Behind the Razor Wire: Portrait of a Contemporary American Prison System - Hardcover

Jacobson-Hardy, Michael; Wideman, John Edgar; Mauer, Marc; Gilligan, James

 
9780814742402: Behind the Razor Wire: Portrait of a Contemporary American Prison System
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0814742408 ISBN 13: 9780814742402
Publisher: New York University Press, 1998

Synopsis

More than a million Americans live in federal and state prisons, almost another half-million are in local gaols, and a third of the USA's young black men are involved in the criminal-justice system. To house the ever-increasing prison population, the construction of new prisons has become a growth industry in many local and state economies. Yet, while prisons are a rapidly-expanding feature of the country's cultural and political landscape, the people in them - as well as the buildings themselves - remain hidden from public view. The author of this book entered the prison system to record, through text and photographs, the voices and lives of the people who live and work within its walls. The result is this examination of the physical and psychological environments of a range of contemporary correctional institutions and the lives they contain. The foreword and essays by other contributors are severely critical of the American criminal-justice system and offer a framework for understanding the photographs in their historical and cultural context. Michael Jacobson-Hardy is also the author of "The Changing Landscape of Labor: American Workers and Workplaces". His photographs have been exhibited widely and are included in many public and private collections.

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Review

"Jacobson-Hardy strives to show whole people by portraying not just their likenesses, but the lives and times the inhabit." -Amherst Bulletin

About the Author

Michael Jacobson-Hardy is the author of The Changing Landscape of Labor: American Workers and Workplaces. His photographs have been exhibited widely and are included in many public and private collections, including the Smithsonian Institution, the Henry Ford Museum, the Yale University Art Gallery, and the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University.

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Publisher
New York University Press
Publication date
1998
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0814742408
ISBN 13 
9780814742402
Binding
Hardcover
Number of pages
1