The Big House: Image and Reality of the American Prison

The Big House: Image and Reality of the American Prison
ISBN-10
030015495X
ISBN-13
9780300154955
Series
The Big House
Category
Social Science
Pages
224
Language
English
Published
2009-11-03
Publisher
Yale University Press
Author
Stephen D. Cox

Description

""The Big House" is America's idea of the prison - a huge, tough, ostentatiously oppressive pile of rock, bristling with rules and punishments, overwhelming in size and the intent to intimidate. Stephen Cox tells the story of the American prison - its politics, its sex, its violence, its inability to control itself - and its idealization in American popular culture. This book investigates both the popular images of prison and the realities behind them : problems of control and discipline, mainenance and reform, power and sexuality. It conveys an awareness of the limits of human and institutional power, and of the symbolic and iconic qualities the "Big House" has attained in America's understanding of itself"--Jacket.

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