Upper Bunkies Unite

In Upper Bunkies Unite: And Other Thoughts On the Politics of Mass Incarceration author Andrea James takes a critical look at the politics and policies resulting in mass incarceration within the United States. From her professional experience as a former criminal defense lawyer, and her personal experience as a formerly incarcerated woman, James provides a more accurate portrait of who is in our prisons and the destructive outcome of politics that support a failed drug war and exhaust resources on law enforcement and incarceration. James demonstrates the need for a shift toward community wellness initiatives to replace incarceration and a complete overhaul of the current U.S. criminal justice framework from one of punishment and wasted human potential, to a system focused on social justice and healing.

"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"--

This book is the first collection to bring together scholars and activists working to end criminal and immigration detention. Employing an intersectional lens and an impressive variety of case studies, the book makes a compelling case to rethink what justice could mean for refugees, citizens, and everyone in between. The book connects immigration detention and prison justice towards reimagining a newer, better future. The ten chapters probe the intersections of immigration detention with current and potential forms of citizenship, membership, belonging, and punishments. Deprivation of liberty is one of the most serious harms that someone can experience. Immigration control is a nation-building project where racial, gender, class, ableist, and other lines of discrimination filter and police access to permanent residence. Employing a kaleidoscope of interdisciplinary backgrounds, the contributors bring this focus to bear on case studies spanning North America, Europe, and Asia. In conversation with social movements challenging police brutality, the contributors are thinking through the implications of de-funding the police, overhauling the ‘criminal justice’ system, eradicating prisons (penal abolitionism), and ending all forms of containment (carceral abolitionism). Neither the prison nor the detention centre is an inevitable feature of our social lives. This book collectively argues that abolishing detention could pave the way for new visions of justice to emerge. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Citizenship Studies.

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

Reproductive Justice is a first-of-its-kind primer that provides a comprehensive yet succinct description of the field. Written by two legendary scholar-activists, Reproductive Justice introduces students to an intersectional analysis of race, class, and gender politics. Loretta J. Ross and Rickie Solinger put the lives and lived experience of women of color at the center of the book and use a human rights analysis to show how the discussion around reproductive justice differs significantly from the pro-choice/anti-abortion debates that have long dominated the headlines and mainstream political conflict. Arguing that reproductive justice is a political movement of reproductive rights and social justice, the authors illuminate, for example, the complex web of structural obstacles a low-income, physically disabled woman living in West Texas faces as she contemplates her sexual and reproductive intentions. In a period in which women’s reproductive lives are imperiled, Reproductive Justice provides an essential guide to understanding and mobilizing around women’s human rights in the twenty-first century. Reproductive Justice: A New Vision for the Twenty-First Century publishes works that explore the contours and content of reproductive justice. The series will include primers intended for students and those new to reproductive justice as well as books of original research that will further knowledge and impact society. Learn more at www.ucpress.edu/go/reproductivejustice.

People in U.S. prisons are routinely subjected to physical, sexual, and mental abuse. While this has been documented in male prisons, women in prison often suffer in relative anonymity. Women Inside addresses this critical social justice issue, empowering incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women to share the stories that have previously been silenced. Among the narrators: •Irma Rodriguez, in prison on drug charges. While in prison in 1990, Irma was diagnosed HIV positive, but after a decade and a half of aggressive and toxic treatment, Irma learned that she never had HIV. •Sheri Dwight, a domestic violence survivor who was sent to prison for attempting to kill her batterer. While in prison, she underwent surgery for abdominal pain and learned more than four years later that she had been sterilized without her consent.

This book describes the living-room artifacts, clothing styles, and intellectual proclivities of American classes from top to bottom.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "The Outlet" by Andy Adams. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.