Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California

Ruth Wilson Gilmore

Published by University of California Press 2007

Golden Gulag

Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California

Ruth Wilson Gilmore

Volume 21 in the series American Crossroads

https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520938038

Overview
Contents

About this book

Since 1980, the number of people in U.S. prisons has increased more than 450%. Despite a crime rate that has been falling steadily for decades, California has led the way in this explosion, with what a state analyst called "the biggest prison building project in the history of the world." Golden Gulag provides the first detailed explanation for that buildup by looking at how political and economic forces, ranging from global to local, conjoined to produce the prison boom.

In an informed and impassioned account, Ruth Wilson Gilmore examines this issue through statewide, rural, and urban perspectives to explain how the expansion developed from surpluses of finance capital, labor, land, and state capacity. Detailing crises that hit California’s economy with particular ferocity, she argues that defeats of radical struggles, weakening of labor, and shifting patterns of capital investment have been key conditions for prison growth. The results—a vast and expensive prison system, a huge number of incarcerated young people of color, and the increase in punitive justice such as the "three strikes" law—pose profound and troubling questions for the future of California, the United States, and the world. Golden Gulag provides a rich context for this complex dilemma, and at the same time challenges many cherished assumptions about who benefits and who suffers from the state’s commitment to prison expansion.

Author / Editor information

Gilmore Ruth Wilson :

Ruth Wilson Gilmore is Associate Professor of Geography and Director of the Program in American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. She is a member of the founding collective of Critical Resistance, one of the most important national anti-prison organizations in the United States.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
ILLUSTRATIONS Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
TABLES Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
ABBREVIATIONS Publicly Available Download PDF	xxi
Prologue: The Bus Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	5
2. The California Political Economy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	30
3. The Prison Fix Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	87
4. Crime, Croplands, and Capitalism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	128
5. Mothers Reclaiming Our Children Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	181
6. What Is to Be Done? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	241
Epilogue: Another Bus Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	249
NOTES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	253
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	281
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	355

Language: English
Publisher: University of California Press
Pages
- Main content: 412

eBook

Published: January 8, 2007
ISBN: 9780520938038