Mass Incarceration in the United States

Readings, Videos, and Audio

WEEK #	TOPICS	READINGS
Part I: Where are we? (Overview of US incarceration)
1	Introduction	Western, Bruce, and Becky Pettit. “Mass Imprisonment.” Chapter 1 in Punishment and Inequality in America. Russell Sage Foundation, 2007. ISBN: 9780871548955. [Preview with Google Books] Wagner, Peter, and Wendy Sawyer. “States of Incarceration: The Global Context.” June 2018. Prison Policy Initiative. ———. “Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2019.” March 19, 2019. Prison Policy Initiative.
2	More detail/Race and the criminal legal system	Readings Natapoff, Alexandra. “Introduction.” In Punishment Without Crime: How Our Massive Misdemeanor System Traps the Innocent and Makes America More Unequal. Basic Books, 2018. ISBN: 9780465093793. [Preview with Google Books] ———. “Impact.” Chapter 1 in Punishment Without Crime: How Our Massive Misdemeanor System Traps the Innocent and Makes America More Unequal. Basic Books, 2018. ISBN: 9780465093793. [Preview with Google Books] (Optional) ———. “Process.” Chapter 3 in Punishment Without Crime: How Our Massive Misdemeanor System Traps the Innocent and Makes America More Unequal. Basic Books, 2018. ISBN: 9780465093793.  Balko, Radley. “There’s Overwhelming Evidence That the Criminal Justice System is Racist. Here’s the Proof,” Washington Post, June 10, 2020. (Choose one subheading to read carefully, and skim the others) Audio “Ear Hustle, Episode 5: Catch a Kite.” August 9, 2017. Video “The Z: Where Prison Guards’ Favorite Tactic is Messing with Your Head.” February 27, 2020. The Marshall Project. (Watch at least one of the videos)
3	Downstream effects: crime and recidivism	“Weighing Imprisonment and Crime: 9 Experts Explore the Relationship Between Prisons and Crime Rates.” February 10, 2015. The Pew Charitable Trusts. Roodman, David. “The Impacts of Incarceration on Crime.” (PDF - 4MB) September 2017. Open Philantrophy Project.
4	Downstream effects: collateral consequences	Pinard, Michael. “Reflections and Perspectives on Reentry and Collateral Consequences.” Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology 100, no. 3 (2010): 1213–25. Lerman, Amy E., and Vesla M. Weaver. “Arresting Citizenship.” Chapter 1 in Arresting Citizenship: The Democratic Consequences of American Crime Control. University of Chicago Press, 2014. ISBN: 9780226137834. [Preview with Google Books] ———. “Assessing the Effects of Criminal Justice.” Chapter 4 in Arresting Citizenship: The Democratic Consequences of American Crime Control. University of Chicago Press, 2014. ISBN: 9780226137834.  White, Ariel. “Even Very Short Jail Sentences Drive People Away From Voting,” Washington Post, March 28, 2019. Lee, Hedwig, Lauren C. Porter, and Megan Comfort. “Consequences of Family Member Incarceration: Impacts on Civic Participation and Perceptions of the Legitimacy and Fairness of Government.” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 651, no. 1 (2014): 44–73.
Part II: How did we get here?
5	Laws	Video 13th. Directed by Ava DuVernay. Color, 100 min. 2016. YouTube. Readings Berger, Dan. “Mass Incarceration and Its Mystification: A Review of The 13th.” October 22, 2016. Black Perspectives. Pfaff, John F. “Introduction: American Exceptionalism.” In Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform. Basic Books, 2017. ISBN: 9780465096916. [Preview with Google Books] ———.“The War on Drugs.” Chapter 1 in Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform. Basic Books, 2017. ISBN: 9780465096916. [Preview with Google Books]
6	Public opinion, punitiveness, elections	Enns, Peter K. “The Public’s Increasing Punitiveness and Its Influence on Mass Incarceration in the United States.” American Journal of Political Science 58, no. 4 (2014): 857–72. Gottschalk, Marie. “The Prison and the Gallows: The Construction of the Carceral State in America.” Chapter 1 in The Prison and the Gallows: The Politics of Mass Incarceration in America. Cambridge University Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780521682916. [Preview with Google Books] ———.“The Carceral State and the Welfare State: The Comparative Politcs of Victims.” Chapter 4 in The Prison and the Gallows: The Politics of Mass Incarceration in America. Cambridge University Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780521682916. [Preview with Google Books] Forman, James, Jr. “Introduction.” In Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018. ISBN: 9780374537449. [Preview with Google Books] ———."‘The Worst Thing to Hit Us Since Slavery’: Crack and the Advent of Warrior Policing, 1988–92." Chapter 5 in Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018. ISBN: 9780374537449. [Preview with Google Books] ———.“What Would Martin Luther King, Jr. Say?: Stop and Search, 1995.” Chapter 6 in Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018. ISBN: 9780374537449. (Recommended but optional) ———.“Epilogue: The Reach of Our Mercy, 2014–16.” In Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018. ISBN: 9780374537449. (Recommended but optional) New York Times op-eds on carceral policy: Fortner, Michael Javen. “The Real Roots of ’70s Drug Laws,” New York Times, September 28, 2015. Hinton, Elizabeth, Julilly Kohler-Hausmann, and Vesla M. Weaver. “Did Blacks Really Endorse the 1994 Crime Bill?,” New York Times, April 13, 2016.
