There is no one volume that comes close to providing an adequate history of prisons. The most ambitious attempt is:
Morris, Norval and David Rothman (eds.) The Oxford History of the Prison: The Practice of Punishment in Western Society, Oxford U.S., New York 1997
Other works that provide an overview include:
Conley, John A (ed.) The 1967 President's Crime Commission Report: Its Impact 25 Years Later Anderson Publishing Co. Cincinnati, 1994 (a collection of articles assessing the changes relating to the 1967 report)
Feucht, Thomas E. and Edwin Zedlewski, “The 40th Anniversary of the Crime Report ,” NIJ Journal, 257, June 2007
Foucault, M.. Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Pantheon Book New York 1977 (an historical and philosophical inquiry into the origins of prisons and punishment)
Johnston, Norman, Forms of Constraint: A History of Prison Architecture , Universityof Illinois Press, Champaign, 2006
Meskell, Matthew, “An American Resolution: A History of U.S. Prisons from 1777 to 1877,” Stanford Law Review, 51, 1999
National Public Radio, Serving Time: A History of Punishment, 2008 http://www.backstoryradio.org/
Rothman, D.. Discovery of the Asylum. Little Brown and Co. , Boston 1971
(though this volume focuses mainly on asylums it has an excellent section on the history of prisons in the late 19th and early 20th century)
Willis, James, “Transportation versus Imprisonment in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Britain: Penal Power, Liberty, and the State:” Law & Society Review, Vol. 39, No. 1 (Mar., 2005), pp. 171-210: http://www.jstor.org/stable/
Race and Incarceration
Unfortunately most of these surveys don’t give much attention to race and incarceration. A number of more specialized and localized studies add this dimension:
Alexander, Michelle., The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, New Press, Boston, 2010
Blackmon, Douglas A., Slavery By Another Name The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans From the Civil War to World War II , Anchor, New York, 2009
Oshinsky, David M., Worse Than Slavery,Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice, Free Press, New York 1997.
Contemporary Writings on Incarceration
In recent years a vast literature has emerged examining concepts like mass incarceration, the prison-industrial complex as well as an activist writings reflecting a range of perspectives. The titles below are suggestive of the writing.
Davis, Angela, Are Prisons Obsolete? Open Media, New York, 2003
(The most succinct statement from the abolitionist position – those who think prisons should be abolished altogether.)
Real Cost of Prisons Website (has links to news stories on latest prison developments nationwide):
http://realcostofprisons.org/
Reiman, Jeffrey and Paul Leighton, The Rich Get Richer and The Poor Get Prison: Ideology, Class, and Criminal Justice. Prentice Hal, 2009
Voices of Prisoners
There are many prison memoirs and writings by prisoners. Here are some suggestions:
James, Joy, The New Abolitionists: (Neo)slave Narratives And Contemporary Prison Writings SUNY Press, New York 2005 (a collection of writings by those who regard themselves as political prisoners in the U.S.)
Wally Lamb and the Women of York Correctional Institution, Couldn't Keep It to Myself: Testimonies from our Imprisoned Sisters, Harper Perennial, New York 2004
________________,I'll Fly Away: Further Testimonies from the Women of York Prison, Harper, New York 2007 (These two collections are writings compiled by well-known novelist Wally Lamb from his writers’ group at York Correctional Insitution in Maine. They are amazing.)
