Challenging the Prison-Industrial Complex

Stephen John Hartnett is an associate professor and chair of communication at the University of Colorado Denver. He is the author of Incarceration Nation: Investigative Prison Poems of Hope and Terror and Executing Democracy, Volume One: Capital Punishment and the Making of America, 1683–1807.

"This is an important, timely, and well-informed consideration of one of the major social issues of our democracy. The essays are relevant, varied, and written from the perspectives of committed activists, offering both a sophisticated understanding of the complexities of the prison-industrial complex and a refreshingly useful set of practical, tested paths toward action."--Judith A. Scheffler, editor of Wall Tappings: An International Anthology of Women's Prison Writings, 200 A.D. to the Present

• CoverTitle pageCopyrightContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Empowerment or Incarceration? Reclaiming Hope and Justice from a Punishing DemocracyPART I: Diagnosing the Crisis1. Building an Abolition Democracy; or, The Fight against Public Fears, Private Benefits, and Prison ExpansionPOEM: Another Day in the Champaign County Jail2. Militarizing the Police: Officer Jon Burge, Torture, and War in the "Urban Jungle"POEM: Gotta Be Careful Where Ya Plant Ya Feet3. Killing Democracy; or, How the Drug War Drives the Prison-Industrial ComplexPOEM: Another Day4. Teaching You to Love Fear: Television News and Racial Stereotypes in a Punishing DemocracyPOEM: In Search of Salvation5. Diagnosing the Schools-to-Prisons Pipeline: Maximum Security, Minimum LearningPART II: Practical Solutions, Visionary AlternativesIllustrations6. "A Piece of the Reply": The Prison Creative Arts Project and Practicing ResistancePOEM: The Poet's Corner7: Each One Reach One: Playwriting and Community Activism as Redemption and PreventionPOEM: Devil Talks8. Fostering Cultures of Achievement in Urban Schools: How to Work toward the Abolition of the Schools-to-Prisons PipelinePOEM: January 3, 20099. Humanizing Education behind Bars: Shakespeare and the Theater of EmpowermentPOEM: Anger10. Breaking Down the Walls: Inside-Out Learning and the Pedagogy of TransformationAppendix: Prisoner Art and the Work of Community BuildingContributorsIndex