The Rise and Fall of California’s Radical Prison Movement

The Rise and Fall of California’s Radical Prison Movement
Author :
Publisher : Stanford University Press
Total Pages : 358
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0804722323
ISBN-13 : 9780804722322
Rating : 4/5 (23 Downloads)

Book Synopsis The Rise and Fall of California’s Radical Prison Movement by : Eric Cummins

Download or read book The Rise and Fall of California’s Radical Prison Movement written by Eric Cummins and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a history of the California prison movement from 1950 to 1980, focusing on the San Francisco Bay Area's San Quentin State Prison and highlighting the role that prison reading and writing played in the creation of radical inmate ideology in those years. The book begins with the Caryl Chessman years (1948-60) and closes with the trial of the San Quentin Six (1975-76) and the passage of California's Determinate Sentencing Law (1977). This was an extraordinary era in the California prisons, one that saw the emergence of a highly developed radical convict resistance movement inside prison walls. This inmate groundswell was fueled at times by remarkable individual prisoners, at other times by groups like the Black Muslims or the San Quentin chapter of the Black Panther Party. But most often resistance grew from much wider sources and in quiet corners: from dozens of political study groups throughout the prison; from an underground San Quentin newspaper; and from covert attempts to organize a prisoners' union. The book traces the rise and fall of the prisoners' movement, ending with the inevitably bloody confrontation between prisoners and the state and the subsequent prison administration crackdown. The author examines the efforts of prison staff to augment other methods of inmate management by attempting to modify convict ideology by means of "bibliotherapy" and communication control, and describes convict resistance to these attempts as control. He also discusses how Bay Area political activists became intensely involved in San Quentin and how such writings as Chessman's Cell 2455, Cleaver's Soul on Ice, and Jackson's Soledad Brother reached far beyond prison walls to influence opinion, events, and policy.


The Rise and Fall of California’s Radical Prison Movement Related Books

The Rise and Fall of California’s Radical Prison Movement
Language: en
Pages: 358
Authors: Eric Cummins
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 1994 - Publisher: Stanford University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This is a history of the California prison movement from 1950 to 1980, focusing on the San Francisco Bay Area's San Quentin State Prison and highlighting the ro
Golden Gulag
Language: en
Pages: 413
Authors: Ruth Wilson Gilmore
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2007-01-08 - Publisher: Univ of California Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Since 1980, the number of people in U.S. prisons has increased more than 450%. Despite a crime rate that has been falling steadily for decades, California has l
Texas Tough
Language: en
Pages: 494
Authors: Robert Perkinson
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2010-03-11 - Publisher: Macmillan + ORM

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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 T
Rebel Speak
Language: en
Pages: 312
Authors: Bryonn Bain
Categories: Family & Relationships
Type: BOOK - Published: 2022-04-19 - Publisher: Univ of California Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Through dialogues with activists including Albert Woodfox, founder of the first Black Panther Party prison chapter, and Susan Burton, founder of Los Angeles's A
Doing Time in the Depression
Language: en
Pages: 338
Authors: Ethan Blue
Categories: Business & Economics
Type: BOOK - Published: 2014-11-22 - Publisher: NYU Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

As banks crashed, belts tightened, and cupboards emptied across the country, American prisons grew fat. Doing Time in the Depression tells the story of the 1930