment, has plenty of eye-popping stories from scholars, activists, and formerly incarcerated people they interviewed—and there are dozens to give the book heft and credibility ... The book asks what kinds of true alternatives could help remove criminalization from the equation and get us away from the need 'to create new Somewhere Elses to put people,' a concept they attribute to activist Mariame Kaba. This, I found, was the most frustrating part of the book. Perhaps because some of the alternatives in this section didn’t speak to me or solve enough problems ... offers us a deeper understanding of the way racial and social controls keep people disenfranchised and locked up even if they are no longer behind bars. It asks us to change our thinking, and such a request could not come at a more opportune or turbulent time.
... powerful ... Necessary reading for any critic of mass incarceration seeking to understand the myriad policy alternatives and the path to lasting liberation.
... powerful ... Necessary reading for any critic of mass incarceration seeking to understand the myriad policy alternatives and the path to lasting liberation.
... useful ... a massively researched book about not just prison reform, but about the people who are trying to effect needed change. [The authors] show that although advocates are almost universally well intentioned, not all of the work has led to progress. In a poignant foreword, Michelle Alexander sets the tone, discussing how both high-tech digital prisons and lower-tech control mechanisms are often as harsh as what can be found inside traditional jails and prisons. Schenwar and Law build on the foreword skillfully and persuasively, explaining with case studies, anecdotes, and scholarly research how many of the new pathways are about controlling those deemed criminals, about punishment rather than rehabilitation ... Important reading for anyone involved in the criminal justice system.
You can feel the authors’ outrage inked into every page. Yet Prison by Any Other Name might have been more effective if it were written with a measure of dispassion, and an eye toward enlightening the skeptical. It feels instead like a text for the converted ... The most revelatory moment comes when Schenwar and Law point out that our so-called alternatives to incarceration reflect a paucity of imagination. What else besides a police state could our society be? ... This is an abolitionist text, thus the authors’ aim is not to answer that question with any new form of social control. Instead, Prison By Any Other Name shows that much of what’s called crime is nothing of the sort, and makes a case for how investing in the resources people crave—quality housing, education, and jobs, as well as healthful foods, sports, and the arts—will go a long way toward reducing misbehavior, which is so often born of poverty.
... a cogent critique ... [The authors'] impassioned yet evidence-based polemic exposes flaws in much of the perceived wisdom around the issue. Policy makers and criminal justice reform advocates should consider this bracing account a must-read.
... useful ... a massively researched book about not just prison reform, but about the people who are trying to effect needed change. [The authors] show that although advocates are almost universally well intentioned, not all of the work has led to progress. In a poignant foreword, Michelle Alexander sets the tone, discussing how both high-tech digital prisons and lower-tech control mechanisms are often as harsh as what can be found inside traditional jails and prisons. Schenwar and Law build on the foreword skillfully and persuasively, explaining with case studies, anecdotes, and scholarly research how many of the new pathways are about controlling those deemed criminals, about punishment rather than rehabilitation ... Important reading for anyone involved in the criminal justice system.
... a cogent critique ... [The authors'] impassioned yet evidence-based polemic exposes flaws in much of the perceived wisdom around the issue. Policy makers and criminal justice reform advocates should consider this bracing account a must-read.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay[/caption]
