Research Item

Source

The New Jim Crow Overview

Alexander, Michelle. "The

New Jim Crow." HuffPost
Books.
TheHuffingtonPost.com,
8 Feb. 2010. Web. 5
Mar. 2016.
<http://www.huffingtonpost.
com/
michelle-alexander/thenew-jimOther, Book Overview,
crow_b_454469.html>.
secondary source

Type

Alexander's main point is that systematic racism in the United States

is far from over; the criminal justice system has created what she
calls an undercaste. "There are more African Americans under
correctional control today -- in prison or jail, on probation or parole -than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began."
"As of 2004, more African American men were disenfranchised (due
to felon disenfranchisement laws) than in 1870, the year the
Fifteenth Amendment was ratified prohibiting laws that explicitly
deny the right to vote on the basis of race."
This supports my claim that incarceration in the United States is a new form of slavery.

Punishment in America

Banks, Cyndi. "Legal

Punishment." Punishment
in America. N.p.: ABCCLIO, 2005.
N. pag. Contemporary
World Issues. ABC-CLIO:
American Government.
Web. 5
Mar. 2016.

This chapter explained how the government punishes people for

committing crimes.

Book, secondary source

Blankinship, Donna
Gordon. "College education
in American prisons is
starting to
grow again, more than
two decades since federal
funding was prohibited for
college programs behind
bars." U.S. News and
World Report. U.S. News &
World Report LP., 1
Mar. 2016. Web. 9 Mar.
2016.
<http://www.usnews.com/
news/us/articles/201603-01/
college-behind-bars-anold-idea-with-some-newNews Article, secondary
Article on College Education in Prisons energy>.
source

Chammah, Maurice. "How

Germany Does Prison."
The Marshall Project. N.p.,
16 June
2015. Web. 29 Feb.
2016.
<https://www.themarshallpr
oject.org/2015/06/16/
how-germany-doesNews Article, secondary
Overview of Germany's Prison System prison#.aoz5arrZM>.
source

Angela Davis's Lecture

Davis, Angela. "Slavery

and the Prison Industrial
Complex." 5th Annual Eric
Williams Memorial
Lecture. Florida
International University. 19
Sept. 2003.
Lecture. Professor in
History of Consciousness
and Chair of Women's
Studies, University of
California, Santa Cruz
Video, primary source

Summary

How does this source help your project? Does it support or refute your ideas? How so?

This did not support nor refute my ideas because it gave me an objective overview of the
ethics of punishment.

This article was about the comeback of college education in prisons

and its benefits. A "study paid for by the Indiana Department of
Correction found that while all kinds of inmate education has a
positive influence on recidivism, inmates who take college courses
have a prison return rate of less than 5 percent. That's compared to
the national average of nearly 68 percent within three years of
release, federal statistics show." "Now more dollars are starting to
follow those results, led by a recent decision by the U.S.
Department of Education to experiment again with federal Pell
Grants for inmate students. Forty-seven states have applied to
participate in that program. States such as Washington, New York
and California also are looking into spending more state dollars on
these programs."
This source supports my claim that more federal funding should be spent on rehabilatative
measures, like education.
"In 2013, Vera took a similar group on tours of prisons in the
Netherlands and Germany. John Wetzel, who runs the prison
system in Pennsylvania, adapted ideas from the trip as he
revamped the way his state handles prisoners before theyre
released. He learned how in Germany, correctional officers are
more like therapists than guards, and when he returned, Wetzel told
me, he increased training in communication skills for his employees,
shifting the whole focus around humanizing offenders and lifting the
expectations for officers, to get every staff member to feel some
ownership over outcomes. Wetzel also increased mental health
training because when people understand the root cause of
behavior, they are more likely to not interpret something as
disrespectful.The point of all this, Wetzel added, is to figure out
whats causing prisoners to commit crimes so you can find out how
to make sure theyre less likely to commit more once they leave
prison, thereby protecting the public. It almost smacked me in the
face when they said that public safety is a logical consequence of a This souce supports my claim that Germany's consequentialist rehabilitative measures are
good corrections system, and not the other way around."
much more effective.

This source is a lecture by Angela Davis on the prison-industrial

complex. "Drawing on her own prison experience and the
experiences of her friends and comrades, combined with a
professed ex-communist turned-socialist, feminist analysis, Davis
highlights the relationship between the privatisation of the prison
system in the US and the ever-increasing number of prisoners, set
against the backdrop of falling crime rates."

