The Jail Is Everywhere: Fighting the New Geography of Mass Incarceration

Norton, Pelot-Hobbs (Carceral Crisis), and Schept (Coal, Cages, Crisis)—professors of criminal justice at Governors State University, University of Kentucky, and Eastern Kentucky University, respectively—bring together informative essays and interviews focused on local organizing around decarceration, or the reduction of jailed populations. Mostly county-level facilities, jails typically house a large percentage of pretrial detainees and increasingly are used for immigrants and overflow from federal and state prisons. In 2019, jails held an estimated 758,000 people at the midyear point, with “more than 10 million people” cycling through them over the course of a year. The essays and interviews document antijail activism in, among other places, Atlanta, New Orleans, and Sacramento, Calif., and highlight organizers’ strategies and tactics, including pushing for the replacement of local jails with mental health facilities and diversion programs, attempting to abolish bail systems, and putting a stop to the jailing of people unable to pay fees or fines. Though the editors are mainly concerned with providing actionable “knowledge and experience from jail fights across the country,” the book also paints a vivid picture of a grassroots, nationwide decarceral movement. Activists involved on the ground will find this valuable, while others will receive a substantial education in the politics and economics of incarceration. (Jan.)