BOOK REVIEW members of sexual minorities and an provisions on enforced disappearances agencies whose reports should form alleged Bangladeshi refugee. which again create administrative lia- part of the country submissions to the bility. Other recommendations include United Nations. She also calls for civil Ways Forward abolition of immunity provisions in society initiatives, which should involve But this is not a treatise which ends in prosecutions for custodial offences and local law schools, and media strategies. despair; it suggests several ways forward. monetary compensation for custodial One of her suggestions at the end was, These include ratifi cation of international torture and enforced disappearances, in fact, a rude awakening: “Pakistan conventions and regular reporting to medical examination of persons in cus- and Afghanistan must abolish all forms United Nations monitoring mechanisms, tody (as is already provided for in India), of physical mutilation as punishment.” penal national legislative provisions etc. The author also advocates review which criminalise custodial torture and mechanisms by the National Human Raju Ramachandran ([email protected]) is create administrative liability, and penal Rights Commission or other designated a senior advocate of the Supreme Court.

350 prisoners at Marion were “subjected The Crime of Cruel and to brutal, dehumanising conditions” (Kurshan 2013: 6). In the initial stage of Unusual Punishment in the US the lockdown 60 guards equipped with riot gear systematically beat nearly 100 handcuffed prisoners and subjected some Bindu Desai of them to forced fi nger probes of the rectum. Who were the prisoners at Marion, Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive Out of Control: A Fifteen Year Battle against a “level 6” (maximum security) federal fi nes imposed, nor cruel and unusual punish- Control Unit Prisons by Nancy Kurshan (San Francisco: prison? A disproportionate number were VIII ment infl icted – th Amendment of the The Freedom Archives), 2013; pp 229, $20. political prisoners – black radicals, native Constitution of the United States 1791. “Time is very long within these four walls”. A Race to Incarcerate: A Graphic Retelling American activists, Puerto Rican Nation- by Sabrina Jones and Marc Mauer (New York: prisoner in solitary confi nement at the Eastern alists. Prisoners who could infl uence and The New Press), 2013; pp 111, $17.95. Penitentiary, Philadelphia to Charles Dickens lead other prisoners like Sundiata Acoli, “American Notes” 1842. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the a former Black Panther, and Rafael Cancel Zubayda’s ‘hard time’ began when he was Age of Colourblindness, revised edition by Miranda, a Puerto Rican Nationalist, Michelle Alexander (New York: The New Press), 2012; locked into the ‘tiny coffi n’ for hours on end, were considered a particular threat by which he described as excruciatingly pain- pp 312, $19.95. ful. It was too small for him to stand or stretch the prison authorities. CEML out, so small he said he had to double up his The was run by volunteers, all limbs in a foetal position….He described a massive rebirth in the “control units” of whom also had to earn their living the box as black both inside and out...While that were fi rst instituted in the Marion with full-time jobs. Perennially short of locked in the dark interior, he had no way of Federal Prison in Marion, Il in 1983 money, for instance, raising $400 when knowing when, if ever, he would be let out.... and have since mushroomed all over the they needed $10,000 to host a conference, (Mayer 2008: 165). US prison system at state and federal they somehow laboured on, often spend- he modern use of solitary confi ne- levels. Presently the “new and im- ing out-of-pocket from their modest in- ment in the US began in 1829 at proved” versions of control units lock comes. The Puerto Rican community in Tthe Eastern State Penitentiary in 80,000 individuals some for decades, Chicago was a solid base of support with Philadelphia. The word “penitentiary”, some forever. some in it having relatives imprisoned in derived from “penitence”, was based on Marion. The CEML was determined to the Quaker belief that isolation with Confronting the System bring the plight of the Marion prisoners only a Bible for solace in a cold stone Nancy Kurshan’s Out of Control: A Fifteen to public attention. No other group had cell would lead prisoners to repent, pray Year Battle against Control Units recounts taken on this important task. Never and reform. These hopes were belied as the decade and a half efforts of a small, more than 24 individuals at one time, prisoners committed suicide, lost