What's Prison For?
Punishment and Rehabilitation in the Age of Mass Incarceration

...[D]ecades of studies identify four main conditions that foretell violent behavior: shame, isolation, exposure to violence, and a diminished ability to meet one's economic needs. ...Those are defining characteristics of life in American prison. p30 WHAT'S PRISON FOR? is very well done, but it's a d......more

This is a short and to the point view of our mass incarceration problem in America. It was really impressive because it has very recent information, not statistics that are already old by the time they’re published. This is an important topic, especially at a moment when one side of the political ais......more

As someone who has read a lot about the prison crisis, I found this book laid out the recent history of the system in a very digestible way that would be very useful if someone had never read about the copy before. It did a good job at including more recent data and speaking to individuals who had b......more

3.5/5 This book is a solid overview of some of the issues facing the incarceration system in the United States. The primary focus is the lack of rehabilitative access for those spending time in prison. The book benefitted from the well-researched and thorough descriptions of programs around the world......more

I'm privileged enough to have never been directly affected by the American prison system, so this was always going to be a pretty informative book for me. But I'm still surprised by just how concise and sweeping such a short book managed to be; damn near every sub-topic I was thinking about was addr......more