“Sunbelt Capitalism is a revelation. It is a masterful and compelling account of the interplay of racial, economic, and political factors that rendered the US South a pioneer of mass incarceration as liberal modernizers sought to shed the region's Jim Crow past by embarking on a brutal and unprecedented prison boom.
The story of how the American South became the most incarcerated region in the world's most incarcerated nation.
Sunbelt Capitalism and the Making of the Carceral State examines the evolution of southern criminal punishment from Jim Crow to the dawn of mass incarceration, charting this definitive era of carceral transformation and expansion in the southern United States. The demise of the county chain gang, the professionalization of police, and the construction of large-scale prisons were among the sweeping changes that forever altered the southern landscape and bolstered the region's capacity to punish. What prompted this southern revolution in criminal punishment?
Kirstine Taylor argues that the crisis in the cotton fields and the arrival of Sunbelt capitalism in the south's rising metropolises prompted lawmakers to build expansive, modern criminal punishment systems in response to Brown v. Board of Education and the Black freedom movements of the 1960s and `70s. Taking us inside industry-hunting expeditions, school desegregation battles, the sit-in movement, prisoners' labor unions, and policy commissions, Taylor tells the story of how a modernizing south became the most incarcerated region in the globe's most incarcerated nation.
The story of how the American South became the most incarcerated region in the world's most incarcerated nation.
Sunbelt Capitalism and the Making of the Carceral State examines the evolution of southern criminal punishment from Jim Crow to the dawn of mass incarceration, charting this definitive era of carceral transformation and expansion in the southern United States. The demise of the county chain gang, the professionalization of police, and the construction of large-scale prisons were among the sweeping changes that forever altered the southern landscape and bolstered the region's capacity to punish. What prompted this southern revolution in criminal punishment?
Kirstine Taylor argues that the crisis in the cotton fields and the arrival of Sunbelt capitalism in the south's rising metropolises prompted lawmakers to build expansive, modern criminal punishment systems in response to Brown v. Board of Education and the Black freedom movements of the 1960s and `70s. Taking us inside industry-hunting expeditions, school desegregation battles, the sit-in movement, prisoners' labor unions, and policy commissions, Taylor tells the story of how a modernizing south became the most incarcerated region in the globe's most incarcerated nation.

Sunbelt Capitalism and the Making of the Carceral State

Sunbelt Capitalism and the Making of the Carceral State
FREE
with a B&N Audiobooks Subscription
Editorial Reviews
Product Details
BN ID: | 2940195536183 |
---|---|
Publisher: | University of Chicago Press |
Publication date: | 06/21/2025 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |
Videos
