Rowman & Littlefield Publishers From Gulag to Guantanamo: Political, Social and Economic Evolutions of Mass Incarceration

This book offers the reader an incisive view into the political, social and economic evolutions of mass incarceration across the globe. It examines the different political and social contexts that combine with free market mechanisms of mass incarceration to ascertain how economic incentives shape penal policy. Using qualitative analysis of a wide variety of incarceration forms, each chapter compares a US example with a non-US case study, showing how first world countries that occupy the economic forefront of prison privatization are exporting new models of penal institutionalization to developing countries. The chapters examine issues such as the privatization of asylum detention centres, the economic impacts of maintaining vast forced labour camps, the social consequences of imprisoning journalists, and the use of state sanctioned torture. Capturing a nascent international trend through an interdisciplinary lens, this book questions why so many languish in prison, whether the incarceration of thousands benefits society as a whole, and how these penal policies might be roundly reconsidered. Review This book is a hugely impressive commentary on the basic elements that have influenced policies of mass incarceration. The result is an eminently readable, carefully crafted, and ultimately satisfying account of one of the most important issues in America today: all politicians and their advisers should give this study a careful read as they consider how their policies will enhance or inhibit the development of a fairer, more stable society. --Joseph M. Siracusa, Deputy Dean of Global Studies, The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University About the Author Wesley Kendall is a Law Lecturer at the University of the South Pacific. He is author of The U.S. Death Penalty and Diplomacy (Rowman and Littlefield, 2013) and Language of Terror (Rowman and Littlefield, 2015).