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I would also like to say this book does a good job of showing prison life from a neutral perspective. It has a lot of facts and testimonials from inmates and prison guards.
Humans should not be treated as pawns in a game...especially when crime rates are still so high. Cops, lawyers and judges are so often misguided and motivated by the wrong things. Too often cells are filled by non-violent "offenders" while real criminals go free.
Hallinan deserves much praise for being an intelligent voice of reason for those who often are not permitted to express their own.
Overall it is an interesting book that will have everyone that reads it come away with an opinion, one way or the other. For the most part, the author does not let his view of the process cloud too much of the story, but it did seem to me, just a little, that he had a negative view of what the industry is becoming. The book is full of interesting facts and details about which the average reader knows nothing about. The bonus of the book is the fact that just by explaining the current situation, the author succeeds in getting the reader to think about if this is the best way to treat the prison issue in America. Is it the dog chasing the tail when so many people, counties & towns, and companies rely on the prisons for they're living? Is this one industry that we really want to grow by 10% a year, and how much pressure to maintain that growth will filter down to the people that make the laws, enforce the laws and judge the people?
This is the first book by Joseph Hallinan, a newspaper reporter with stunningly, inarguable credentials. On a "sabbatical" period, he embarked on investigating prisons and the prison system by traveling around the United States and conducting interviews with dozens of people. In this dispassionate, objectively-written book he covers such topics as: how boonie bergs become boon towns, the brutality and exploitation of prisoners leading to federal intervention via the Supreme Court, the rise of the Nation of Islam as a litigating force, the Attica riot and its sequelae among researcher activists, the effect of federal mandatory sentencing and the quizzical and population/building pressures it created, a brief history of punishment in the context of Western "civilization" and the major (failed) "reform" movements of 19th century America, the post WW I "rehabilitation" craze in California, why and wherefor we build prisons, rookies killing inmates, inmates killing inmates, adjudication thereafter, gangs and gang rape, chain gangs and other popular political "solutions", supermax facilities, inmate property lists, classification systems, hiring standards and practices, what makes for prison activists, what makes for prison volunteers, family visitation, family visitation for lifers, work programs and work programs done under private contract, plentiful profits from payphones [the book is footnoted, too], the "new" movement toward profitability (e.g., prisoners on "loan" cleaning chicken houses), the American Correctional Association (ACA) and its conventions, peripheral industries that have sprung up, the private prison and the exportation of one state's prisoners to another state (e.g., Lorton to Youngstown, Ohio), the bad things that can happen (public or private) when the guard force is largely rookie and the prisoner population is largely not, shortcuts at all levels with contracts, unenforceable clauses - especially out of state, influence peddling, wardens becoming rich off stock options, the Oklahoma rodeo, Oklahoma death row, lethal injection, the Oklahoma cemetery, Oklahoma overcrowding, Oklahoma riots ("Easy to forget [during a rodeo] that in the last quarter century Oklahoma's primary penal innovation was inventing a better way to kill."), the impossible distances, the impossible costs, strip searching out of habit rather than purpose, gubernatorial "initiatives" gone stupid, solitary isolation, mental health, farmgirls becoming correctional officers, finally, sunset in the Allegheny mountains of West Virginia with the razor ribbon glowing gold.
Anyway, it was a great book. It's a cross between "Travels with Charlie" by John Steinbeck and "This Land is Your Land" sung by a children's choir. Hallinan has really gone "from the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters", from California to Alabama, from Pennsylvania and D.C. to Ohio (with a great deal of the innards of Texas), this "Prison Nation" has been made for you and me.
What's most amazing is the sheer immensity of the problem of making our prisons a business, a growth industry that won't die. Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us of the excesses of the military-industrial complex. Hallinan warns us of the consequences and costs of our new prison-industrial complex.
We may not wish to discuss prisons in a public forum, but this book demands that each of us look at this issue, which isn't going away, and see if this lock-em-up-forever road is the path we wish to take. Hiding our heads won't help us understand that no nation incarcerates a higher percentage of its people than the United States, that in the last 20 years our prison population has more than quadrupled, or that one in every eleven men will be imprisoned during his lifetime. We don't rehabilitate anymore; we assign long sentences and let prisoners rot. They become our long-term problem, one that is costing the United States in many ways. This is a public issue that needs addressing and this book succeeds in doing that.
The violence of the inmates, the incompetence of the guards, the overcrowding, and the racial imbalance are not really new facts - but the financial aspect was unknown to me. I didn't even realize that private prisons, essentially prison hotels, exist in the way that they do.
The different forms of rehabilitation efforts, and the current lack of, were fascinating.
Hallinan does form opinions, and he doesn't remain unbiased. This more an editorial than anything else. But, he does report many sides of the issue. Bipartisanship doesn't exist anyway, and it would be misleading to pose something in that manner - which Hallinan doesn't. This is an important read, and it should be done by anyone who wants to comment on the current state of the prison system.
When readcing Going Up the River, one must remember that the author works for the Wall Steet Journal. With this "day job" it is not surprising that Mr. Hallinan delves into a side of the prison boom not often examined: the costs, who pays them, and who profits?
Everyone seems to admit that prisons do not rehabilitate anyone. They are so large, so poorly funded, and so violent, that the only realistic goal of either the prisoners or the gourds is to come out alive. As Mr. Hallinan says, anything beyond survival is clearly a luxury in today's prisons.
So, if prisons are not doing their job, then why are they so popular?
Mr. Hallinan's answer is that the prison boom has been accompanied by (or was caused by?) a redefinition of the very concept of a prison. No longer viewed as a place to incarcerate and reform or rehabilitate, prisons are now viewed as a source of economic development, jobs, and patronage.
His story of the building of Tamms--Illinois Supermax--is illustrative. Built in a small, impoverished, southern Illinois town approximately 365 miles from Chicago, the prison was expected to be an economic engine. As it was being built, the local housing market exploded, restaurants opened, etc. At the same time, the county--which had gone democratic in state-wide races for decades, voted republican 2-1 after the Republican governor announced the new prison.
What the author missed is the end of the story. After being open two years, Tamms has seen virtually no benefit from the prison. The new restaurants are closed. The new jobs went to experienced guards living elsewhere. The real estate market in Tamms is as depressed as ever.
The question Mr. Hallinan asks at the end of his book is the right one--has America's addiction to prisons begun to wane? Only time will tell, but the story of Tamms suggests that they ain't all they're cracked up to be as engines of economic development.
An excellent book, highly recommended for anyone who cares about crime or prisons--but an absolute must read for anyone who cares about taxes!
The most startling revelations come with his descriptions of a new breed of prisons being built called 'super-Maxes.' They are built in small towns around the country to help their economy with totally dreadful and degrading cell arrangements for the prisoners. One does not need to be a so-called bleeding-heart to be concerned that, due to the use of extensive solitary confinement in very small cells, prisoners are turned into psychotic animals. As Hallinan stated in an interview on NPR, these are prisoners who will eventually be released in far worse psychological shape than upon entering. If they were a menace to society before entering, these prisons are assuring that they will be far more dangerous upon release.
Hallinan is a pulitizer prize winner and a regular writer for the Wall Street Journal. When reading this book, it's clear that he has no political agenda or bias. He simply provides a clear-eyed and thorough perspective on our prisons. As the LA Times stated, every elected official in our country should read this book, though they probably won't. We can only hope that a sufficient number of citizens do as the conditions described in "Going Up the River" are ones any person with any sense of decency and compassion will find intolerable. A must read.
The former warden's analysis is not just the inspiration to Hallinan. It reflects the end point in his analysis. Sprinkled between mocking prisoners individually and efforts to improve their conditions, is the shattering conclusion that the prison system is "broken" and "stupid". That doesn't take 5 years of research and prison visits to prove. Hallinan's final conclusion that the prison industry is self-perpetuating is a testament to how obvious the problem has become.
Hallinan plenty of violent anecdotes to relate, so he is able to successfully back up the old warden's warning: "People think they're just another place to work. But they're not." That's a useful service, but not something worth $24.95.
The book contains a lot of interesting and unique research, particularly on the economic history of prisons. Hallinan dislikes prisoners so much, however, and the spin is so thick, that the value of this research is seriously challenged. Once Hallinan blames the Nation of Islam for the prison industrial complex on page 25, things start to go downhill. Soon the book is mocking San Quentin for allowing prisoners to publish best sellers, then it's rewriting facts and statistics. A limited check of the book sources reveals a number of problems of omission or fabrication. This book is useful for the research it cites, but extreme care should be drawn when using any of Hallinan's conclusions or summaries.
For example, Hallinan explains how Texas and other prison systems prior to the 1970s were for budgetary reasons almost entirely self-reliant. They grew their own food, and employed many prisoners as guards. This was an important check on expansion, and for 40 years American prisons maintained a steady incarceration rate by using parole to control the prison population. The federal government viewed prisoners as "slaves of the state" and refused to intervene on the treatment of prisoners despite the extreme brutality engineered by the self-reliant prisons systems of the time.
To Hallinan, everything that follows is the fault of the Nation of Islam, which spread rapidly through the prisons and earned extreme repression for its members from the authorities. When Black Muslim Thomas Cooper joined the Nation of Islam in segregation, he was denied access to the Koran and religious services. But unlike prisoners before him, Cooper's lawsuit was taken seriously by the federal courts. More suits against overcrowding and other constitutional violations quickly followed. With the federal courts declaring overcrowding to be unconstitutional, there was sudden need to build more prisons. From here, an army of architects, builders and so on entered the scene, creating a tremendous lobby for continued expansion to this day. This federal intervention as a cause for expansion is a novel theory outside the reviewer's expertise, but Hallinan's use of facts in other parts of the book casts doubt on the whole thing.
Hallinan claims that the liberalization of prisons lead to the Attica rebellion. That is arguably opinion. His facts are worse. When New York State retook the Attica prison, state police gunfire killed 29 prisoners and 10 guard hostages. Hallinan describes the scene where Attica prisoners anticipated the assault and held knives to the throats of the hostages and leads the reader to believe that 4 of the hostages were executed as the retaking was underway. This is blatantly untrue and resembles the original 1971 lie - disproved by the autopsies - that the 10 guards killed had their throats slashed. In reality, we know that the prisoners gave their hostages better conditions than they allowed their fellow prisoners during the occupation. From the prisoners' behavior, we can deduce that the prisoners had no intention of harming their hostages.
The same good will was not shared by the New York State Police which opened fire on the unarmed prisoners and then began an evening of naked brutality. Hallinan's use of statistics can also be drawn into question. "... [P]ublic opinion polls show an overwhelming majority of Americans favor [death penalty] use. Even African Americans, traditionally opponents of the death penalty, now increasingly support it." But Hallinan's source does not say this. The source is a Washington Post survey of DC residents taken after the 3rd police killing that year. The Post article explains that the results are not consistent with surveys. At the time, D.C. had the highest murder rate for large cities.
Hallinan recognizes that prison is a violent place because of prisoner and guard violence, but he considers wardens and bureaucrats to be hopeless liberals. "Many states are reluctant to admit the scope of their gang problem...." Hallinan criticizes prisons for using the euphamism "security threat groups". In reality, the security threat group label broadens the list of prisoners that may be sent to a supermax to justify disciplining prisoners for their associations. Hallinan is worried about street gang members murdering guards, but the prisons have a much broader goal: controlling the membership of religious and political organizations. The warden of the first control unit prison at Marion admitted as much and more: "The purpose of the Marion Control Unit is to control revolutionary attitudes in the prison system and in the society at large. "
If you are unaware that the prison system is "broken" then this might be the book for you. Otherwise, The Celling of America or Crime Control as Industry are better choices.
See www.prisonsucks.com for the full review with citations.
The former warden's analysis is not just the inspiration to Hallinan. It reflects the end point in his analysis. Sprinkled between mocking prisoners individually and efforts to improve their conditions, is the shattering conclusion that the prison system is "broken" and "stupid". That doesn't take 5 years of research and prison visits to prove. Hallinan's final conclusion that the prison industry is self-perpetuating is a testament to how obvious the problem has become.
Hallinan plenty of violent anecdotes to relate, so he is able to successfully back up the old warden's warning: "People think they're just another place to work. But they're not." That's a useful service, but not something worth ...
The book contains a lot of interesting and unique research, particularly on the economic history of prisons. Hallinan dislikes prisoners so much, however, and the spin is so thick, that the value of this research is seriously challenged. Once Hallinan blames the Nation of Islam for the prison industrial complex on page 25, things start to go downhill. Soon the book is mocking San Quentin for allowing prisoners to publish best sellers, then it's rewriting facts and statistics. A limited check of the book sources reveals a number of problems of omission or fabrication. This book is useful for the research it cites, but extreme care should be drawn when using any of Hallinan's conclusions or summaries.
For example, Hallinan explains how Texas and other prison systems prior to the 1970s were for budgetary reasons almost entirely self-reliant. They grew their own food, and employed many prisoners as guards. This was an important check on expansion, and for 40 years American prisons maintained a steady incarceration rate by using parole to control the prison population. The federal government viewed prisoners as "slaves of the state" and refused to intervene on the treatment of prisoners despite the extreme brutality engineered by the self-reliant prisons systems of the time.
To Hallinan, everything that follows is the fault of the Nation of Islam, which spread rapidly through the prisons and earned extreme repression for its members from the authorities. When Black Muslim Thomas Cooper joined the Nation of Islam in segregation, he was denied access to the Koran and religious services. But unlike prisoners before him, Cooper's lawsuit was taken seriously by the federal courts. More suits against overcrowding and other constitutional violations quickly followed. With the federal courts declaring overcrowding to be unconstitutional, there was sudden need to build more prisons. From here, an army of architects, builders and so on entered the scene, creating a tremendous lobby for continued expansion to this day. This federal intervention as a cause for expansion is a novel theory outside the reviewer's expertise, but Hallinan's use of facts in other parts of the book casts doubt on the whole thing.
Hallinan claims that the liberalization of prisons lead to the Attica rebellion. That is arguably opinion. His facts are worse. When New York State retook the Attica prison, state police gunfire killed 29 prisoners and 10 guard hostages. Hallinan describes the scene where Attica prisoners anticipated the assault and held knives to the throats of the hostages and leads the reader to believe that 4 of the hostages were executed as the retaking was underway. This is blatantly untrue and resembles the original 1971 lie - disproved by the autopsies - that the 10 guards killed had their throats slashed. In reality, we know that the prisoners gave their hostages better conditions than they allowed their fellow prisoners during the occupation. From the prisoners' behavior, we can deduce that the prisoners had no intention of harming their hostages.
The same good will was not shared by the New York State Police which opened fire on the unarmed prisoners and then began an evening of naked brutality. Hallinan's use of statistics can also be drawn into question. "... [P]ublic opinion polls show an overwhelming majority of Americans favor [death penalty] use. Even African Americans, traditionally opponents of the death penalty, now increasingly support it." But Hallinan's source does not say this. The source is a Washington Post survey of DC residents taken after the 3rd police killing that year. The Post article explains that the results are not consistent with surveys. At the time, D.C. had the highest murder rate for large cities.
Hallinan recognizes that prison is a violent place because of prisoner and guard violence, but he considers wardens and bureaucrats to be hopeless liberals. "Many states are reluctant to admit the scope of their gang problem...." Hallinan criticizes prisons for using the euphamism "security threat groups". In reality, the security threat group label broadens the list of prisoners that may be sent to a supermax to justify disciplining prisoners for their associations. Hallinan is worried about street gang members murdering guards, but the prisons have a much broader goal: controlling the membership of religious and political organizations. The warden of the first control unit prison at Marion admitted as much and more: "The purpose of the Marion Control Unit is to control revolutionary attitudes in the prison system and in the society at large. "
If you are unaware that the prison system is "broken" then this might be the book for you. Otherwise, The Celling of America or Crime Control as Industry are better choices.
See...for the full review with citations.
Mr. Hallinan does a good job of keeping the reader entertained while delivering a lot of statistical info...
Great read for anyone interested in the subject of prisons.
Hallinan's most valid arguments come when he is decrying the rise of private prisons and the profit motive that has come to create dangerous working conditions for those working inside. Depressed communities have become agressive bidders for prisons as a way of bolstering the local economy and prisons have replaced factories as the primary employers in many towns.
Overall, Hallinan's book has many arguments. How you'll take them will largely depend upon your point of view. They are strewn haphazzardly throughout the book and there is no logical sequencing. But there is enough good information to make the book worthwhile for those with an interest in the subject matter.
Good morning. This is the telephone company. Due to repairs, we're
giving you advance notice that your service will be cut off indefinitely
at ten o'clock. That's two minutes from now.
Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife - chopping off what's
incomplete and saying: "Now it's complete because it's ended here."
-- Muad'dib, "Dune"
