![]() Refer to change as “reform,” but know that this is a term designed to get legislators to fund bigger prisons, increase the staff, obtain more sophisticated weaponry, and perpetuate the misery we now live with. Name their treatment “psychotherapy,” but realize that most prison psychiatrists are little more than administration spies. ![]() Describe offenders as “deviant” or “maladjusted,” but understand that we are talking about an inmate population that is overwhelmingly black or poor. Designate officers “institutional supperintendents,” but they are still Cagney‐like wardens. You may call institutions “therapeutic communities,” but they remain hell holes. Her ironic title, “Kind and Usual Punishment,” prepares us for the illusory world of prisons. So schooled, she was ready to investigate incarceration. In that encounter with the justice system, she learned about the most mysterious and shoddy doctrine in American law, the conspiracy charge. Spook and his four alleged co‐conspirators. ![]() $7.95.Įxploring the American way of death (in a book of that title, dealing with the mortuary racket) helped sharpen her suspicion of official rhetoric and designations. We are all the beneficiaries of Jessica Mitford's unconventional (but extraordinarily advantageous) preparation for this book on American prisons. ![]()
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