Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Locked Down, Locked Out: Why Prison Doesn't Work and How We Can Do Better
    Locked Down, Locked Out: Why Prison Doesn't Work and How We Can Do Better
    Locked Down, Locked Out: Why Prison Doesn't Work and How We Can Do Better
    Ebook275 pages6 hours

    Locked Down, Locked Out: Why Prison Doesn't Work and How We Can Do Better

    By Maya Schenwar

    4.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    An analysis of the U.S. prison system through real-life stories, and a look at the complex work of community-based social justice projects.

    Through the stories of prisoners and their families, including her own family’s experiences, Maya Schenwar shows how the institution that locks up 2.3 million Americans and decimates poor communities of color is shredding the ties that, if nurtured, could foster real collective safety. As she vividly depicts here, incarceration takes away the very things that might enable people to build better lives. But looking toward a future beyond imprisonment, Schenwar profiles community-based initiatives that successfully deal with problems—both individual harm and larger social wrongs—through connection rather than isolation, moving toward a safer, freer future for all of us.

    “Maya Schenwar’s stories about prisoners, their families (including her own), and the thoroughly broken punishment system are rescued from any pessimism such narratives might inspire by the author’s brilliant juxtaposition of abolitionist imaginaries and radical political practices.” —Angela Y. Davis, author of Are Prisons Obsolete?

     “Locked Down, Locked Out paints a searing portrait of the real-life human toll of mass incarceration, both on prisoners and on their families, and—equally compellingly—provides hope that collectively we can create a more humane world freed of prisons. Read this deeply personal and political call to end the shameful inhumanity of our prison nation.” —Dorothy Roberts, author of Shattered Bonds and Killing the Black Body

    “This book has the power to transform hearts and minds, opening us to new ways of imagining what justice can mean for individuals, families, communities, and our nation as a whole. Maya Schenwar’s personal, openhearted sharing of her own family’s story, together with many other stories and real-world experiments with transformative justice, makes this book compelling, highly persuasive, and difficult to put down. I turned the last page feeling nothing less than inspired.” —Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateNov 10, 2014
    ISBN9781626562714
    Locked Down, Locked Out: Why Prison Doesn't Work and How We Can Do Better
    Author

    Maya Schenwar

    Maya Schenwar is the editor-in-chief of Truthout. She is co-author (with Victoria Law) of Prison by Any Other Name (The New Press) as well as the author of Locked Down, Locked Out and the co-editor of the anthology Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? She lives in Chicago.

    Related to Locked Down, Locked Out

    Related ebooks

    Public Policy For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Our Racist Soul

      Sep 17, 2018

      THIS HATEFUL MOMENT OFFERS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR AMERICANS. JUST DON’T LET THE LOUD BIGOTS DISTRACT YOU

      11 min read

    • Article

      How I Finally Learned That Trauma Does Not Define Me

      Jan 24, 2020

      “It can be exhausting to tell and retell your painful story just to get people to listen to you about other things.”

      3 min read

    • Article

      The ‘Invisible’ Children Who Died in the Care of the Chilean State

      Jun 20, 2017

      "Now we know that hundreds of children died, but no one reported their deaths. They remained there forgotten, because they are children that no one cares about."

      3 min read

    • Article

      ‘Stony The Road’ Lays Bare The Failure Of Reconstruction

      May 24, 2019

      Historian and television host Henry Louis Gates Jr. explores the brief flowering of African American leadership after the Civil War.

      3 min read

    • Article

      1920s

      Mar 6, 2020

      1920s
      7 min read

    • Article

      'This Is One Way To Dance' Explores A Life Straddling Congruent Realities

      Jun 4, 2020

      Essayist Sejal Shah brings important, refreshing, and depressing observations about what it means to have dark skin and an "exotic" name, when the only country you've ever lived in is America.

      3 min read

    • Article

      'Invisible No More' Examines Police Violence Against Minority Women

      Nov 5, 2017

      Author Andrea Ritchie wants the incidents of police violence involving women of color and transgender women to get as much attention as black men and boys have received in recent years.

      7 min read

    • Article

      The Isolation of Being Deaf in Prison

      Oct 19, 2018

      When I was in state prison in Georgia in 2013, I heard about a class called “Motivation for Change.” I think it had to do with changing your mindset. I’m not actually sure, though, because I was never able to take it. On the first day, the classroom

      4 min read

    • Article

      Younger Than War

      Nov 9, 2023

      Younger Than War
      1 min read

    • Article

      Living Memory

      Jun 23, 2021

      Living Memory
      18 min read

    • Article

      The Office of Historical Corrections

      Oct 7, 2020

      The vision for the Institute of Public History that summoned me from my former job as a history professor at GW had been grandiose. An ambitious freshman congresswoman demanded funding to put a public historian in every zip code in the country, a cor

      1 min read

    • Article

      Gentrification and Inequality

      Jun 23, 2020

      Gentrification and Inequality
      3 min read

    • Article

      Recy Taylor's Truth

      Jan 10, 2018

      Recy Taylor's Truth
      8 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Locked Down, Locked Out

    4.5/5

    10 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Maya Schenwar has written a compelling book that really needs to be read by everyone in the U.S. Our "justice" system has become a for-profit venue for retribution and revenge. There is little rehabilitation or actual justice. By locking millions of people in cages for an ever-growing variety of "crimes", we have effectively created a revolving door prison culture. This book takes us inside and beyond those prison walls. Schenwar's writing style is conversational, making it an ideal read for people from any educational background. She takes us on a journey, using real and sometimes personal cases to spotlight the cracks, fissures, and major breaks in our prison system. Even if you believe - or maybe especially if you believe - that at least most people in prison deserve to be there, you need to read this book. Schenwar points out how the prison culture destroys the inmates' humanity, how merely surviving inside those walls requires a shutdown of the very qualities we should be nurturing. The type of change we are cultivating inside prisons is not what we want to set loose on society when these inmates are released. While the first half of this book focuses on the problems of prison, the second half is all about ways to fix the breaks. These are not idealistic, far-fetched dreams, but actual programs that work and should absolutely be implemented everywhere. Not everyone in prison is a cold-blooded killer. In fact, most are not. Yet we treat them all equally, like rabid animals in a war zone. Isn't it time we regained our humanity?

