Locked In Locked Out

Dr. Shawn Jennings shares his experiences in the struggle for recovery and acceptance of his new life after suffering a brain stem stroke.

In November 1993, the largest public housing project in the Puerto Rican city of Ponce—the second largest public housing authority in the U.S. federal system—became a gated community. Once the exclusive privilege of the city's affluent residents, gates now not only locked "undesirables" out but also shut them in. Ubiquitous and inescapable, gates continue to dominate present-day Ponce, delineating space within government and commercial buildings, schools, prisons, housing developments, parks, and churches. In Locked In, Locked Out, Zaire Zenit Dinzey-Flores shows how such gates operate as physical and symbolic ways to distribute power, reroute movement, sustain social inequalities, and cement boundary lines of class and race across the city. In its exploration of four communities in Ponce—two private subdivisions and two public housing projects—Locked In, Locked Out offers one of the first ethnographic accounts of gated communities devised by and for the poor. Dinzey-Flores traces the proliferation of gates on the island from Spanish colonial fortresses to the New Deal reform movement of the 1940s and 1950s, demonstrating how urban planning practices have historically contributed to the current trend of community divisions, shrinking public city spaces, and privatizing gardens. Through interviews and participant observation, she argues that gates have transformed the twenty-first-century city by fostering isolation and promoting segregation, ultimately shaping the life chances of people from all economic backgrounds. Relevant and engaging, Locked In, Locked Out reveals how built environments can create a cartography of disadvantage—affecting those on both sides of the wall.

An analysis of the U.S. prison system through real-life stories, and a look at the complex work of community-based social justice projects. Through the stories of prisoners and their families, including her own family’s experiences, Maya Schenwar shows how the institution that locks up 2.3 million Americans and decimates poor communities of color is shredding the ties that, if nurtured, could foster real collective safety. As she vividly depicts here, incarceration takes away the very things that might enable people to build better lives. But looking toward a future beyond imprisonment, Schenwar profiles community-based initiatives that successfully deal with problems—both individual harm and larger social wrongs—through connection rather than isolation, moving toward a safer, freer future for all of us. “Maya Schenwar’s stories about prisoners, their families (including her own), and the thoroughly broken punishment system are rescued from any pessimism such narratives might inspire by the author’s brilliant juxtaposition of abolitionist imaginaries and radical political practices.” —Angela Y. Davis, author of Are Prisons Obsolete? “Locked Down, Locked Out paints a searing portrait of the real-life human toll of mass incarceration, both on prisoners and on their families, and—equally compellingly—provides hope that collectively we can create a more humane world freed of prisons. Read this deeply personal and political call to end the shameful inhumanity of our prison nation.” —Dorothy Roberts, author of Shattered Bonds and Killing the Black Body “This book has the power to transform hearts and minds, opening us to new ways of imagining what justice can mean for individuals, families, communities, and our nation as a whole. Maya Schenwar’s personal, openhearted sharing of her own family’s story, together with many other stories and real-world experiments with transformative justice, makes this book compelling, highly persuasive, and difficult to put down. I turned the last page feeling nothing less than inspired.” —Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow

My name is Holly O'Brian and I am a cautionary tale. I saw a sexy man across the bar, I let him walk me home, and now I'm pregnant. Obviously, I left out a few minor details, but I think you get the idea.I've lived a quiet adult life: high school librarian by day, book editor by night (glamorous, I know), and I was fine with it. I loved my jobs, I loved my cute little house...so why did I tempt the fates and go all cave woman over Dean Slade and drag him home with me by the hair (okay, that's a slight exaggeration)?Well, he is the most handsome man I've ever laid eyes on, it's true. He is broody and gruff and so, so sexy, also true. And the storm that hovers in his eyes, I can't help but want to be the calm to, at least for one night. So I guess there is no answer, I guess I followed my heart (a.k.a., my loins) and decided to spend a night with a sexy Marine.Only now I'm pregnant. And I have to tell him. And I have to let his family into my life. And I have to figure out how I'm going to make room in my schedule for a big, stupid, sexy Marine. Oh. My. Lanta, my life.

Sally's mum can't find her keys and now they cannot get into the house.

A rare insight into how industry practices like regional restrictions have shaped global media culture in the digital era “This content is not available in your country.” At some point, most media consumers around the world have run into a message like this. Whether trying to watch a DVD purchased during a vacation abroad, play an imported Japanese video game, or listen to a Spotify library while traveling, we are constantly reminded of geography’s imprint on digital culture. We are locked out. Despite utopian hopes of a borderless digital society, DVDs, video games, and streaming platforms include digital rights management mechanisms that block media access within certain territories. These technologies of “regional lockout” are meant first and foremost to keep the entertainment industries’ global markets distinct. But they also frustrate consumers and place territories on a hierarchy of global media access. Drawing on extensive research of media-industry strategies, consumer and retailer practices, and media regulation, Locked Out explores regional lockout’s consequences for media around the globe. Power and capital are at play when it comes to who can consume what content and who can be a cultural influence. Looking across digital technologies, industries, and national contexts, Locked Out argues that the practice of regional lockout has shaped and reinforced global hierarchies of geography and culture.

A Civil Rights Story about Massive Resistance and School Closures in the South. Based on actual events. The high school was closed to resist being integrated - perhaps forever! - and the town was split down the middle into two opposing camps. This is the historical backdrop for this coming-of-age novel about 2 young boys (one white -- one black) growing up in a small southern town during the 1950s when school integration collided with Massive Resistance and life in the peaceful little town was thrown into chaos. Based on actual events that happened between 1956 and 1960 in Front Royal, Virginia; this compelling story reveals the often overlooked depth of the human side of the story. The action is depicted through a collection of snap-shots of whites and blacks which creates a wide-angle montage. Their stories give clarity and dimension to the historical events. The story combines strong characters, heartwarming scenes, psychological tension, humor, 1950s nostalgia, and even a murder mystery.

5.4 million Americans--1 in every 40 voting age adults-- are denied the right to participate in democratic elections because of a past or current felony conviction. In several American states, 1 in 4 black men cannot vote due to a felony conviction. In a country that prides itself on universal suffrage, how did the United States come to deny a voice to such a large percentage of its citizenry? What are the consequences of large-scale disenfranchisement--both for election outcomes, and for public policy more generally? Locked Out exposes one of the most important, yet little known, threats to the health of American democracy today. It reveals the centrality of racial factors in the origins of these laws, and their impact on politics today. Marshalling the first real empirical evidence on the issue to make a case for reform, the authors' path-breaking analysis will inform all future policy and political debates on the laws governing the political rights of criminals.