A Plague of Prisons: The Epidemiology of Mass Incarceration in America [Hardcover]

This book will leave you informed, angry, frustrated and challenged. Drucker provides an overview of the social,political,economic and public health context of incarceration in America. At the same time he demonstrates how the science, art, and application of epidemiology provides understanding the drivers of this plague on our society and how it can be reduced, if not reversed. One of the many strengths of the book is how he draws upon recent research to support his case and challenge. It is a must read for policy makers as well as students of law, public health and all of the other professions that work in the field. It is an important contribution.

In a unique analysis of the mass incarceration in America, Ernest Drucker's A Plague of Prisons: The Epidemiology of Mass Incarceration in America provides scientific reasons that mass incarceration is more destructive than Cholera or AIDS or any other deadly diseases in the history of human. Drucker, a long time epidemiologist, argued that prisons have been a real danger to the public heath since the 1970s when the "War on Drugs" started. He argues that, to find cure to the disease of mass incarceration, "we must control the toxic agent, the prison itself."

Just like one of the greatest movies, in the first few chapters, Drucker used the historical events to illustrate the scientific way to track sources of diseases and mapping the places and the best way to eliminate the spread of such ..... of the sinking Titanic, the outbreak of the cholera in London and how the outbreaks and public health responses, and on (human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome) illustrate basic epidemiological method--mapping outbreaks, tracing vectors, identifying the demography of the afflicted--in the interest of preventing disease transmission.

Later in the book, Drucker illustrated the specific health costs of incarceration in the wake of New York's highly punitive Rockefeller drug laws in 1973. Using empirical data to prove his argument, he used the public health concepts of "years of life lost" and "disability-adjusted life years," measurements that epidemiologists use to quantify the relative magnitude of disasters. He showed that blacks and minorities who live in poor neighborhoods have developed chronic diseases which means, he argues, the drug laws are public health threat. Simply put, he concluded that year of life lost to drug laws are "three times greater than those lost in the September 11, 2001, World Trade Center attacks."
Finally, Drucker identified that there are solutions to such disaster, giving the example of how the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War helped convert public view of nuclear weapons to a global threat. A Plague of Prisons' is a joint venture that conveys an important message that scientists, scholars and civil rights advocates must work together to show the total impact of mass incarceration in our society.

This book displays yet another reason why we have a major incarceration problem in the US that is mostly attributed to the failed drug war