Description
First published in 1974, The American Prison Business studies the lunacies, the delusions, and the bizarre inner workings of the American prison business. From the first demonstration that the penitentiary is an American invention that was initiated by the late eighteenth-century reformers, to the startling revelations, in the chapter called ‘Cheaper than Chimpanzees’ of how pharmaceutical companies lease prisoners as human guinea-pigs, every page stimulates and surprises the reader as Jessica Mitford describes, inter alia the chemical, surgical and psychiatric techniques used to help ‘violent’ prisoners to be ‘reborn’; why businessmen tend to be more enthusiastic than the prisoners they employ in the ‘rent-a-con’ plan; and the Special Isolation Diet which tastes like inferior dog food. Jessica Mitford’s financial analysis of the prison business is a scoop. Her hard-eyed examination of how parole really works is a revelation. As the prison abolition movement continues to gain momentum, this book will provide food for thought for legislators, officials and students of sociology, law, criminology, penology, and history.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements 1. The Keepers and the Kept 2. Women in Cages 3. 101 Years of Prison Reform 4. The Criminal Type 5. What Counts as Crime? 6. The Indeterminate Sentence 7. Treatment 8. Clockwork Orange 9. Cheaper than Chimpanzees 10. The Prison Business 11. Employment and Welfare 12. Parole 13. Prison Protest 14. The Lawlessness of Corrections 15. Reform or Abolition? Notes Index
