{"product_id":"we-are-not-slaves-state-violence-coerced-labor-and-prisoners-rights-in-postwar-america-paperback-softback-9781469669311","title":"We Are not Slaves; State Violence, Coerced Labor, and Prisoners' Rights in Postwar America (Paperback \/ softback) 9781469669311","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eWe Are not Slaves\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eState Violence, Coerced Labor, and Prisoners' Rights in Postwar America\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eRobert T. Chase (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9781469669311\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003ePaperback \/ softback, published 28 February 2022\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e544 pages, 24 halftones, 3 maps, 4 graphs, 11 tables\u003cbr\u003e23.3 x 15.5 x 3 cm, 0.854 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eIn the early twentieth century, the brutality of southern prisons became a national scandal. Prisoners toiled in grueling, violent conditions while housed in crude dormitories on what were effectively slave plantations. This system persisted until the 1940s when, led by Texas, southern states adopted northern prison design reforms. Texas presented the reforms to the public as modern, efficient, and disciplined. Inside prisons, however, the transition to penitentiary cells only made the endemic violence more secretive, intensifying the labor division that privileged some prisoners with the power to accelerate state-orchestrated brutality and the internal sex trade. Reformers' efforts had only made things worse--now it was up to the prisoners to fight for change.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDrawing from three decades of legal documents compiled by prisoners, Robert T. Chase narrates the struggle to change prison from within. Prisoners forged an alliance with the NAACP to contest the constitutionality of Texas prisons. Behind bars, a prisoner coalition of Chicano Movement and Black Power organizations publicized their deplorable conditions as \"slaves of the state\" and initiated a prison-made civil rights revolution and labor protest movement. These insurgents won epochal legal victories that declared conditions in many southern prisons to be cruel and unusual--but their movement was overwhelmed by the increasing militarization of the prison system and empowerment of white supremacist gangs that, together, declared war on prison organizers. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTold from the vantage point of the prisoners themselves, this book weaves together untold but devastatingly important truths from the histories of labor, civil rights, and politics in the United States as it narrates the transition from prison plantations of the past to the mass incarceration of today.\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"The University of North Carolina Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52588978143512,"sku":"9781469669311","price":25.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/we-are-not-slaves-state-violence-coerced-labor-and-prisoners-rights-in-postwar-america-paperback-softback-9781469669311","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}