The Prison and the Gallows
The Politics of Mass Incarceration in America

This 2006 book argues that punitive penal policies were forged by particular social movements.

Marie Gottschalk (Author)

9780521682916, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 19 June 2006

468 pages, 1 table
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.6 cm, 0.68 kg

"This is an important, carefully argued, and richly detailed analysis that deserves wide attention. As Gottschalk emphasizes in a largely prescriptive concluding chapter, any efforts to reverse current penal policy should be clear about its origins." - Charles Williams, University of Washington

The United States has built a carceral state that is unprecedented among Western countries and in US history. Nearly one in 50 people, excluding children and the elderly, is incarcerated today, a rate unsurpassed anywhere else in the world. What are some of the main political forces that explain this unprecedented reliance on mass imprisonment? Throughout American history, crime and punishment have been central features of American political development. This 2006 book examines the development of four key movements that mediated the construction of the carceral state in important ways: the victims' movement, the women's movement, the prisoners' rights movement, and opponents of the death penalty. This book argues that punitive penal policies were forged by particular social movements and interest groups within the constraints of larger institutional structures and historical developments that distinguish the United States from other Western countries.

1. The prison and the gallows: the construction of the carceral state in America
2. Law, order, and alternative explanations
3. Unlocking the past: the nationalization and politicization of law and order
4. The carceral state and the welfare state: the comparative politics of victims
5. Not the usual suspects: feminists, women's groups, and the anti-rape movement
6. The battered women's movement and the development of penal policy
7. From rights to revolution: prison activism and penal policy
8. Capital punishment, the courts, and the early origins of the carceral state, 1920s–60s
9. The power to punish: the political development of capital punishment, 1972 to today
10. Conclusion: whither the carceral state.

Subject Areas: Criminal law & procedure [LNF], Politics & government [JP], Prisons [JKVP1], Crime & criminology [JKV], Sociology & anthropology [JH]