Overview

In the United States today, one in every thirty-one adults is under some form of penal control, including one in eleven African American men. How did the land of the free become the home of the world's largest prison system? Challenging the belief that America's prison problem originated with the Reagan administration's War on Drugs, Elizabeth Hinton traces the rise of mass incarceration to an ironic source: the social welfare programs of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society at the height of the civil rights era. Johnson's War on Poverty policies sought to foster equality and economic opportunity. But these initiatives were also rooted in widely shared assumptions about African Americans' role in urban disorder, which prompted Johnson to call for a simultaneous War on Crime. The 1965 Law Enforcement Assistance Act empowered the national government to take a direct role in militarizing local police. Federal anticrime funding soon incentivized social service providers to ally with police departments, courts, and prisons. Under Richard Nixon and his successors, welfare programs fell by the wayside while investment in policing and punishment expanded.

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9781665287494

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The book is vivid with detail and sharp analysis. Stretching beyond the typical scope of an academic text, Hinton's book is more than an argument; it is a revelation.-- New York Times

Author Information

Elizabeth Hinton is an assistant professor of history and of African and African American studies at Harvard University. Hinton's research focuses on the persistence of poverty and racial inequality in the twenty-century United States. Her current scholarship considers the transformation of domestic social programs and urban policing after the Civil Rights Movement. Before joining the Harvard faculty, Hinton spent two years as a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Michigan Society of Fellows and Assistant Professor in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan. A Ford Foundation Fellow, Hinton completed her PhD in United States History from Columbia University in 2012. Hinton's articles and op-eds can be found in the pages of the Journal of American History, the Journal of Urban History, and Time. She also coedited The New Black History: Revisiting the Second Reconstruction with the late historian Manning Marable. Josh Bloomberg has recorded audiobooks for most of the major publishers, lending his voice to many different genres. His versatility and acting background have helped him access the styles needed for a variety of works. He has narrated several notable works, including titles by Wall Street Journal and New York Times bestselling authors (some of them, under a pseudonym). He directed the audiobook for The Storm of the Century, written by Al Roker. He also announced the categories and nominees at the 2017 Audie Awards ceremony. Josh also performs on-screen, recently on the Netflix series Greenhouse Academy, and records commercial voice-over projects. Josh is a member of the Audio Publishers Association.

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