their highly dedicated and creative group in the CEML still managed over 15 years to minds and were later never able to func- the Chicago area – the Committee to End sponsor about a 100 demonstrations tion normally. By the end of the 19th the Marion Lockdown (CEML) – to shut throughout the US, held 200 major century the US Supreme Court con- down this unit. She describes organising educational events and conferences, demned the use of solitary confi nement in the years before emails, the internet organised rallies at the prison itself, (US Supreme Court 1890). In 1971, the or cell phones. Marion was subjected to a gave radio and television interviews, Eastern State Penitentiary was closed “lockdown”, a confi nement of prisoners published newsletters, and made video down. But the practice of solitary con- to their cells, following the killing of two documentaries. Though a Congressional fi nement, never totally abandoned, got guards by prisoners. For two years all Committee had held hearings on Marion

Economic & Political Weekly EPW december 21, 2013 vol xlviii no 51 29 BOOK REVIEW in 1985 and a 754-page book was meant to break prisoners, isolate them available: Freedom Archives 2013), Jones published no changes resulted. physically and psychologically. The CEML and Mauer’s Race to Incarcerate: A Graphic Kurshan provides a vivid and honest wanted to end these units because it Retelling is a “comic book” version of an account of the joys and defeats of struggle, believed the unit at Marion would: earlier scholarly and highly respected especially one largely ignored by the • Create conditions of long-term solitary work by Marc Mauer: Race to Incarcer- media in a country steadily moving confi nement that amounted to torture. ate, fi rst published in 1999. It provides rightward. Brave and committed attor- • Incarcerate all those most despised by horrifying statistics showing how the neys assisted them, but the brunt of the US including many political leaders and number of prisoners skyrocketed from the work was done by the CEML. Their dedicated activists who had become political about 110 per 1,00,000 in the early 1970s prisoners. families too were involved no matter • Serve as the capstone to a racist prison to nearly 750 per 1,00,000 in 2011, an in- how young, coming to protests and system which we saw serving as a capstone crease in total from 3,30,000 in 1975 to demonstrations. There is an uncanny of a racist society. 22,66,800 in 2011. Another four million resemblance in their valiant efforts and • Proliferate across the country, replicating are under “correctional supervision” those of similar groups in India seeking its horrors wherever it went (Kurshan 2013: 1). (parole, probation). Ninety-three per cent justice for victims of the notorious riots of prisoners are male, 38% black, 34% of 1984 and 2002. No matter how severe Horrifying Statistics white, 23% latino while they form 13%, the criticism, the lockdown did not end Each of these fears has come true, as 72% and 12% of the population respec- for 23 years when Marion was converted control units have multiplied under vari- tively. Forty-seven per cent are incarcer- into a medium security prison. In 1987 ous semi-Orwellian names like supermax ated for nonviolent drug related or prop- Amnesty International issued a report on prisons, administrative maximum faci- erty crimes. One in every 13 black males Marion where it found that the prison lity (ADX), communication management between the ages of 30 and 34 is in pris- violated every part of the UN’s Standard unit (CMU), administrative segregation on, as is one of every 36 hispanic and 1 in Minimum Rules for the Treatment of (Ad-Seg) and special housing units (SHU). 90 white males. A black man has a 32% Prisoners (Freedom Archives 2013). While Kurshan’s moving account chroni- chance of serving time in prison at some The “ideological brainchild” of a pro- cles a grass-roots effort to confront the point in his life, compared to a 17% fessor at MITs Sloan School of Manage- US prison system (a shorter online version chance for a hispanic and 6% for a white ment, Edgar Schein, control units were with multiple audio and video links is man. How and why did this prison popu-

