The Jail: Managing the Underclass in American Society

By John Irwin

Book Overview

Combining extensive interviews with his own experience as an inmate, John Irwin constructs a powerful and graphic description of the big-city jail. Unlike prisons, which incarcerate convicted felons, jails primarily confine arrested persons not yet charged or convicted of any serious crime. Irwin argues that rather than controlling the disreputable, jail disorients and degrades these people, indoctrinating new recruits to the rabble class. In a forceful conclusion, Irwin addresses the issue of jail reform and the matter of social control demanded by society. Reissued more than twenty years after its initial publication with a new foreword by Jonathon Simon, The Jail remains an extraordinary account of the role jails play in America's crisis of mass incarceration.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520277341
• ISBN13: 9780520277342
• Release Date: September 2013
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 2.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.4" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

STEPEHN C. RICHARDS, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-OSHKOSH

THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ACADEMIC STUDY OF AMERICAN JAILS. IRWIN HAS WRITTEN A BOOK THAT SHOULD BE READ BY THE PUBLIC AND POLICY MAKERS. HE ILLUSTRATES HOW POVERTY AND INEQUALITY CREATED A POPULATION THAT WAS PROCESSED BY THE COURTS AND JAILS INTO UNDERCLASS RABLE. THE MOST VULNERABLE POPULATION, THROUGH REPEATED TERMS IN JAIL IS TRANSFORMED INTO RABLE. THE THESIS OF THE BOOK IS THAT THE JAILS PREPARE THE POOR TO BE UNDERCLASS. THE BOOK SHOULD BE READ BY ANYBODY INTERESTED IN UNDERSTANDING WHY HOMELESSNESS AND PETTY CRIME HAVE BECOME A FEATURE OF EVERY MAJOR AMERICAN CITY.

A stunning account of US jails, their effects & function

A remarkable inside account, inspired by Goffman, of the effects of jail on inmates and the social functions of jails in the US: managing the "rabble" and enforcing a social order built on vertiginous inequalities. Superbly written and argued, a model of responsible social inquiry