Good Punishment?: Christian Moral Practice and U.S. Imprisonment

by James Samuel Logan

More than 2 million persons occupy America's prisons and jails today -- the highest per capita incarceration rate in U.S. history. With just 6 percent of the world's population, the United States now holds 25 percent of its prisoners. At what social cost do we build and fill more prisons?

In  Good Punishment?  James Samuel Logan critiques the American obsession with imprisonment as punishment, calling it "retributive degradation" of the incarcerated. His analysis draws on both salient empirical data and material from a variety of disciplines -- social history, anthropology, law and penal theory, philosophy of religion -- as he uncovers the devastating social consequences (both direct and collateral) of imprisonment on such a large, unprecedented scale.

A distinctive contribution of this book lies in its development of a Christian social ethics of "good punishment" embodied as a politics of "healing memories" and "ontological intimacy." Logan earnestly explores how Christians can best engage with the real-life issues and concerns surrounding the American practice of imprisonment.

Genres: Nonfiction

271 pages, Paperback

First published January 2, 2007

Reviews

[Chris Pierson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great introduction for those trying to understand the current mass-incarceration levels in the U.S. and the intersections of race, theology, and criminology. The book also examines the questions of "why" and "who" we punish. "