a fierce warning of the self-perpetuating cycle of violence

books:

	• American Furies: Crime, Punishment, and Vengeance in the Ageof Mass Imprisonment Sasha Abramsky Beacon Press, 2008 - 240 pages average customer review:based on 2 reviews view larger image
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a fierce warning of the self-perpetuating cycle of violence

"When the annals of our era are written, the United States will... come to be defined as a prison state." Not to spoil the ending, but this is the last, haunting sentence of American Furies, Sasha Abramsky's scathing indictment of the U.S. prison system. If you still believe that America is a just democracy where everyone is treated equal, then you really have to read this book. I found myself laughing aloud in sour irony recently as President Bush commuted Scooter Libby's prison term because he felt that the thirty month sentence was "excessive." Tell that to Dan Johnson, an inmate that Abramsky profiles who is currently serving a twenty-eight years to life sentence for possession of a small amount of cocaine, his "third strike" drug offense in California.

I worked in womens' prisons and juvenile corrections institutions for six years and still found my jaw dropping at the absurdities and horrors described in this nightmare of a book. Whether describing female chain gangs in Arizona, the capitalistic rise of private prisons or the inhuman and torturous conditions in maximum security units, Abramsky conjures the human stories behind the headlines. He contextualizes the present prison crisis by outlining the history of incarceration in the U.S., beginning with the 18th century's silent prisons, through the rehabilitation movements of the 1960s and '70s and then the tough-on-crime backlash of the 1980s through today.

His statistics are damning: In some communities, more young men go to prison than go to college; the U.S. spends more money on criminal justice than on higher education; the U.S. incarcerates more people than any other industrialized nation; and on and on. He parallels political movements and social trends with the rise of the pro-prison "business," and tracks the "victim's rights" campaigns and their harsh effects on sentencing. Though a comprehensive whirlwind of stories, statistics and interviews, at under 200 pages, I felt that he left out some crucial feminist issues, such as the rise in female inmates, particularly girls, and the effects of parents' incarceration on children.

But don't dismiss this book as just another scathing rant about how screwed up the system is. Abramsky knows how to write a story and his imagery, intellect, passion and anger bleed through each chapter. I kept naively waiting, though, for that magic finale where he offers hope and solutions for our nation's violently oppressive present situation. Though it's no happy-ending fairy tale, American Furies serves as a fierce warning of the self-perpetuating cycle of violence we ascribe to if we continue to let prisons replace schools as the incubators for our future.

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Should be required reading for voters and jurors

I was motivated to read this book after author Abramsky read a searing description of women on an Arizona chain gang. In some ways, I wish he hadn't. It's hard to forget the image: women chained together, forced to carry out body functions in humiliating circumstances, burying paupers while a clergyman blesses them for doing good work.

Abramsky presents images like these throughout the book, based on a series of visits to American prisons. In clear but understated prose, he describes the trends that led to our present condition: somewhere between 1% and 2% of Americans are behind bars. Many are juveniles who are housed in adult prisons. These prisoners are subject to many of the same abuse that led to convictions among 11 enlisted soldiers. I believe Charles Graner had worked in prisons before going on active duty.

On page 175, Abramsky writes, "Can a country's democratic institutions survive when the primary emotion underlying so much of its social policy, and determining the allocation of a sizable proportion of its annual revenues, is revenge?...We will in short become a community in name only, an increasingly atomized continent in which the primary role of government is to instill fear of the law rather than respect for its integrity."

When you consider everything from overzealous security guards to Michael Nifong, I think we're already there.

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In this disturbing yet elegant exposé of U.S. penitentiaries and their surrounding communities, Sasha Abramsky shows how American prisons have abandoned their long-held ideal of rehabilitation, often for political reasons. After surveying our current state of affairs?life sentences for nonviolent crimes, appalling conditions for inmates, the growth of private prisons, the treatment of juveniles?Abramsky argues that our punitive policies are not only inhuman but deeply counterproductive. Brilliantly researched and compellingly told, American Furies reveals the devastating consequences of a society that believes in "lock 'em up and throw away the key."

"This is by far the most intelligent and haunting indictment of the American prison system that I have ever read. Sasha Abramsky has shone an incandescent lamp on a shadowy underground universe that holds and in all too many cases brutalizes the lives of more than two million Americans. He should be commended for doing so, and his book made required reading for every legislator in the land, bar none."
?Simon Winchester, author of A Crack in the Edge of the World

"The most urgent book of the season. Sasha Abramsky provides us with an invaluable, if harrowing, audit of the cataclysmic damage inflicted upon American values by American prisons. The lack of compassion in our national life and the gangrened hearts of our politicians pose greater threats to our childrens' futures than any overseas terrorist conspiracy."
?Mike Davis, professor of history at University of California, Irvine and author of seven books, including Planet of Slums and The Monster at Our Door

"A smart, compassionate and tough-minded look at the rise and impact of the tough-on-crime culture that has made America the world's foremost jailer. By showing us how we got into this mess, this revelatory book also holds out hope that we might find our way out."
?Nell Bernstein, author of All Alone in the World: Children of the Incarcerated

"Sobering . . . Abramsky uses painstaking research, anecdotal evidence from inmates and tours of penal hellholes across the land to lock in American Furies."
?Sacramento News and Review

"In the difficult realm of prison reporting, Abramsky is unquestionably among the best and brightest, and American Furies is clear evidence of such."
?The American Prospect

"American Furies provides us with a vivid account?"
?The Nation

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