With Liberty For Some: 500 Years of Imprisonment in America - Softcover

Christianson, Scott

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1555534686 ISBN 13: 9781555534684

Publisher: Northeastern University Press, 2000

Synopsis

From Columbus' voyages to the New World through today's prison expansion movements, incarceration has played an important, yet disconcerting, role in American history. In this sweeping examination of imprisonment in the United States over five centuries, Scott Christianson exposes the hidden record of the nation's prison heritage, illuminating the forces underlying the paradox of a country that sanctifies individual liberty while it continues to build and maintain a growing complex of totalitarian institutions.

Based on exhaustive research and the author's insider's knowledge of the criminal justice system, With Liberty for Some provides an absorbing, well-written chronicle of imprisonment in its many forms. Interweaving his narrative with the moving, often shocking, personal stories of the prisoners themselves and their keepers, Christianson considers convict transports to the colonies; the international trade in captive indentured servants, slaves, and military conscripts; life under slavery; the transition from colonial jails to model state prisons; the experience of domestic prisoners of war and political prisoners; the creation of the penitentiary; and the evolution of contemporary corrections. His penetrating study of this broad spectrum of confinement reveals that slavery and prisons have been inextricably linked throughout American history. He also examines imprisonment within the context of the larger society.

With Liberty for Some is a thought-provoking work that will shed new light on the ways in which imprisonment has shaped the American experience. As the author writes, "Prison is the black flower of civilization -- a durable weed that refuses to die."

About this title

From the Publisher:

From Columbus's voyages to the New World through today's prison movements, captivity has played an important, yet disconcerting role in American history. In this sweeping reexamination of imprisonment in the United States, Scott Christianson exposes the hidden record of the nation's prison heritage and explores some of the forces underlying the paradox of a country that sanctifies individual liberty even as it continues to build and maintain a huge and growing complex of totalitarian institutions in its midst.

About the Author:

Scott Christianson is Director of the New York Death Penalty Documentation Project, contributing editor of the Criminal Law Bulletin, and Chairman of the Board of the Safer Society Foundation. A former investigative reporter and state criminal justice official, he is the author of Condemned: Inside the Sing Sing Death House. He lives near Albany, New York.

About this edition

• Publisher: Northeastern University Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1555534686
• ISBN 13: 9781555534684
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352