New Books in Policing, Incarceration, and Reform19 Dec 2016

Jen Manion, “Liberty’s Prisoners: Carceral Culture in Early America” (U. Pennsylvania Press, 2016)

Jen Manion is an associate professor of history at Amherst College. Her book Liberty’s Prisoners: Carceral Culture in Early America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016) offers a detailed examination of how the reform regimen of incarceration developed as the new American nation was experiencing deep social and political transformation. The place of women, African-Americans, immigrants and the poor was recast by new attitudes toward maintaining the social order through the patriarchal family, heterosexual regulation and the property system. Penitentiaries were designed to replace harsh British methods of corporal punishment with republican reform for those accused of property crimes, vagrancy, and public disorder. Reform was imposed through a system of work and submission to disciplinary authority. Within the walls of the prison, women approximated the model of domesticity and submission, while men faced the challenge of demonstrating manly responsibility within a system of denigration. Both men and women charged with crimes resisted the imposition of gender expectations and social hierarchies making their own claims to liberty. Manion not only looks at the gender dynamics but also how race and ethnicity shaped the experience of prisoners as potentially good citizens. By examining the social history of a failed penal system, Liberty’s Prisoners offers a window into the gender and race system of the new republic.

Lilian Calles Barger, www.lilianbarger.com, is a cultural, intellectual and gender historian. Her current book project is entitled The World Come of Age: Religion, Intellectuals and the Challenge of Human Liberation.

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Debarati Sanyal, "Arts of the Border: Fugitive Bodies at Europe’s Edges" (Fordham, 2025)

Arts of the Border: Fugitive Bodies at Europe’s Edges (Fordham, 2025) investigates the consequences of unfolding catastrophes across the world and the displacement they continue to produce. Through re...

12 Sep 45min

R. Joshua Scannell, "The Carceral Surround" (U Minnesota Press, 2026)

As law enforcement agencies deploy increasingly advanced technologies to suppress dissent, hunt migrants, and target marginalized communities, The Carceral Surround (U Minnesota Press, 2026) offers a ...

12 Sep 36min

Bordering On Indifference: Immigration Agents Negotiating Race and Morality

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13 Aug 49min

Valena Beety, "Pink Crime: Fighting Against the Criminalization of Motherhood, Pregnancy, and Queer Identity" (New Press, 2026)

A woman miscarries—and is charged with murder. A new mother tests positive for a drug her hospital administered—and loses custody of her newborn. Four women are convicted of horrific crimes against ...

4 Aug 25min

Asher Emanuel, "The Valley: Crime and Punishment in a New Zealand City" (Bridget Williams Books, 2026)

There were two days to Christmas and Lewis felt like everything was spinning out of control. He wondered what he would say to the judge this time. His client, Rikihana, was already on multiple shop...

3 Aug 1h

Matthew Ritger, "Houses of Correction: Carceral Institutions and Humanist Culture in Early Modern England" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026)

Today’s guest, Matthew Ritger, is the author of Houses of Correction: Carceral Institutions and Humanist Culture in Early Modern England (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026). This book delves into the archiva...

27 Juli 50min

Meredith Gamer, "City of the Gallows: Art and Execution in Eighteenth-Century London" (Yale UP, 2026)

City of the Gallows: Art and Execution in Eighteenth-Century London (Yale UP, 2026) uncovers the complex and often unexpected connections between eighteenth-century London’s sites of punishment and it...

27 Juli 1h 6min

Cast Out: A Call For A Forgiving Society in an Age of Incarceration

In Cast Out: A Call For A Forgiving Society in an Age of Incarceration (Beacon Press, 2026), civil rights lawyer Joseph Margulies insists that those who commit even the most heinous crimes are one of...

23 Juli 58min