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Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis
Lockdown America documents the horrors and absurdities of militarized policing, prisons, a fortified border, and the war on drugs. Its accessible and vivid prose makes clear the links between crime and politics in a period of gathering economic crisis.
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
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1874 people want to read
About the author
Christian Parenti
19 books90 followersChristian Parenti is a contributing editor at The Nation, a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute, and a visiting scholar at the City University of New York. He has a Ph.D. in sociology from the London School of Economics. The author of Lockdown America, The Soft Cage, and The Freedom. Parenti has written for Fortune, The New York Times, Los AngelesTimes, Washington Post, Playboy, Mother Jones, and The London Review of Books. He has held fellowships from the Open Society Institute, Rockefeller Brother Fund and the Ford Foundation; and has won numerous awards, including the 2009 Lange-Tailor Prize and “Best Magazine Writing 2008” from the Society for Professional Journalists. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
August 30, 2007
I like this book because it paints a viable economic story behind the explosive growth of the prison system in the last 35 years. Parenti argues that neoliberal development (i.e. the global exportation of manufacturing labor to countries that are cheaper for corporations) has resulted in massive job loss amongst working class men, and particularly African American males, making them superfluous to the labor needs of a post-industrial society. This means that for the first time in US history, the labor of Black men is no longer useful; indeed, it has become redundant. Consider 40% unemployment amongst young Black men in most inner cities, which underscores the point.
From this point of view, prisons serve to contain a potentially threatening underclass who could create significant social dislocation if left unemployed and free. Nixon and Johnson were afraid by African, Puerto Rican and American Indian liberation movements, which resulted in the militarization of police as a domestic counter-insurgency force. War on Drugs policies helped build the juridical framework for mass racialized arrests, prosecutions and incarceration making the US have the most, and highest percentage of prisoners in the world.
Anyway, the basic point is that prisons serve to contain the class of people who have become unnecessary and therefore threatening to the economic status quo. So, remember, if you're a middle/upper class beneficiary of the modern economy, the prison system exists to prop up the vast and grinding inequities, which would be challenged if not for the mass incarceration of the economy's victims. After all, kids aren't getting rich selling drugs. But its better than no job.
Doesn't it make more sense that those with criminal records can't get jobs. It turns out that they have criminal records (as a population) because there are no jobs in the first place. In fact, the prison system adds value to an unemployed person by making them the commodity that is produced by the prison industrial complex.
From this point of view, prisons serve to contain a potentially threatening underclass who could create significant social dislocation if left unemployed and free. Nixon and Johnson were afraid by African, Puerto Rican and American Indian liberation movements, which resulted in the militarization of police as a domestic counter-insurgency force. War on Drugs policies helped build the juridical framework for mass racialized arrests, prosecutions and incarceration making the US have the most, and highest percentage of prisoners in the world.
Anyway, the basic point is that prisons serve to contain the class of people who have become unnecessary and therefore threatening to the economic status quo. So, remember, if you're a middle/upper class beneficiary of the modern economy, the prison system exists to prop up the vast and grinding inequities, which would be challenged if not for the mass incarceration of the economy's victims. After all, kids aren't getting rich selling drugs. But its better than no job.
Doesn't it make more sense that those with criminal records can't get jobs. It turns out that they have criminal records (as a population) because there are no jobs in the first place. In fact, the prison system adds value to an unemployed person by making them the commodity that is produced by the prison industrial complex.
April 20, 2008
this shit will just get you so mad about the rising police state and the prison industrial complex. Read about the development of Zero Tolerance Policies, 3-strike laws, human warehousing, and the role of Corrections Officers Unions in policy puppetry. No wonder all the cashmoneys ain't going to the damn edumacashen system.
July 8, 2017
If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, where does the road paved with pure evil lead?
There are more scholarly books out there that explain how Republicans with help from the Democrats cut social services, killed off the good paying jobs, let the police off the leash, blamed everything on drugs and then made sure everyone knew that actually meant people of color, and then built huge prisons so that we could all get raped and get AIDS and lose our minds and join racist gangs and then be released. Parenti takes a more journalistic, impressionistic path, but the story is by now well-known. He uses some colorful language, but it is still pretty staid compared with say Bobby Seale. And when he talks about the old 60s War on Poverty/Great Society stuff, it is hard to tell where he is explaining the enemy's reasoning and where he is maybe agreeing with it.
I found this all pretty rough going, actually. Some of it was very familiar ground, like the horror that was Bratton and Giuliani NYC, and he even gets a bit into the war in my old neighborhood (a story well told in War in the Neighborhood). So it's not only an unpleasant subject but also a little close to (my old) home. This book is supposed to make you angry, and if it doesn't then you are one very zen cat, man. But I think he kind of stops short... he recommends "less" as in less prison, less policing, less laws. He warns that harm reduction and other such programs just expand the net of the justice system and should only be brought in once the more malicious aspects of the american gulag are trimmed back. Sounds good, but I think I'd rather skip right to prison abolition.
There are more scholarly books out there that explain how Republicans with help from the Democrats cut social services, killed off the good paying jobs, let the police off the leash, blamed everything on drugs and then made sure everyone knew that actually meant people of color, and then built huge prisons so that we could all get raped and get AIDS and lose our minds and join racist gangs and then be released. Parenti takes a more journalistic, impressionistic path, but the story is by now well-known. He uses some colorful language, but it is still pretty staid compared with say Bobby Seale. And when he talks about the old 60s War on Poverty/Great Society stuff, it is hard to tell where he is explaining the enemy's reasoning and where he is maybe agreeing with it.
