Locked Up But Not Locked Down

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

When the crack era jumped off in the 1980s, many street legends were born in a hail of gunfire. Business minded and ruthless dudes seized the opportunities afforded them, and certain individuals out of the city's five boroughs became synonymous with the definition of the new era black gangster. Drugs, murder, kidnappings, shootings, more drugs, and more murder were the rule of the day. They called it "The Game," but it was a vicious attempt to come up by any means necessary. In the late 1980s, the mindset was "get mine or be mine," and nobody embodied this attitude more than the Supreme Team.The Supreme Team has gone down in street legend and the lyrical lore of hip-hop and gangsta rap as one of the most vicious crews to ever emerge on the streets of New York. Their mythical and iconic status inspired hip-hop culture and rap superstars like 50 Cent, Jay-Z, Biggie, Nas and Ja Rule. Born at the same time as crack, hip-hop was heavily influenced by the drug crews that controlled New York's streets. And the cliché of art imitating life and vice versa came full circle in the saga of the Supreme Team's infamous leaders- Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff and Gerald "Prince" Miller. In the maelstrom of the mid-80s crack storm and burgeoning hip-hop scene, their influence and relevance left a lasting impression.Going from drug baron to federal prisoner to hip-hop maestro to life in prison, Supreme was involved in hip-hop and the crack trade from day one. His run stretched decades, but in the end he fell victim to the pitfalls of the game like all before him had. His nephew, the enigmatic Prince, who had a rapid, violent, and furious rise in the streets also fell hard and fast to the tune of seven life sentences. The Supreme Team has been romanticized and glorified in hip-hop, but the truth of the matter is that most of their members are currently in prison for life or have spent decades of their prime years behind bars. This book looks at the team's climatic rise from its inception to its inevitable fall. It looks at Supreme's redemption with Murder Inc. and his relapse back into crime. This book is the Supreme Team story in all its glory, infamy, and tragedy. It's a tale of turns, twists, and fate. Meet the gangsters from Queens where the drug game influenced the style and swagger of street culture, hip-hop and gangsta rap and made the infamous cast of characters from the Supreme Team icons in the annals of urban lore.

Donald Horne famously called Australia &‘ the lucky country' . So how did we become the locked-up country and how might the future look different? Australia has changed enormously since Horne' s 1960s, but its response to the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates the enduring truth of his thesis that our &‘ luck' was undeserved and wouldn' t last. By closing its borders and imposing a nationally coordinated lockdown, Australia unexpectedly eliminated COVID-19 in 2020, achieving one of the world' s lowest excess mortality rates. But as governments proceeded to bungle key planks of the pandemic response, by mid-2021, Australia was &‘ locked up' &– closed off to the world and fragmented along state and territory borders, with its major cities enduring repeated and extended lockdowns. It soon became clear that Australia' s regulatory state had let us down. But these failures were not inevitable, and we can manage future crises more successfully. In The Locked-up Country, political experts Tom Chodor and Shahar Hameiri identify the source of Australia' s recent challenges and suggest a better way forward.

This book is an eye-opening look at the American prison system and how confinement affects the capability of being successful while incarcerated as well as when released. It includes popular tweets as seen on @cellsecrets, which has a large, dedicated following of people interested in reform of the current injustice system. The collection of essays and tweets will spark discussion and provide classrooms and individuals with a first-person account of confinement and its effects.

"35,000 Americans are arrested every day, and the number of prisoners has increased 500% over the last three decades. Truthout Executive Director Maya Schenwar shows that incarceration actually doesn't deter crime, looks at its devastating effect on families and communities, and offers more humane and more effective alternatives"--