Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire |  | Author: Robert Perkinson
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
Category: Book
List Price: $35.00
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Rating:  13 reviews
Media: Hardcover
Edition: First Edition
Pages: 496
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.9 x 7 x 1.7
ISBN: 0805080694
Dewey Decimal Number: 365.9764
EAN: 9780805080698
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Product Description
A vivid history of America’s biggest, baddest prison system and how it came to lead the nation’s punitive revolution In the prison business, all roads lead to Texas. The most locked-down state in the nation has led the way in criminal justice severity, from assembly-line executions to isolation supermaxes, from prison privatization to sentencing juveniles as adults. Texas Tough, a sweeping history of American imprisonment from the days of slavery to the present, shows how a plantation-based penal system once dismissed as barbaric became the national template. Drawing on convict accounts, official records, and interviews with prisoners, guards, and lawmakers, historian Robert Perkinson reveals the Southern roots of our present-day prison colossus. While conventional histories emphasize the North’s rehabilitative approach, he shows how the retributive and profit-driven regime of the South ultimately triumphed. Most provocatively, he argues that just as convict leasing and segregation emerged in response to Reconstruction, so today’s mass incarceration, with its vast racial disparities, must be seen as a backlash against civil rights. Illuminating for the first time the origins of America’s prison juggernaut, Texas Tough points toward a more just and humane future.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 13
 An outstanding survey March 27, 2010
D. McFarland
18 out of 20 found this review helpful
We have all heard the numbers. The United States has 2.3 million people under lock and key. We have a greater portion of our people incarcerated than any other nation on earth. But how did this come to be, is this new, or have we always had this problem. Who is responsible, and were they right or wrong in what they did.
These are the questions that Professor Perkinson looks into in this fine book. This is an in depth look at the development of the problem. He traces the formation of the modern system throughout the US but he takes as his example the state of Texas. Every aspect of the development and refinement of the "correctional system" has been seen in microcosm within this state, which is the current record holder for percent of population behind bars.
In Texas, as is true throughout the country, an over representative percentage of the prison population are minority group members. Professor Perkinson traces this back to its roots in the slave system. He finds much of the current problems related to the hysteria of the war on drugs and the shameful failure of the war on poverty.
The author states clearly that he has no detailed solutions to present within the volume. He does however, offer a few suggestions that might well be worth follow-up. All in all this is a well written, highly readable guide to what may be the greatest current social problem within the US. I recommend it most highly.
a must read March 26, 2010
Pete Harrington (Washington, DC)
10 out of 12 found this review helpful
This book will totally change your understanding of prison, race, and politics. It not only has incredible facts in it, but Perkinson writes like a mystery-crime novelist -- it's fascinating but it's also a great read. Id' recommend it for anyone -- classrooms full of people if they're studying anything related, or just anyone looking for a gripping and incredible book.
TEXAS TOUGH indeed May 5, 2010
K. Nahl
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
In TEXAS TOUGH Parkinson presents a well-researched history of the rise of Americas Prison Empire. This book was assigned in my graduate level class on American Punishment. This is a well-written journey though Texas and US history that brings together the past and present of how the juggernaut of corrections that we have in the US today was created. He grapples issues of race and how they are deeply intertwined historically with our criminal justice system. The stories of the conditions and experiences in these prisons were haunting. I highly enjoyed this book and recommend it for a class or just a good read.
Not for the faint of heart April 23, 2010
R. W. Stimson (Georgetown, TX USA)
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
I devoured this book! Other readers are cautioned, however, that it is not for the faint of heart. There can be no viewpoint more unabashedly liberal than that of Robert Perkinson - so consider yourself a conservative reader who wants to understand another viewpoint. Then, when you have finished digesting his treatise, then and only then, re-weigh your views of criminals and the criminal justice system.
I am a conservative Texan who has spent years visiting prisoners in Texas prisons; have studied Texas prison history and taught courses about it; and have grieved for the plight of many inmates who are victims of an overzealous punishment system. I had long struggled to understand why the system is so harsh and uncaring. Texas Tough filled that void.
Perkinson is a master of the adjective - producing lively and readable text. But he is also extremely thorough. Every fact and quote is well documented and gives a cohesive picture. Read with a magic marker - you will see much you want to use in your re-thinking process. Rather than attempting to dispute his disparaging facts or their selection, focus upon your own answers to two questions of "What have we done to our own humankind?" And, "What can I do to help change it?"
tough but true April 10, 2010
Sheherazade (Honolulu, HI)
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
Texas Tough by Robert Perkinson is exceedingly well-written, thoughtful, and thorough. I've been a U.S. History teacher for fifteen years and was delighted by the amount of historical detail in the book. Perkinson not only shares the complex, dramatic history of Texas prisons but has also carefully researched the history of the criminal justice system more generally; he deftly spins a web that entwines the history of prison systems with that of slavery, race and politics in the United States. Texas Tough shares many of the inmates' stories and we see how our own lives might have taken a turn for the tough had we been less fortunate, been born at the wrong time and place, or been forgotten by kith and kin. We see that the humanity has not been cut out of most of the prisoners on death row, though it has been stripped from their environment. And we see that being tough on crime could mean that we focus on eradicating the inequality and poverty that is at the heart of so many of the crimes that have been committed by inmates. We know that we will be accused of bleeding heart liberalism if we say such things in public, but when reading Texas Tough, we know all of this to be absolutely true. The system is brutal and needs to be made better. Rather than inspiring surrender and frustration, Perkinson made me feel like we have the tools and wherewithal to make things better if we care enough to do so. If we know what has gone wrong, we can move closer to making things right. This is a book about justice, then. In telling us about Texas' tough justice, we begin to see the more nuanced patterns of rehabilitation that will lead to a more just system and nation.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 13
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