Full Description
The United States has both the largest, most expensive, and most powerful military and the largest, most expensive, and most punitive carceral system in the history of the world. Since the American War in Vietnam, the number of veterans who have been incarcerated after their military service has steadily increased, with over 100,000 veterans in prison today. Identifying the previously unrecognized connections between American wars and mass incarceration, Prisoners after War reaches across lines of race, class, and gender to record the untold history of incarcerated veterans over the past six decades. Having conducted dozens of oral history interviews, Jason A. Higgins traces the lifelong effects of war, inequality, disability, and mental illness, and explores why hundreds of thousands of veterans, from Vietnam to Afghanistan, were caught up in the carceral system. This original study tells an intergenerational history of state-sanctioned violence, punishment, and inequality, but its pages also resonate with stories of survival and redemption, revealing future possibilities for reform and reparative justice.
Contents
List of Figures
Preface and Note on Methodology
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Locating Incarcerated Veterans in American History
Chapter 1: "Less than" Veterans
Discrimination, Discharges, and Disabilities during the Vietnam War
Chapter 2: War, Drugs, and the War on Drugs
Heroin and Vietnam Veterans during the Rise of Mass Incarceration
Chapter 3: Another War, Another Drug
Punishment and the Military-Carceral State in the Reagan Era
Chapter 4: Leave No Vet Behind
Memory of the Vietnam War and the Founding of Veterans Treatment Court
Chapter 5: Generation 9/11
Incarcerated Veterans of the Global War on Terrorism
Chapter 6: Another Signature Wound
Substance Use Disorder and the Opioid Epidemic
Chapter 7: "Justice for Vets"
A New Veterans' Movement
Chapter 8: . . . And Justice for All
Women and Families of Veterans Treatment Court
Conclusion
No Peace, No Justice
Notes
Index
