Beyond Prisons: A New Interfaith Paradigm for Our Failed Prison System

by Laura Magnani, Harmon L. Wray

Overview

This strong indictment of the currentprison system, undertaken by tworespected experts on behalf of theAmerican Friends Service Committee,traces the history and features of ourpenal system, offers strong ethical andmoral assessments of it, and lays outa whole new paradigm of criminaljustice based on restorative justice andreconciliation. The book puts forwarda 12-point plan for immediate changes.

Beyond Prisons opens a long-needed national dialogue onour responsibilities as citizens and as a nation to provideremediation rather than mere retributive incarceration,answerable to the common good and the justice of God.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780800638320
Publisher:	1517 Media
Publication date:	04/21/2006
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	216
Sales rank:	708,802
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Laura Magnani is Assistant Regional Director for Justice for the American Friends Service Committee in Oakland, California, and author of America's First Penitentiary: A 200-Year-Old Failure (AFSC, 1990).

Harmon L. Wray is Director of the Vanderbilt Program in Faith and Criminal Justice and author of Restorative Justice: Moving Beyond Punishment (General Board of Global Ministries, United Methodist Church, 2002).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: A new Morality

Confession and Healing Justice

Definitions: More than Mere Words

Outline of the Book

History of a Failed System

The Philadelphia Experiment

The Penitentiary System-Religious Roots

The Penitentiary System-Philosophical Roots

The Panopticon

The Development of the Penitentiary System

The dynamics of Crime And Punishment in America

The Problem

The Intersection of Race and Class

Practicing White Supremacy

The Legacy of Economic Dominance: Class

In our Backyards: The Penal System at the Local level

Policing

In the Courthouse: The U.S. Adversarial Legal System

The Pre-trial Process

County Jails

Probation and Community Corrections

Taking Local Communities Seriously

Sentencing: The Cold Heart of tHe Penal System

The California Example

Federal Sentencing Policy

Carrying Out the Drug War

Three Strikes

The Death Penalty

Throwing Away the Key: Life without Mercy

Parole: The Terminating Program in the Rehabilitative Model

Extra Punishment for Sex Offenders

Criminal Records: The Permanent Punishment

Cages: State and Federal Prisons Today

The Corporatization of Punishment

Private Prisons and Accountability

Prison Guards

The Super-max and Other Forms of Torture

Manufacturing Madness

Prison Gang Policies: A Threat to Our Security

Political Prisoners

Immigrants in the Criminal Justice System

Sexism

Women

Sexual Relations and Prison Rape

Transgender Prisoners

Prison and Disability

The Mentally Ill

Health Care

Spanning Generations: Impact of Prisons on Families

Prison Ministry

Youth, Poverty, and Delinquency

History of the Juvenile Justice System

The Language of Demonization

Criminalization of Youth

Creating Gangs

Zero Tolerance

An Alternative Vision of Justice

Survivors

Punishment

Forgiveness

Breaking the Cycle

Searching for a new Justice Paradigm

Can Prisons Rehabilitate?

From Prison Abolition to a New Paradigm

Reform vs. Abolition

Alternatives

Restorative/Peace-building Justice

Problems with Restorative Justice

Examples of Peace-building Justice

AFSC's Twelve-point Plan

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index