We Are Not Slaves: State Violence, Coerced Labor, and Prisoners' Rights in Postwar America

Hank Lacayo Best Labor Themed Book, International Latino Book Awards
Best Book Award, Division of Critical Criminology and Social Justice, American Society of Criminology

In the early twentieth century, the brutality of southern prisons became a national scandal. Prisoners toiled in grueling, violent conditions while housed in crude dormitories on what were effectively slave plantations. This system persisted until the 1940s when, led by Texas, southern states adopted northern prison design r...