Citation

Gottschalk M. Law Soc. Inq. 2009; 34(2): 439-472.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, American Bar Foundation, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1747-4469.2009.01152.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This essay reviews five books as they relate to the causes and political consequences of mass imprisonment in the United States and the comparative politics of penal policy: Ruth Wilson Gilmore's Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California (2007); Jeff Manza and Christopher Uggen's Locked Out: Felon Disenfranchisement and American Democracy (2006); Jonathan Simon's Governing Through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of Fear (2007); Michael Tonry, ed., Crime, Punishment, and Politics in a Comparative Perspective (2007); and Bruce Western's Punishment and Inequality in America (2006).