I found this all pretty rough going, actually. Some of it was very familiar ground, like the horror that was Bratton and Giuliani NYC, and he even gets a bit into the war in my old neighborhood (a story well told in War in the Neighborhood). So it's not only an unpleasant subject but also a little close to (my old) home. This book is supposed to make you angry, and if it doesn't then you are one very zen cat, man. But I think he kind of stops short... he recommends "less" as in less prison, less policing, less laws. He warns that harm reduction and other such programs just expand the net of the justice system and should only be brought in once the more malicious aspects of the american gulag are trimmed back. Sounds good, but I think I'd rather skip right to prison abolition.
May 5, 2015
Excellent book outlining the Prison industrial complex. Exhaustive research and lots of fact based information. I wish Parenti would write a new chapter in this effort as much has changed since the early 2000's and much of his research dealt with the 1990's. I love that he tracks the economic flow of wealth from the late 60's and how that also plays a large roll in what is considered crime. If you want too understand a bit about why we have 2.3 million prisoners in the US and how the justice system is plainly racist, I strongly suggest Lockdown America.
November 7, 2011
The most well-considered and lasting of the late '90s, early '00s prison movement books.
January 29, 2012
Parenti gives an expansive overview of the historical forces that have played a role in leading us to the mass incarceration crisis that we have today in "Lockdown America." I particularly appreciate the devotion of full chapters to discussion of the complexity of specific issues within the prison-industrial complex, such as segregated housing units, militaristic policing, and prison physical and sexual violence. In these chapters, Parenti illustrates the problematic nature of each issue in and of itself, but also demonstrates their roles as crucial dynamics interacting to perpetuate our flawed "criminal justice" system.
It is my hope that Parenti authors a follow-up book or updated version of the book, as circumstances have changed in many ways since its publication. I would be interested in Parenti's take on the current situation and thoughts on future directions of the country.
It is my hope that Parenti authors a follow-up book or updated version of the book, as circumstances have changed in many ways since its publication. I would be interested in Parenti's take on the current situation and thoughts on future directions of the country.
June 22, 2008
One of the most cogent and accessible reads on the prison industrial complex that I've read to date. Parenti is awesome! This book discusses the rise of the current police state, the unending delegation of power to police, the horrors of prison, the reality behind the phrases "law and order" and "quality of life" among others, how capitalism needs a "criminal" class of people in order to keep functioning et al. I whipped through this book. It's a great resource and I highly recommend it.
April 23, 2009
i read this for a class called "race, ethnicity, and power in the united states" and was very pleased with the content. i think i read it all in three days because i had a paper to write but aside from my procrastination the detailed descriptions of INJUSTICE in the prison industrial complex was fascinating and captivating. i actually used the word "riveting" without knowing the new york times said that too, and the quote was right on the front cover.
October 13, 2010
Excellent historical analysis of the prison industrial complex. Parenti details the way the state and corporations have colluding in increasing criminalization and control of poor Black and Latino communities, plus the shift in management of prisons to the private sector.
January 17, 2008
awesome!
December 1, 2008
Brutal and scary
March 11, 2011
SIX WORD REVIEW: I'm radical...but this, too radical?
July 14, 2011
Terrifying.
May 13, 2012
If you love law enforcement and police stories, try reading this one, excellent book as i'm a huge fan of these sorts of books.
February 9, 2017
Great introduction to learning about the prison reform movement. Highly recommend.
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November 7, 2014365.973 P2285 2008
July 29, 2020
I don’t know which was more terrifying while reading this - the sheer brute violence of the statistics Parenti brings to vivid life over and over again; or the fact that the analysis is so good and so of the moment, despite the fact that the book was written nearly a quarter century ago. Either way, an absolute must read (with a serious set of caution signs attached for the descriptions of sexual violence and state brutality).
“Even if prison building created no Keynesian stimulus, and there were no private prisons to profit from locking up the poor, and if prison labor were abolished - in other words, if all directly interested parties were removed from the equation - American capitalism would still, without major economic reforms, have to manage and contain its surplus populations and poorest classes with paramilitary forms of segregation, containment, and repression.”
“Even if prison building created no Keynesian stimulus, and there were no private prisons to profit from locking up the poor, and if prison labor were abolished - in other words, if all directly interested parties were removed from the equation - American capitalism would still, without major economic reforms, have to manage and contain its surplus populations and poorest classes with paramilitary forms of segregation, containment, and repression.”
September 24, 2024
Legendary, concise, and angering text on the modern police state, prisons, and the war on drugs in the United States. This is an informational book but can be read in both informal and educational settings. I read a few chapters on the militarization of the police in 2020 during the George Floyd protests, which I was participating in in Minneapolis, but find myself returning to it in order to make sense of ongoing police brutality, especially in New York City.
December 4, 2019
Very interesting account of why Mass Incarceration began. He thoroughly evaluates why it serves the people in power by allowing them to keep people under control.
October 18, 2012
An important book, especially for those who have never been on the inside of Lockdown America.
May 8, 2017
Great history on the build-up of the prison-industrial complex in America.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews