With Liberty for Some: Propaganda Plays of the Woman Suffrage Movement

I use this book every year in my Deviant Behavior class. While it is not the most exciting book, it does an amazing job of showing how our penal system developed. Though hundreds of years have passed, and many amendments have been made, it is still very much the same.

This exhaustive study of the criminal justice/prison system in America proves beyond doubt that the criminal justice sytem is biased against minorities, political dissidents, and (always) the poor.From colonial times to the present, horrors have been committd in the name of justice. What is so disturbing is that today, 500 years later, many of the exact same abuses continue. Women are raped. Men are beaten, and almost no one is rehabilitated.Why is it that prisons are the only industry where one can fail over and over, and the only consequence is that we build more and more of the exact same thing?

As a private investigator this book has enabled me to better understand the roots of the current criminal justice system, the many shortcomings of the system, and the harsh realities faced by generations of prisoners in this country. I highly recommend it. I have shared this book with several attorneys and two California state life prisoners (victims of the three strikes law). There is something in it for everyone. If Ken Burns is out there, he may want to make this the subject of his next documentary series!

I am distressed by Americans who ask "how could the German citizens have tolerated the Nazi horrors" but who keep voting for tougher and tougher treatment of prisoners. This well written and well researched book describes the history of prisons (and you will be surprised by some of the earlier ideas about the purpose and functioning of prisons) for the past 500 years. I wish it would be required reading in all schools.