Booklist
Books on Mass Incarceration and American Policing
- Mona Verma
- Thursday, June 20, 2019
Today, the United States makes up about 5% of the world’s population and has 21% of the world’s prisoners.In 2017, African Americans represented 12% of the U.S. adult population but 33% of the sentenced prison population. Caucasians accounted for 64% of adults but 30% of prisoners. Hispanics represented 16% of the adult population but they accounted for 23% of inmates.Mass incarceration benefits the prison industrial complex. Prisoners are also cheap sources of labor and employers who hire them gross millions in revenues while the incarcerated are only paid few cents an hour for their work. Sentencing disparities between Caucasians and persons of color are indefensible. Any person with a conscience would agree that America's prison system is in dire need of reform. Here is a reading list of books on American policing and mass incarceration.


Charged
The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration
Published in 2019



Imprisoning Communities
How Mass Incarceration Makes Disadvantaged Neighborhoods Worse
Published in 2007





City of Inmates
Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771-1965
Published in 2017


From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime
The Making of Mass Incarceration in America
Published in 2016

The Black and the Blue
A Cop Reveals the Crimes, Racism, and Injustice in America's Law Enforcement
Published in 2018


Punishment Without Crime
How Our Massive Misdemeanor System Traps the Innocent and Makes America More Unequal
Published in 2018



