An inside look at the world's most feared institutions, from ancient and medieval up to the Bangkok Hilton and Abu Ghraib.

Incarceration has a long and inglorious history, from dungeons in the bowels of castles to oppressive penal colonies in Australia. Karen Farrington brings this history up to the 21st century, exploring some of the world's worst prisons, from Alcatraz to Devil's Island, and the unending battles that rage between convicts and warders. Inside the prison walls, gangs rule, guards devise sadistic punishments and newcomers suffer abuse at the hands of experienced tormentors. The World's Worst Prisons is packed with shocking accounts of prison breakouts, drug smuggling and life on death row. It also explores the politics of incarceration, including the harsh labor camps of North Korea and controversies surrounding private management of prisons. With prison populations rising each year, questions surrounding incarceration are all the more pertinent. Whether focusing on punishment, containment or rehabilitation, the prison system is imperfect and The World's Worst Prisons examines this dysfunction through some of the most dangerous jails on earth.

A captivating history of doing time throughout the centuries: from England’s medieval dungeons to America’s supermax detention facilities. The first prisons were castle hellholes, places of neglect, oblivion, and slow death. Every civilization has had its dissenters, deviants, and political offenders, and so prisons became essential to the retention of power. As the centuries passed, and prisons were needed for other reprobates—such as debtors and common thieves—legal systems across the world began to cater to a growing variety of prisoners, and the business of incarceration began. Notorious Prisons of the World traces this development, from the state prisons of Athens and Rome, to the birth of the houses of correction and the penitentiary. Stephen Wade tells fascinating stories of the infamous penal colonies and state prisons across the stage of world history, from Alcatraz and Devil’s Island to the fortress of Colditz, and from the Siberian gulags to the massive super jails sprouting across modern America. He also shares the stories of inmates and staff, political regimes, and the rise and fall of empires, all seen through the prison walls. In doing so, Wade throws light on the state-structured punishments which have stripped away individual freedoms. Sometimes with a degree of humanitarian concern, and sometimes through sheer barbarism.

Shortlisted for the Palestine Book Awards 2017 A powerful, groundbreaking history of the Occupied Territories from one of Israel's most influential historians From the author of the bestselling study of the 1948 War of Independence comes an incisive look at the Occupied Territories, picking up the story where The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine left off. In this comprehensive exploration of one of the world’s most prolonged and tragic conflicts, Pappe uses recently declassified archival material to analyse the motivations and strategies of the generals and politicians – and the decision-making process itself – that laid the foundation of the occupation. From a survey of the legal and bureaucratic infrastructures that were put in place to control the population of over one million Palestinians, to the security mechanisms that vigorously enforced that control, Pappe paints a picture of what is to all intents and purposes the world’s largest ‘open prison’.

Baz Dreisinger travels behind bars in nine countries to rethink the state of justice in a global context Beginning in Africa and ending in Europe, Incarceration Nations is a first-person odyssey through the prison systems of the world. Professor, journalist, and founder of the Prison-to-College-Pipeline, Dreisinger looks into the human stories of incarcerated men and women and those who imprison them, creating a jarring, poignant view of a world to which most are denied access, and a rethinking of one of America’s most far-reaching global exports: the modern prison complex. From serving as a restorative justice facilitator in a notorious South African prison and working with genocide survivors in Rwanda, to launching a creative writing class in an overcrowded Ugandan prison and coordinating a drama workshop for women prisoners in Thailand, Dreisinger examines the world behind bars with equal parts empathy and intellect. She journeys to Jamaica to visit a prison music program, to Singapore to learn about approaches to prisoner reentry, to Australia to grapple with the bottom line of private prisons, to a federal supermax in Brazil to confront the horrors of solitary confinement, and finally to the so-called model prisons of Norway. Incarceration Nations concludes with climactic lessons about the past, present, and future of justice.

"Jennifer Wynn has been going in for seven years. She entered first as a journalist, volunteered as a writing teacher, and then served as director of a unique rehabilitation program known as Fresh Start."--BOOK JACKET.

Los Angeles incarcerates more people than any other city in the United States, which imprisons more people than any other nation on Earth. This book explains how the City of Angels became the capital city of the world's leading incarcerator. Marshaling more than two centuries of evidence, historian Kelly Lytle Hernandez unmasks how histories of native elimination, immigrant exclusion, and black disappearance drove the rise of incarceration in Los Angeles. In this telling, which spans from the Spanish colonial era to the outbreak of the 1965 Watts Rebellion, Hernandez documents the persistent historical bond between the racial fantasies of conquest, namely its settler colonial form, and the eliminatory capacities of incarceration. But City of Inmates is also a chronicle of resilience and rebellion, documenting how targeted peoples and communities have always fought back. They busted out of jail, forced Supreme Court rulings, advanced revolution across bars and borders, and, as in the summer of 1965, set fire to the belly of the city. With these acts those who fought the rise of incarceration in Los Angeles altered the course of history in the city, the borderlands, and beyond. This book recounts how the dynamics of conquest met deep reservoirs of rebellion as Los Angeles became the City of Inmates, the nation's carceral core. It is a story that is far from over.