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.
#50106 in Books imusti 2010-11-29Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 12.00 x .58 x 7.00l; 1.31 #File Name: 0520262506166 pagesUniversity of California Press
Review
76 of 78 people found the following review helpful. "San Francisco contains many more than eight hundred thousand living maps"By Michael R. MooreThe beautiful "Infinite City" belongs on any list of essential San Francisco books. Rebecca Solnit and her collaborators have taken a core sample of the endless layers of San Francisco history and laid it out in twenty-two brilliantly imagined maps and eighteen essays exploring the city's history; geography; demography; biology; and myth. "Infinite City" is vast enough to encompass the Coliseum; Coronet and Alexandria theaters; the Pipevine swallowtail; Satyr anglewing; and Orange sulfur butterflies; the Yelamu; Aramai; and Urebure peoples; the "McKittrick Hotel"; "Argosy Book Shop"; and Ernie's; Josephine McCrackin; Carrie Stevens Walter; and Barbara Eastman; Bechtel; RoboteX; and Jeppesen; Jimbo's Bop City; Ann's 440; and the Six Gallery; Acme Export Packing; the Pacific Far East Line; and Triple A Machine Shop; and the Richmond Branch of the San Francisco Public Library. The book itself is as lovingly designed as anything McSweeney's has published; proof that until we stop needing tactile pleasures; the screen will never replace the page.7 of 7 people found the following review helpful. Fantastic Book!!By M. Von JaegerI bought it for a friend who grew up in San Francisco and who loves exploring different books media about S.F. He fell in Love with it I will be buying another copy for myself since it is a fascinating variety of perspectives and colorful maps with interesting information.. I Love It!!3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. I love this book!By C. PierceI was born and raised in the Oakland/ San Francisco Bay Area; living elsewhere in the country right now but this book brought my home right back to me. The atlas reminded me of childhood things like the canneries my mother worked in and the cast iron penny bank my father brought me from an excavating job he was on in the 1950s. I later discovered that bank was buried in the rubble of a building at the time of the great earthquake. If you know the bay you know it's sights; sounds and the blood that runs through it; if you're born there it's always with you and sometimes if you only lived there for a little while. It's history is filled with seekers; adventurers; dreamers and villians. Great calm and great calamity. Most of all it made me think of a place as an atlas. Any place is more than it's present appearance; this was an adventure in thinking differently and was written so beautifully it could only have been done by someone who knows the city's heart and soul; warts and all. I will definately read this over and over.