7	Interest groups	Page, Joshua. “Preface.” In The Toughest Beat: Politics, Punishment, and the Prison Officers Union in California. Oxford University Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780199985074. [Preview with Google Books]  ———. “A Politically Realistic Union.” Chapter 3 in The Toughest Beat: Politics, Punishment, and the Prison Officers Union in California. Oxford University Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780199985074. [Preview with Google Books]  Bauer. Shane. “My Four Months as a Private Prison Guard.” Mother Jones Daily, July/August 2016. (Read at least the first chapter of the piece, with the remaining segments encouraged but optional) Pfaff, John F. “Private Prisons, Public Spending.” Chapter 3 in Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform. Basic Books, 2017. ISBN: 9780465096916.
8	Police and prosecutors	Pfaff, John F. “A Brief History of Time (Served).” Chapter 2 in Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform. Basic Books, 2017. ISBN: 9780465096916. ———. “The Man Behind the Curtain.” Chapter 5 in Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform. Basic Books, 2017. ISBN: 9780465096916. ———. “Quo Vadis?” Chapter 8 in Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform. Basic Books, 2017. ISBN: 9780465096916. Bergner, Daniel. “Is Stop-and-Frisk Worth It?” The Atlantic, April 2014.
Part III: What could change?
9	Changing public opinion, laws, sentencing	Gottschalk, Marie. “Split Verdict: The Non, Non, Nons and the ‘Worst of the Worst’.” Chapter 8 in Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics. Princeton University Press, 2016. ISBN: 9780691170831. [Preview with Google Books] (optional) ———.“Bring It On: The Future of Penal Reform, the Carceral State, and American Politics.” Chapter 12 in Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics. Princeton University Press, 2016. ISBN: 9780691170831. [Preview with Google Books]  Lopez, German. “The Case for Capping All Prison Sentences at 20 Years.” February 12, 2019. Vox. Goldstein, Dana. “How to Cut the Prison Population by 50 Percent.” March 4, 2015. The Marshall Project. (Read this piece, try out their calculator, and bring in your plan to reduce incarceration by 50%)
10	Changing actors (especially prosecutors)	Readings Austen, Ben. “In Philadelphia, A Progressive D.A. Tests the Power—and Learns the Limits—of His Office,” New York Times Magazine, October 30, 2018.  Alexander, Michelle. “Go To Trial: Crash the Justice System,” New York Times, March 10, 2012. Audio “Episode 4: Megan Stevenson.” May 28, 2019. Probable Causation.
11	Changing the prison system (or diverting)	Sered, Danielle. “Introduction.” In Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair. The New Press, 2021. ISBN: 9781620976579. [Preview with Google Books] ———.“Displacing Incarceration.” Chapter 4 in Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair. The New Press, 2021. ISBN: 9781620976579. [Preview with Google Books] Slater, Dashka. “North Dakota’s Norway Experiment.” Mother Jones Daily, July/August 2017. Doleac, Jennifer L. “Encouraging Desistance from Crime.” (PDF) (Working Paper). February 16, 2019.
12	Changing technology	Readings Angwin, Julia, Jeff Larson, et al. “Machine Bias.” May 23, 2016. ProPublica. Stevenson, Megan, and Jennifer Doleac. “Algorithmic Risk Assessment in the Hands of Humans.” IZA Discussion Paper No. 12853. (Working Paper). 2019. EconStor. (Focus on sections 1 & 2, especially the introduction) Video “Sendhil Mullainathan, ‘Discrimination by Algorithm and People’.” Presented at the Legal Challenges of the Data Economy conference, March 22, 2019. The Law School, the University of Chicago. (Watch or read the transcript)
13	Reform vs. revolution	Readings Berger, Dan, Mariame Kaba, and David Stein. “What Abolitionists Do.” Jacobin, August 24, 2017. Kushner, Rachel. “Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind,” New York Times Magazine, April 17, 2019. Video “Race and the Criminal Justice System: Where Do We Go from Here?” Vimeo. (Watch at least 40 minutes of this conversation) Audio “Justice in America, Episode 20: Mariame Kaba and Prison Abolition.” March 20, 2019. The Appeal. (Optional)