Mass Incarceration on Trial: A Remarkable Court Decision and the Future of Prisons in America

Jonathan Simon

ago 2012 · New Press, The

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Once the home of the most progressive prison system in the United States, California has now become the most extreme example of mass incarceration since the 1980s. In this inspired and original work, prize-winning criminal justice author Jonathan Simon argues that California provides a crucial window for learning what has gone wrong with American justice. The Supreme Court's recent 5-4 ruling in the landmark Brown v. Plata case, a culmination of more than twenty years of litigation about medical and mental health care in California's massive prison system, guarantees that California will be forced to continue to find ways to reduce its prison population. Yet it remains uncertain what will actually be done to unwind California's long-term prison crisis, let alone America's addiction to mass incarceration.

Through constructing a framework of dignity and healing rather than shame and punitiveness, Mass Incarceration on Trial advocates for a new approach: the creation of social policy programs and initiatives that work with prisoners outside of the penal system, restoring a sense of humanity to criminal justice. Shedding light on the costly and dangerous prison system that exists in California today, this book will both point the way toward ending mass incarceration and offer a blueprint for restoring effective social policy in America.

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Jonathan Simon is the Adrian A. Kragen Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. His most recent book, Governing through Crime, won the American Sociology Association’s 2008 Sociology of Law Distinguished Book Award and the 2010 Hindelang Prize of the American Society of Criminology. He lives in Berkeley, California.