Ruth Wilson Gilmore
Since 1980, the number of people in U.S. prisons has increased more than 450%. Despite a crime rate that has been falling steadily for decades, California has led the way in this explosion, with what a state analyst called â€œthe biggest prison building project in the history of the world.â€ ,Golden Gulag, provides the first detailed explanation for that buildup by looking at how political and economic forces, ranging from global to local, conjoined to produce the prison boom., In an informed and impassioned account, Ruth Wilson Gilmore examines this issue through statewide, rural, and urban perspectives to explain how the expansion developed from surpluses of finance capital, labor, land, and state capacity. Detailing crises that hit Californiaâ€™s economy with particular ferocity, she argues that defeats of radical struggles, weakening of labor, and shifting patterns of capital investment have been key conditions for prison growth. The resultsâ€”a vast and expensive prison system, a huge number of incarcerated young people of color, and the increase in punitive justice such as the â€œthree strikesâ€ lawâ€”pose profound and troubling questions for the future of California, the United States, and the world. ,Golden Gulag ,provides a rich context for this complex dilemma, and at the same time challenges many cherished assumptions about who benefits and who suffers from the stateâ€™s commitment to prison expansion.
Nonfiction,Politics,Race,History,Sociology,Social Movements,Social Justice,Economics,Science,Geography,Philosophy,Theory,Race,Anti Racist
Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California