Our Punitive Society: Race, Class, Gender, and Punishment in America, Second Edition

Exploration of the primary forces relevant to punishment—poverty and political powerlessness—highlights the necessity for humane alternatives to our current incarceration binge. This provocative overview looks at the business of punishment and at the historical patterns of control regarding slavery, the death penalty, women, the LGBTQ community, juveniles, and supervision.

The United States has the world’s highest rate of incarceration—a form of punishment that separates the least privileged from the rest of society, creating populations of damaged lives. All of society pays the price for overly punitive sanctions