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Hard Time Blues: How Politics Built a Prison Nation
In September 1996, fifty-three year old heroin addict Billy Ochoa was sentenced to 326 years in prison. His committing $2100 worth of welfare fraud. Ochoa was sent to New Folsom supermax prison, joining thousands of other men who will spend the rest of their lives in California's teeming correctional facilities as a result of that state's tough Three Strikes law. His incarceration will cost over $20,000 a year until he dies.
Hard Time Blues weaves together the story of the growth of the American prison system over the past quarter century primarily through the story of Ochoa, a career criminal who grew up in the barrios of post-World War Two L.A. Ochoa, who had a long history of non-violent crimes committed to fund his drug habit, who cycled in and out of prison since the late 1960's, is a perfect example of how perennial misfits, rather than blood-soaked violent criminals, make up the majority of America's prisoners. This is also the story of the burgeoning careers of politicians such as former California Governor Pete Wilson, who rose to power on the "crime issue." Wilson, whose grandfather was a cop murdered by drug-runners in early twentieth century Chicago, scored a stunning come-from-behind re-election victory in 1994. In so doing, he came to epitomize the 1990s tough-on-crime politician.
Award-winning journalist Sasha Abramsky uses immersion reportage to bring alive the political forces that have led America's prison and jail population to increase more than four fold in the past twenty years. Through the stories of Ochoa, Wilson, and others, he explores in devastating detail how the public has been manipulated into supporting mass incarceration during a period when crime rates have been steadily falling. Hard Time Blues deftly explores the War on Drugs, the Rockefeller Laws, the growth of the SuperMax Prisons, the climate of fear that led to laws such as Truth-in-Sentencing, and how the stunning repercussions of imprisoning two million citizens affect all of America.
In the tradition of J. Anthony Lukas's Common Ground and Melissa Fay Greene's The Temple Bombing , Abramsky explores this new and dangerous fault-line in American society in a dramatic and compelling manner. From the opening courtroom scene through the final images behind the electrified fences of the nation's toughest, meanest prisons, Abramsky paints a grimly intimate portrait of the players and personalities behind this societal earthquake. Hard Time Blues combines a sense of history with a powerful narrative, to tell a story about issues and people that leads us to understand how The Land of the Free has become the world's largest prison nation.
Hard Time Blues weaves together the story of the growth of the American prison system over the past quarter century primarily through the story of Ochoa, a career criminal who grew up in the barrios of post-World War Two L.A. Ochoa, who had a long history of non-violent crimes committed to fund his drug habit, who cycled in and out of prison since the late 1960's, is a perfect example of how perennial misfits, rather than blood-soaked violent criminals, make up the majority of America's prisoners. This is also the story of the burgeoning careers of politicians such as former California Governor Pete Wilson, who rose to power on the "crime issue." Wilson, whose grandfather was a cop murdered by drug-runners in early twentieth century Chicago, scored a stunning come-from-behind re-election victory in 1994. In so doing, he came to epitomize the 1990s tough-on-crime politician.
Award-winning journalist Sasha Abramsky uses immersion reportage to bring alive the political forces that have led America's prison and jail population to increase more than four fold in the past twenty years. Through the stories of Ochoa, Wilson, and others, he explores in devastating detail how the public has been manipulated into supporting mass incarceration during a period when crime rates have been steadily falling. Hard Time Blues deftly explores the War on Drugs, the Rockefeller Laws, the growth of the SuperMax Prisons, the climate of fear that led to laws such as Truth-in-Sentencing, and how the stunning repercussions of imprisoning two million citizens affect all of America.
In the tradition of J. Anthony Lukas's Common Ground and Melissa Fay Greene's The Temple Bombing , Abramsky explores this new and dangerous fault-line in American society in a dramatic and compelling manner. From the opening courtroom scene through the final images behind the electrified fences of the nation's toughest, meanest prisons, Abramsky paints a grimly intimate portrait of the players and personalities behind this societal earthquake. Hard Time Blues combines a sense of history with a powerful narrative, to tell a story about issues and people that leads us to understand how The Land of the Free has become the world's largest prison nation.
- GenresPoliticsNonfiction
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 22, 2002
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74 people want to read
About the author
Sasha Abramsky
25 books62 followersSasha Abramsky studied politics, philosophy, and economics at Oxford University. He is now a freelance journalist and senior fellow at Demos who reports on political personalities and cultural trends.
His work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Huffington Post, Rolling Stone, The Nation, The New York Times, The Village Voice, The Guardian, and Mother Jones, among other publications.
He lives in Sacramento, California.
His work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Huffington Post, Rolling Stone, The Nation, The New York Times, The Village Voice, The Guardian, and Mother Jones, among other publications.
He lives in Sacramento, California.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 15, 2018
How did we as a nation move so quickly towards locking up more than 2 million people, larger than the jailed population of any other country? Abramsky's Hard Time Blues offers an extremely readable answer, and is a gripping account of the modern US carceral state, told through two interwoven threads. One traces the life history of Billy Ochoa, a frequent non-violent offender who engaged in petty theft and burglary in southern California in service of a crippling and full-blown heroin addiction. The second follows the electoral rise of Pete Wilson, a California Republican whose gubernatorial success thrust him into the path for possible White House residence. Abramsky artfully connects the two strands through the introduction of tough-on-crime measures like California's Three Strikes policy, which resulted in Ochoa's 200+ year sentence for welfare assistance fraud. Though the overall crime rate began declining in the 1980s and '90s (starting more in the 1990s for for violent crime), prison populations continued to bloom as politicians found it easy to hammer home a Nixonian law and order politics that stripped many Americans of their rights in the name of improving safety. Ochoa's terminal imprisonment is a byproduct of this fever, with taxpayers footing an expensive bill with no improvement in safety. Highly recommended read.
April 18, 2020
This book uses an example of a many, Billy Ochoa, as an example of a drug-addicted prisoner who committed crimes to get money for drugs and then was sentenced to a draconian sentence due to a 3 strikes law. The book gives a good and thorough history of how the United States has come to have the biggest prison population. Abramsky gives older history as well as more modern history of the problem. He particularly outlines Pete Wilson in California, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, and Gray Davis. This book is a good starting place for understanding the issues around prison reform.
March 16, 2008
Really good and readable history of how this nation got hooked on the dope of prisons. Particularly strong is how the author weaves in the stories of real people with his solid scholarship.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews