Total confinement : madness and reason in the maximum security prison / / Lorna A. Rhodes

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910812755003321
• Autore: Rhodes Lorna A (Lorna Amarasingham)
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Berkeley, Calif., : University of California Press, 2004
• ISBN: 1-59734-961-5; 1-282-76299-0; 9786612762994; 0-520-93768-6
• Edizione: [1st ed.]
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (331 p.)
• Collana: California series in public anthropology ; ; 7
• Disciplina: 365/.66
• Soggetti: Solitary confinement - United States; Prisoners - Mental health - United States; Imprisonment - United States; Prisons - United States
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Front matter -- CONTENTS -- Author's Note -- Preface -- Introduction -- 1. Controlling Troubles -- 2. The Choice to Be Bad -- 3. The Asylum of Last Resort -- 4. Custody and Treatment at the Divide -- 5. The Games Run Deep -- 6. Struggling It Out -- Glossary of Prison Terms -- Appendix: Note on Research -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Acknowledgments -- List of Illustrations -- Index
• Sommario/riassunto: In this rare firsthand account, Lorna Rhodes takes us into a hidden world that lies at the heart of the maximum security prison. Focusing on the "supermaximums"-and the mental health units that complement them-Rhodes conveys the internal contradictions of a system mandated to both punish and treat. Her often harrowing, sometimes poignant, exploration of maximum security confinement includes vivid testimony from prisoners and prison workers, describes routines and practices inside prison walls, and takes a hard look at the prison industry. More than an exposé, Total Confinement is a theoretically sophisticated meditation on what incarceration tells us about who we are as a society. Rhodes tackles difficult questions about the extreme conditions of ; confinement, the treatment of the mentally ill in prisons, and an ever-advancing technology of isolation and surveillance. Using her superb interview skills and powers of observation, she documents how prisoners, workers, and administrators all struggle to retain dignity and a sense of self within maximum security institutions. In settings that place in question the very humanity of those who live and work in them, Rhodes discovers complex interactions-from the violent to the tender-among prisoners and staff. Total Confinement offers an indispensable close-up of the implications of our dependence on prisons to solve long-standing problems of crime and injustice in the United States.