Caught, Marie Gottschalk
Caught, Marie Gottschalk
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Caught
The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics

Author: Marie Gottschalk

Narrator: Janet Metzger

Unabridged: 17 hr 49 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 10/13/2020


Synopsis

A major reappraisal of crime and punishment in America

The huge prison buildup of the past four decades has few defenders, yet reforms to reduce the numbers of those incarcerated have been remarkably modest. Meanwhile, an ever-widening carceral state has sprouted in the shadows, extending its reach far beyond the prison gate. It sunders families and communities and reworks conceptions of democracy, rights, and citizenship—posing a formidable political and social challenge. In Caught, Marie Gottschalk examines why the carceral state remains so tenacious in the United States. She analyzes the shortcomings of the two dominant penal reform strategies—one focused on addressing racial disparities, the other on seeking bipartisan, race-neutral solutions centered on reentry, justice reinvestment, and reducing recidivism.

With a new preface evaluating the effectiveness of recent proposals to reform mass incarceration, Caught offers a bracing appraisal of the politics of penal reform.

About Marie Gottschalk

Marie Gottschalk is professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania. A former journalist and editor, she was a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Causes and Consequences of High Rates of Incarceration. She is the author of, among other works, The Prison and the Gallows: The Politics of Mass Incarceration in America and The Shadow Welfare State: Labor, Business, and the Politics of Health Care in the United States.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Emma on October 08, 2015

From the acknowledgments section: "Caught uses the problem of the carceral state as a lens to bring into acute focus the broader pathologies that vex American politics today." An excellent read--comprehensive, sharp, useful, and actionable. Highly recommended!!!......more

Goodreads review by Laura on April 17, 2018

I feel like this book occupied an unfortunate intersection of advocacy and citation. It should have either been less opinionated or less boring. I was disturbed when a few of the endnotes cited sources that didn't seem... entirely credible on the face of it. That being said, it brings light to a cruc......more

Goodreads review by David on August 02, 2016

Gottschalk's "Caught" is the most important book I've read in the last ten years. Brilliant, terrifying, and invigorating.......more

Goodreads review by Christie on July 31, 2020

Violent crime rates have been dropping in the US since the 1990s, but our prisons are overcrowded. Gottschalk explores the reasons for this overcrowding and what we can do as a society to start addressing these issues. I picked this book up after it was included on this list. It is more scholarly t......more

Goodreads review by Valerie on July 14, 2020

Wow. Things I learned:  Chapter 1 - prison reformers have generally fallen into one of two categories - the prison system is racist or it is too costly - but the full reason is more complex and indicts free market capitalism as a force that exploits the most vulnerable aspects of our society;  Chapter......more