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Are Prisons Obsolete?

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Are Prisons Obsolete?

By: Angela Y. Davis
Narrated by: Angela Y. Davis
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Summary

With her characteristic brilliance, grace, and radical audacity, Angela Y. Davis has put the case for the latest abolition movement in American life: the abolition of the prison. As she quite correctly notes, American life is replete with abolition movements, and when they were engaged in these struggles, their chances of success seemed almost unthinkable. For generations of Americans, the abolition of slavery was sheerest illusion. Similarly, the entrenched system of racial segregation seemed to last forever, and generations lived in the midst of the practice, with few predicting its passage from custom. The brutal, exploitative (dare one say lucrative?) convict-lease system that succeeded formal slavery reaped millions to southern jurisdictions (and untold miseries for tens of thousands of men, and women). Few predicted its passing from the American penal landscape. Davis expertly argues how social movements transformed these social, political, and cultural institutions, and made such practices untenable.

In Are Prisons Obsolete?, Professor Davis seeks to illustrate that the time for the prison is approaching an end. She argues forthrightly for "decarceration," and argues for the transformation of the society as a whole.

©2003 Angela Y. Davis (P)2022 Tantor
Freedom & Security Law Politics & Government Social Sciences Crime Capitalism
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I hope it gets people thinking WHY people commit crimes and to question if this current system is helping anybody.

Well researched

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This is a normative writing from an academic who has nevet worked in prison! The research is all regurgitated BS. Stats re: coloured people does not mentionn the number of crimes committed by these so-called coloured people! What a load of hogwash!!! From someone who has worked in prison, forensic care, and university lecturer!!! Sincrely

Too woke, too ideological

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