    Book preview

    Locked Down, Locked Out - Maya Schenwar

    dbook_preview_excerpt.html|˒vh%zS |l=(cY@Vģő?^ۇQ7P^{~Y1B|v]UdcM_g+0Tg-i1иJ3lCUe K|Sh~;VXPG.5Z# 1,t1{6qc07+|> M~p:S)hO*_h|i|Gzor#=WzcVU XxΙ3 X.sQǾH :ayWսk[1؀q< 'R_e7:w% $>r |\~|:TwУ'}%.}oyaТ4٤mV/ĆEr"$S< M(< < hzpl( z~qGw{pmuQ"ۧa'~4nOU36_e(Q NaiIg.3{Pw*o.c9fv~4>!$vRy3/fwВo܍-}gF# 5i/܄9tOF?g`CD%mTP'/gps$s\vXsW CvpSdpUwQ0`(9zAXJPɨ&en%\ߝ7uOe7Yٷ5dA=S#]hܹU]tXa+;j. 7;^F_@щ@`E>j֬mB„Mٹ Xg/=L. k r5pԣ&(*CSsǞϏЬø+hV';jg_?챁-z{G߃;O_B.n7 CuCI|6c%7K4?\aN o+W[AyUqX6=1;bX9T$|.:7i46k ;8@t1 %/@VDRz,xĝcS7 ej˸K^g缆}5eA@]Dy؃H$nA #Γ`?=tivvN6:ي3Ʉv qĚ@YM5DY脣]YScX,ݹt@AS\q?/}F'ǟÝ>xz;CV 7k?H 6'rZq"L2io^Z+LmY mD1Ù.‘{AyᎅA%td#*GlSߥUVZWP*o+)7 %A;gD !Bsuw(i>B&QQs&l>9<Tpv0maBcR|-AH Fz WCQvn𥳐  =9F1!@vQ_)a՛[ߒ]ءx`ϭ쥈QZLLW1s/l`uk#LpEH'[p X.GIn>A> d <BB w E5}94Oh:_;GrtJOIZWB3g‰bw_;lk1gLΣ<:̃L^_  z]ƒ0p0r]z;l,%um0JEo|&LxJ539ʞy5ROWvQ> h >9^gY{xfqܠ_y-7|R1YeJi´7q[WZTw"MJ% }џqYV}O*O~CV|t<o X* ;"Gszy[Gv-µ[|=UO~_5PbWGu\^o>1e-(.Pߩ?Q} Ho'= ?5Qm5 R AXQ&ˊ Yc~HƇ_<4+*WU|޲&bLUT|zJgGZrf˿;wJ1:|w)%fQ>(JEHy<`z[W n%+]Rk&[ٖPb+:ݵ[zc bS&v1b # Q1)؅xb %=v*\j)keh߇`N7re>&v6EV˪0.Xۇ-WEjǪvf\)z ؆_*kSI ׫`uLɏ+475-v:;ʵi/ndF? gG95nz -7VBߏoTwύ̏ Y\Qo}B@!0k|Fe5/z&fSrf3ʥ%Ę5Fk -ǀe^̥ZB]:Y@(_f~l=q*E(I\fN6Ubo+,R)/6Z+kBtmݟpyVhIo$nمRX8ZRAs)FL{78n cN  4ʒcׄgo TV -cJĴDtX".sϛ ɩFR;:1 Bmja-j#i)]d ~lvxXJ8|Ѝ3We.E!k2R3-{_;-V6ĺOU+$΁8fef3DWf2'˦AC:R1ƌBPϝXb}f ڔikE %k<+#h6EGvI1^- oJj(nA U#xAaT-(17bI Y=Oݹ|X˕')%(ڔ}|fEiZ d6^ǟXMNUe*5B(CE/C-%Wh5WP _nO S!g'Bm@gGSr){(cŸXI'E*uغJ~ꐷ'$KDuY_:10LmRf;żJg7ARXIg5`aarɐ}<9^9 Pm@}Sd[@-|{xA!o,@uj4T\FlŅ5 nrCChSu`v[ߤer۹h6Z3OjL`g#soqATד5X!\-+heso,[5tJINv&v9rn>RIt"p Fϋcѩs)ϟv?:% g^s f*/mHvX ^~dIkgbgQJtM^,}k,IoǭGq*,M(:W.9t3~d:ߛ{NnRѽ7zu޵T*[w b媺5EQ-Gn}J- 5R^:(aZƴѺ'Lf ⌏'}<`~+N]:Xaub,6s, @ X F& >xvҰKrN\gcuH}u=ox[ƎI|rf_ mdmc|J R.K\MKds>n72^g8zteMPJQ[#n We32lKNY ?buAn=s N]Js?;UaHɪ*q]*²YTvf3VKA4͛td-yxO9=KeT<1vHX ےQ`ӝ_޺Vb]?VDjf{me9&C ]t㱒%t!Zfn)k~+ݚl!Y:(\.`~EMJ] "Ge(8=_sp\bj x=G x[< ^(@HֶwjۜTJfN)& 4Ȅ7`G&c%wR11Xc$ԑT::UKR<,jJz awX#~$4[R+ʲzz2}Ubj"n"˴cZ 45 |L5kQө Dzc%b~ۨq@}RS=Vl:b}`:> ll>*s_co4hQ]O 1KYeù6nP0JsULfg3` ~Y~)Y`{7 A@'ȳb4rgN0"ԝ2L?`$c?KY:RFPd5}=s%_cQ#KyF2<_k'zUs#S0GxKml n)]DT^ P&6=)h?g%y.U ^vC0B ڑs0YIZR N"~}_A jVk3\-LiqKc?O!'wI松wvO[=YC?gd;wzv1_NNPS/\1qnʩBjԣ(9pGDrX(TMS+Yh~Z\)KSǏӄ8`90*k[No. {-n@܌}I^vX[M5MuZM%o5Cˠ* #T |(ԗlWAc dlqխkSeRMiVi}?5?Xs?O൏/eHϹ\U
    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1