- Paperback: 412 pages
- Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (Jan 8 2007)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0520242017
- ISBN-13: 978-0520242012
- Product Dimensions: 2.1 x 1.4 x 0.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 454 g
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
#232,700 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #50 in Books > Law > Procedures & Litigation > Courts
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
"A magnificent analysis of the political economy of super-incarceration and the slave plantations that California calls prisons." - Mike Davis, author of Ecology of Fear "Golden Gulag is a deeply necessary book for our times. Gilmore digs beneath the easy answers to the more troubling causes of a political consensus that prisons are the only solution to all urban and rural ills." - Nayan Shah, author of Contagious Divides: Epidemics and Race in San Francisco's Chinatown"
Product Description
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 "the biggest prison building project in the history of the world." 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 California'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 results--a vast and expensive prison system, a huge number of incarcerated young people of color, and the increase in punitive justice such as the "three strikes" law--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 state's commitment to prison expansion.
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 California'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 results--a vast and expensive prison system, a huge number of incarcerated young people of color, and the increase in punitive justice such as the "three strikes" law--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 state's commitment to prison expansion.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.8 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
31 of 34 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent book...a must read!, Dec 29 2006
By Reader - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California (Paperback)
Ruthie Gilmore's examination of California's prison-industrial complex paints a sobering portrait of the effects of the state's post-industrial decline in the past quarter century. Supplemented by numerous charts, maps, and statistics, Gilmore argues that the massive prison-building project that began in the early 1980s was rooted in earlier developments, namely the failure of the "welfare-warfare state" to absorb the numerous surpluses created by political and economic restructuring. Combining theory and historical-sociological analysis, this highly readable book is at once depressing and optimistic; it lays out the facts and guidelines for pursuing meaningful, antiracist struggles against the systemic dehumanization of immigrants, low-wage workers, and youths of color that continues to characterize U.S. political culture.
10 of 14 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
bought for another, Feb 18 2007
By Richard Mudge - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California (Paperback)
i purchased for a friend who is an inmatehe has praised the book to me
6 of 10 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lots of Good Stuff, May 12 2007
By David A. Wiss - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California (Paperback)
As a researcher in criminology and recidivism, this book proved to be very helpful!
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