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Challenging the Prison-Industrial Complex: Activism, Arts, and Educational Alternatives

Challenging the Prison-Industrial Complex: Activism, Arts, and Educational Alternatives

Stephen John Hartnett (Editor), Buzz Alexander (Contributions by), Rose Braz (Contributions by), Travis L. Dixon (Contributions by), Garrett Albert Duncan (Contributions by), Stephen J. Hartnett (Contributions by), Julilly Kohler-Hausmann (Contributions by), Daniel Mark Larson (Contributions by), Erica R. Meiners (Contributions by), Janie Paul (Contributions by), Lori Pompa (Contributions by), Jonathan Shailor (Contributions by), Robin Sohnen (Contributions by), Myesha Williams (Contributions by)
$31.05
Publish Date:
Publisher:
University of Illinois Press
ISBN:
9780252077708
Pages:
312
Language:
English

Description

Boldly and eloquently contributing to the argument against the prison system in the United States, these provocative essays offer an ideological and practical framework for empowering prisoners instead of incarcerating them. Experts and activists who have worked within and against the prison system join forces here to call attention to the debilitating effects of a punishment-driven society and offer clear-eyed alternatives that emphasize working directly with prisoners and their communities.  Edited by Stephen John Hartnett, the volume offers rhetorical and political analyses of police culture, the so-called drug war, media coverage of crime stories, and the public-school-to-prison pipeline. The collection also includes case studies of successful prison arts and education programs in Michigan, California, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania that provide creative and intellectual resources typically denied to citizens living behind bars. Writings and artwork created by prisoners in such programs richly enhance the volume. Contributors are Buzz Alexander, Rose Braz, Travis L. Dixon, Garrett Albert Duncan, Stephen John Hartnett, Julilly Kohler-Hausmann, Daniel Mark Larson, Erica R. Meiners, Janie Paul, Lori Pompa, Jonathan Shailor, Robin Sohnen, and Myesha Williams.

About the Author

Stephen J. Hartnett is a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado Denver. He is the director of the UCD College-in-Prison Program, served as the 2017 president of the National Communication Association, and is the editor of Captured Words/Free Thoughts, the annual arts and politics magazine. He has published ten books, including A World of Turmoil: The United States, China, and Taiwan in the Long Cold War (2021) and the coedited Imagining China: Rhetorics of Nationalism in an Age of Globalization (2017). His scholarship on international affairs has appeared in Presidential Studies Quarterly, the International Journal of Communication, Rhetoric & Public Affairs, the Taiwan Journal of Democracy, the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, and the Quarterly Journal of Speech. His journalism on U.S.-China-Taiwan relations has appeared in SupChina, Public Seminar, New Lines Magazine, and Communication Currents. He has served since 2016 as one of co-organizers for five conferences in Beijing, one in Shenzhen, one in Hong Kong, and one online conference in Shanghai (during COVID). He has been awarded the Kohrs-Campbell Prize in Rhetorical Criticism, the James A. Winans-Herbert A. Wichelns Memorial Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Rhetoric and Public Address, the Association for Chinese Communication Studies’ Xiao Award for Outstanding Rhetorical Research, and the University of Colorado’s Thomas Jefferson Award.

Praise for Challenging the Prison-Industrial Complex: Activism, Arts, and Educational Alternatives

Received one of the PASS (Prevention for a Safer Society) Awards from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, 2011.

"This is an important, timely, and well-informed consideration of one of the major social issues of our democracy. The essays are relevant, varied, and written from the perspectives of committed activists, offering both a sophisticated understanding of the complexities of the prison-industrial complex and a refreshingly useful set of practical, tested paths toward action."--Judith A. Scheffler, editor of Wall Tappings: An International Anthology of Women's Prison Writings, 200 A.D. to the Present