The most significant writings of practitioners, professors and advocates to make sense of what is perhaps America's most astonishing and shameful achievement: the highest per capita incarceration of its citizens anywhere in the world, compounded by the shockingly disproportionate imprisonment of poor ethnic minorities. Although there is growing awareness of the huge fiscal cost of mass incarceration, the moral, human and social devastation of racially skewed law enforcement remains largely unrecognised.

The most significant writings of practitioners, professors and advocates to make sense of what is perhaps America's most astonishing and shameful achievement: the highest per capita incarceration of its citizens anywhere in the world, compounded by the shockingly disproportionate imprisonment of poor ethnic minorities. Although there is growing awareness of the huge fiscal cost of mass incarceration, the moral, human and social devastation of racially skewed law enforcement remains largely unrecognised.