Punishment in America: Social Control and the Ironies of Imprisonment / Edition 1

by Michael F. Welch

Overview

In Punishment in America Michael Welch gathers together his seminal contributions to the most crucial and controversial issues in criminal justice. Topics range from the war on drugs, boot camps and institutional violence, to AIDS and HIV, capital punishment and the entire corrections industry.

This coherent, but critical vision of punishment and corrections emphasizes social control but takes account of key social forces such as politics, religion and morality.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780761910848
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	08/28/1999
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

MICHAEL WELCH received a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of North Texas and is Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey (USA). He has correctional experience at the federal, state, and local levels. His research interests include punishment and social control, and he has published numerous articles for academic journals, edited volumes, and other scholarly publications. His key writings have appeared in Justice Quarterly, Journal of Research in Crime & Delinquency, The Prison Journal, Crime, Law & Social Change, Social Justice, Youth & Society, Race, Gender & Class, Critical Criminology: An International Journal, Contemporary Justice Review, American Journal of Criminal Justice, Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, Women & Criminal Justice, Journal of Sport & Social Issues, Criminal Justice Policy Review, Journal of Crime & Justice, Addictive Behaviors: An International Journal, Dialectical Anthropology, Journal of Offender Counseling, Services & Rehabilitation, Social Pathology, Crisis Intervention & Time-Limited Treatment, Federal Probation: Journal of Correctional Philosophy & Practice, and The Justice Professional. Also he is author of Detained: Immigration Laws and the Expanding I.N.S. Jail Complex (2002, Temple University Press), Flag Burning: Moral Panic and the Criminalization of Protest (2000, de Gruyter), Punishment in America: Social Control & the Ironies of Imprisonment (1999, Sage), and Corrections: A Critical Approach, (2nd edition, 2004, Mc Graw-Hill). He serves as an Affiliate with Center for Mental Health Services and Criminal Justice Research at Rutgers University. Welch invites you to visit his website www.professormichaelwelch.com

Table of Contents

Foreword - Todd R Clear
Discovery of the Penitentiary and Emergence of Social Control
Critical Criminology, Social Justice and an Alternative View of Incarceration
The Contours of Race, Social Class and Punishment
Exploring Institutional Biases in Corrections
The War on Drugs and Correctional Warehousing
Alternative Strategies for the Drug Crisis
Regulating the Reproduction and Morality of Women
The Social Control of Body and Soul
Jail Overcrowding
Social Sanitation and the Warehousing of the Urban Underclass
A Critical Interpretation of Correctional Bootcamps as Normalizing Institutions
Discipline, Punishment and the Military Model
The Brutal Truth
The Reproduction of Prison Violence and the Ironies of Social Control
The Machinery of Death
Capital Punishment and the Ironies of Social Control
The Poverty of Interest in Huamn Rights Violations in US Prisons
Prisoners with HIV/AIDS
Discrimination, Fringe Punishments and the Production of Suffering
The Immigration Crisis
Detention as an Emerging Mechanism of Social Control
The Corrections Industry
Economic Forces and the Prison Enterprise

Editorial Reviews

Offers a critical examination of the so-called back end of the criminal justice system: incarceration. Integrates various levels of analysis ranging from the macrosociological aspects of punishment to the meso (organizational) and micro (individual) dimensions of imprisonment. Overarching themes are social control and the ironic effects of incarceration, with chapters on institutional biases in corrections, the war on drugs and correctional warehousing, regulating the morality of women, prisoners with HIV/AIDS, and the corrections industry. The author is associate professor in the Administration of Justice Program at Rutgers University. He has correctional experience at the federal, state, and local levels. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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