This source supports my claim that the prison-industrial complex, along with a complex web of
socioeconomic problems in the US, is one of the main problems causing the gross prison
population in the United States.

Hall, Katy. "CCA Letters

Reveal Private Prison
Industry's Tactics."
HuffPost
Business.
TheHuffingtonPost.com, 7
Mar. 2014. Web. 5 Mar.
2016.

CCA letters

<http://www.huffingtonpost.
com/2013/04/11/
cca-prisonNews Article, secondary
industry_n_3061115.html>. source
Kirby, Holly. "LOCKED UP
& SHIPPED AWAY:
Interstate Prisoner
Transfers and the
Private Prison Industry;
Winter 2016 Update."
Grassroots Leadership.
Grassroots Leadership,
n.d. Web. 9 Mar. 2016.
<http://grassrootsleadershi
p.org/sites/default/files/repo
rts/

Winter Update Locked Up and

Shipped Away

LUSA%20Jan%202016%2
0update_0.pdf>.
Journal

Limbardo, Michael F. "The

Christian roots of Americas
prison system."
Disciples of Christ
Historical Society May
2005: n. pag.
DisciplesWorld:
archiving the whole world.
Web. 5 Mar. 2016.
Possible religious causes of
deontological punishments in the US

<http://www.disciplesworld
magazine.com/node/6927> Journal
Newser Editors and Wire
Services. "Ex-Rikers
Inmate: 2-Plus Years in
Solitary
Ruined Me." Newser.
Newser, 17 Feb. 2016.
Web. 29 Feb. 2016.

Case Study of Solitary Confinement

<http://www.newser.com/st
ory/220696/
ex-rikers-inmate-2-plusyears-in-solitary-ruinedNews Article, secondary
me.html>.
source
Pelaez, Vicky. The Prison
Industry in the United
States: Big Business or a
New
Form of Slavery? New
York: El Diario-La Prensa,
2008. Global Research:
Center for Research on
Globalization. Web. 5 Mar.
2016.

Canadian research on American

prison-industrial complex

This source contains 30 revealing quotes from annual reports of the

CCA, a very large private-prison corporation in the United States.
"Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), now the nation's largest
private prison company, was founded just over 30 years ago in
Nashville. Since then, it has become a multi-billion-dollar-a-year
business with more than 60 facilities across the country. Meanwhile,
the U.S. prison population has grown 500 percent. A look at the
CCA's annual shareholder reports over the past few years shows an
aggressive business strategy based on building prison beds, or
buying them off the government, and contracting them to
government authorities sometimes with decades-long contracts
mandating minimum occupancy rates as high as 90 percent. Profits,
after lining the pockets of shareholders, are used to create more
beds and to lobby state and federal agencies to deliver inmates to This source supports my claim that the prison-industrial complex, namely the private prison, is
fill them. The resulting facilities can be violent and disgusting."
one of the main problems causing the gross prison population in the United States.

This winter update described the movement of prisoners across state lines
to private prisons as a harmful practice. "In November 2013, Grassroots
Leadership released Locked Up and Shipped Away: Interstate Prisoner
Transfers and the Private Prison Industry,i a groundbreaking report
examining states practice of transferring incarcerated people en masse
from their home states to private, for-profit prisons across the United States.
This brief is an update on the status of interstate state prisoner transfers to
private prisons in the U.S. as of December 2015."
This source supports my class that private prisons are harmful.

This source outlines the Christian roots of the American prison

system. "History clearly shows that Christian theology was a key
element in the development of Americas prison system. In Religion
and the Development of the American Penal System (University
Press of America), Andrew Skotnicki traces the historical
development of Americas prisons from institutions managed by
Christian reformers like Reverend Louis Dwight, who personally
established penitentiaries (note the Christian origin of the word) in
nearly a dozen states, into secular institutions run by federal, state,
and local governments.
To misunderstand the role of religion in the development of
America's prisons is to miss a crucial piece in the puzzle of todays
corrections system. The elimination of religion from the debate
surrounding prisons as institutions has burdened the penal system
with the baggage of forgetting its own theological roots; the modern
prison system is devoid of any sense of historical continuity or
context. It is a community without a common story, an institution in
search of a philosophy."

"Though the Bible is filled with admonitions to visit those in prison, pastors rarely preach about
issues of incarceration." This quote conflicts with my experience at the Reformed Church of
Highland Park, but I guess the Reformed Church is exceptionally progressive for a church in
the US. This source discusses the roots of the American prison system, which I plan on
exploring in my writing.

This article discusses the story of Hailey, who claims her life was
ruined by solitary confinement. "Hailey finally had her trial last May,
with a verdict of not guilty, after spending 2 1/3 years in solitary.
Since she was freed, she's been unable to regain custody of her
children; fallen out with her family; and struggled to find employment
and housing. She's tried to kill herself twice. "I think it all came from
solitary confinement," she says. "I don't think I'll ever be normal
This source supports my claim that solitary confinement is far more detrimental than
again. ... My soul died but my body is alive.""
beneficial. It provides anecdotal evidence that I could support with facts.

This source included a lot of facts and figures about the prisonindustrial complex. "The figures show that the United States has
locked up more people than any other country: a half million more
than China, which has a population five times greater than the U.S.
Statistics reveal that the United States holds 25% of the worlds
<http://www.globalresearch
prison population, but only 5% of the worlds people. From less than
.ca/
300,000 inmates in 1972, the jail population grew to 2 million by the
the-prison-industry-inyear 2000. In 1990 it was one million. Ten years ago there were
the-united-states-bigonly five private prisons in the country, with a population of 2,000
business-or-a-new-form-ofinmates; now, there are 100, with 62,000 inmates. It is expected that
slavery/
Other, research publication, by the coming decade, the number will hit 360,000, according to
This source supports my claim that the United States has an exceptionally large prison
8289>.
primary source
reports."
population due to corporate interests.

Documentary on incarceration in
Philidelphia that I saw at Reformed
Church

Pillischer, Matthew, dir.

Broken on All Sides: Race,
Mass Incarceration and
New
Visions for Criminal
Justice in the U.S. Prod.
Neal Swisher, Agatha
Koprowski, Karly
O'Krent O'Krent, and
Matthew Pillischer. 2012.
Film.
video, secondary source

This was a documentary that I saw at the Reformed Church of

Highland Park documenting unacceptable conditions in the
Philidelphia county jail system, expanding on them to focus on
"mass incarceration across the nation and the intersection of race
and poverty within criminal justice."

This source supports my claim that the prison population is far too large due to systemic
racism and poverty, among other things.

This figure supports my claim that federal prison funding is spent inefficiently.

Plush, Shannon. "If

education reduces
recidivism by 43%, why
aren't corrections
budget increases going
toward THAT instead of
new prisons?
#WomenInPrison
?." 27 Feb. 2016, 7:50
p.m. Tweet.
<https://twitter.com/shanno
nplush/
Tweet on funding education

status/5715177330761482 Other, tweet, secondary

24>.
source

n/a

Book Excerpt on History of Prison

Policy in America

Stanley, Debra L., and

Nicole Hahn Rafter. "Prison
Policy." Prisons in America:
A Reference Handbook.
Annotated edition ed. N.p.:
ABC-CLIO, 1999. N. pag.
Contemporary World
Issues. ABC-CLIO:
American Government.
Book excerpt, secondary
Web. 5 Mar. 2016.
source

This excerpt was an overview of the history of prison policy in

America. It explained how penitentiary systems in the United States This source explains the roots of America's prison system which I plan on exploring in my
developed over time.
writing.

Turner, Nicholas, and

Jeremy Travis. "What We
Learned From German
Prisons."
The New York Times.
New York Times, 6 Aug.
2015. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.

NYT Article about visiting German

prisons

<http://www.nytimes.com/2
015/08/07/opinion/
what-we-learned-from- News Article, primary
german-prisons.html>.
source

This article described the conditions in the German prisons

observed during the Vera Institute sponsored trip. It also described
German criminal justice policies: "While the United States currently
incarcerates 2.2 million people, Germany whose population is
one-fourth the size of ours locks up only about 63,500, which
translates to an incarceration rate that is one-tenth of ours. More
than 80 percent of those convicted of crimes in Germany receive
sentences of day fines (based on the offense and the offenders
ability to pay). Only 5 percent end up in prison. Of those who do,
about 70 percent have sentences of less than two years, with few
serving more than 15 years."

This supports my claim that Germany's respect for the rights and dignities of their prisoners
helps create a less hostile environment and in turn a more effective prison system.