Pains of Mass Imprisonment

Benjamin Fleury-Steiner is Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware. For more than two decades, he has taught graduate and undergraduate courses on inequality, mass imprisonment, and the death penalty. Fleury-Steiner is the author of more than thirty scholarly journal and law review articles and numerous books, including Jurors’ Stories of Death: How America's Death Penalty Invests in Inequality, Dying Inside: The HIV/AIDS Ward at Limestone Prison, and The Elgar Companion to Capital Punishment and Society (co-edited with Austin Sarat).Jamie Longazel is Associate Professor of Law & Society at John Jay College and is on the International Migration Studies faculty at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He is the author of Undocumented Fears: Immigration and the Politics of Divide and Conquer in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, and co-editor of Migration and Mortality: Social Death, Dispossession, and Survival in the Americas.

“The Pains of Mass Imprisonment is an incredibly important text for anyone who is interested in understanding more about incarceration and its consequences. This second edition offers timely examples that have emerged over the last decade (e.g., COVID-19), updated research, and a new chapter on migrant detention. The latter is an issue that has perhaps never been more relevant given the current political climate and promises for unprecedented mass deportations from the Trump administration as soon as January 2025. ‘Stories from the Inside’ are another welcome addition. These accounts of lived experiences are not only compelling, they highlight the tragic lack of humanity that those who experience incarceration often endure and why this must change.”Meghan A. Novisky, Associate Professor of Criminology and Sociology at Cleveland State University

• Preface / I. Introduction: Penal Oppression / II. Containment / III. Exploitation / IV. Coercion / V. Isolation / VI. Brutality / VII. Conclusion: Desperation / Appendix: Prisoner Rights Organizations