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30 december 21, 2013 vol xlviii no 51 EPW Economic & Political Weekly BOOK REVIEW lation explode? Jones and Mauer point Beginning with the Rockefeller Drug (Alexander 2012: 99), 80% to 90% of out that 72% of the population in 1968 Laws in New York state, which required those imprisoned for it are African- felt that the goal of imprisonment should mandatory prison terms of 15 to 25 years Americans. The media has promoted im- be rehabilitation. But the success of civil for selling narcotics and limits on plea ages of the black drug dealer, whereas rights legislation, the radical movements bargains, the prison population began drug dealers too are proportionally dis- of that decade, the anti-war protests and to increase. Ronald Reagan’s election tributed in all races. She defi nes mass the emergence of black militancy scared in 1980 saw a boost in federal law incarceration to include not only white voters and allowed Richard Nixon enforcement budgets, with the Drug the criminal justice system but also those to run on “Law and Enforcement Administration’s allocation larger web of laws, rules, policies, and cus- Order”, an “unsubtle way to appeal to alone increasing from $86 million in toms that control those labeled criminals both in and out of prison. Once released, whites about a supposed rise in black 1981 to $1,026 million in 1991. A mas- former prisoners enter a hidden underworld criminality” (Jones and Mauer 2013: 23). terly politician, Reagan appealed to of legalised discrimination and permanent This rhetoric, initially used in the late white voters in race-neutral terms using exclusion. They are members of America’s 1950s by southern governors and law words such as welfare, state rights and new undercaste (emphasis added). enforcement offi cials to mobilise white crime, creating the “frightening reality Furthermore “like Jim Crow (and opposition to the civil rights movement, of...the human predator” (Alexander slavery) mass incarceration operates as was adopted by Nixon. Subsequently, 2012: 30). He succeeded in highlighting a tightly networked system of laws, a long line of presidential candidates the war on drugs, announcing it in policies, customs and institutions that also used “Get tough on crime” as code 1982 at a time when less than 2% of operate collectively to ensure the subor- words for race, one that ensured elec- the American public thought it a dinate status of a group defi ned largely toral victory. major problem. by race” (Alexander 2012: 13). Though Crime may have increased in the 1960s, black values, culture and behaviour have though the fi gures remain controversial Racial Bias been blamed for their high imprison- as crime reports were politicised with Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow1: ment rates, Alexander demonstrates newer methods and increased funding Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color- how unemployment rates that were sim- for recording data. Reported street blindness is a passionate, detailed and ilar among the races in 1954 quadrupled crime quadrupled and the murder rate magisterial account of the systematic among blacks as manufacturing jobs doubled. The reasons were complex: a “warehousing” of poor minorities in disappeared, trapping African-Americans larger number of young men as the baby prisons. She lays bare how US adminis- in “jobless ghettos, desperate for work” boomers came of age, spread of heroin trations from Nixon to Obama have (Alexander 2012: 218). As black and use in the cities and rapid urbanisation expanded prison construction, constrict- latino men became “unnecessary” to the occurring with rising unemployment ed prisoner rights and continued to wage American economy, the war on drugs rates in older cities. The “crime wave” the ineffectual but lethal war on drugs. was conveniently applied to haul them came in handy for politicians who suc- Clinton signed the Prison Litigation off to prison. Certainly the increase in ceeded in confl ating crime in the streets Reform Act (Perkinson 2010: 325), a New York city’s police “stop and frisk” with the protests and riots that occurred more ironic use of the word “reform” is actions, which rose from 97,296 in 2002 in Los Angeles and Rochester in 1964 diffi cult to imagine. The Act made a to 6,85,724 in 2011, 87% of whom were and in many cities after Martin Luther lawsuit against the federal prison sys- black or Latino, 53% aged 19-24, makes King’s assassination in 1968. Eerily tem impossible. In the eight years Clin- it hard to refute that “drug policy in the similar to the labelling today of any dis- ton was in offi ce the total number of US is about social control” (Cockburn sent, whether ecological or economic as prisoners increased by 6,45,135 (ibid: 339). and St Clair 2013). “terrorist”. By 1969 a poll revealed that Clinton reallocated funds for “managing 81% believed “law and order” had the urban poor”, decreasing moneys for Powerful Prison Lobby broken down and the majority blamed public housing by $17 billion while in- The struggle of individuals released “Negroes who start riots” and “Commu- creasing them for prison construction by from prison is lifelong. Only Maine and nists” (Jones and Mauer 2013: 29). Next $19 billion (Alexander: 57). Vermont among the US’ 50 states allow was the role of what later became Alexander provides data that exposes prisoners to vote. If living in the US, it known as the “war on drugs”. Curious how racial bias has morphed from segre- comes as a shock to know that in most how often the US wages war – besides gation to “profi ling” (Alexander 2012: European countries prisoners can and the one involving armies, there has 133). For example, though 15% of all do vote. Ex-prisoners in the US fi nd it been the war on poverty, the war on car drivers on the New Jersey Turnpike extremely diffi cult to fi nd employment cancer, and now the unending war on were black, they formed 42% of those or housing and have to pay back for pre- an abstract noun – the war on terror! stopped by the police and 73% of all and post-conviction service fees. (For a glimpse of Mauer’s work and arrests. The pattern is repeated from The huge prison complex has created its thought see the link to an interview state to state. While use of drugs like own powerful lobby which makes large with him – Karlin 2013.) cocaine and heroin is similar in all races contributions to those seeking electoral

Economic & Political Weekly EPW december 21, 2013 vol xlviii no 51 31 BOOK REVIEW offi ce. Besides, if imprisonment rates to being re-enslaved, traffi cked and sold was extended to about a year. He was were to decline to the already quite high to work in mines, lumber camps, quar- sold the next day to Tennessee Coal, levels of the 1970s, 75% of prisoners would ries, farms and factories under ghastly Iron and Railroad Company (TCI) for $12. have to be released affecting 7,00,000 conditions, is superbly told in two books Sent to work in TCI’s mines, now owned guards, administrator and service work- published earlier (Blackmon 2008; by US Steel, and expected to remove eight ers. It would “inspire panic in rural com- Perkinson 2010). The books complement tonnes of coal a day, Green Cottenham munities that have become dependent” each other and permit a deeper under- perished in four months. The hell on on them for jobs ( Alexander 2012: 230). standing of the phenomenon of mass earth that was the lightless mine claimed Business interests have not been slow to incarceration. They make for agonising hundreds of lives. Blackmon sketches a see gain from prison labour. Several reading. Arrests were often on trumped much larger canvas by which southern prisons are run by private corporations. up on charges such as “vagrancy”, riding states maintained for over 80 years a Some like the Corrections Corporation of freight cars without a ticket, or chang- “forced labour system of monotonous America, which boosted net income by ing employers without permission. The enormity” (Blackmon 2008: 7). 14% in 2008, trades on the New York Stock number of arrests varied with the need In Texas Tough, Robert Perkinson re- Exchange ( Alexander 2012: 231). They pay for labour by farmers, mine owners marks how “Texas reigns supreme in the as little as 17 cents a day for six hours of and industry such as steel and coal in punishment business” just as New York work making the US an “attractive” place Birmingham, Al. Appalling working con- dominates fi nance and California the to invest (see Downs 2013 and Pelaez ditions, brutal punishments sometimes fi lm industry. With an imprisonment 2013 for a link summarising the prison twice daily whippings, was unsurprisingly rate three times higher than Iran’s, the industry in the US). These corporations accompanied by a high mortality rate. state ranks “fi rst in prison growth, fi rst are winning contracts for operating Douglas Blackmon’s book Slavery by in for-profi t imprisonment, fi rst in super- prisons overseas from eastern Europe to Another Name traces the story of Green max lockdown, fi rst in total number of Australia (Jones and Mauer 2013: 17). Cottenham, a 22-year-old man, arrested adults under criminal justice super vision, in Shelby County, Alabama, on 30 March and a resounding fi rst in executions” Mass Incarceration 1908 for vagrancy. Sentenced to 30 days (Perkinson 2010: 4). Whereas the US The unkept promise of emancipation, the hard labour and unable to pay the fees prison population grew by 600% from enduring legacy of slavery, the virtually for the sheriff, the deputy, the county 1965 to 2000 in Texas it swelled by seamless transition from being slaves clerk, and the witnesses, his sentence 1,200%. He uncovers how the growth of

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32 december 21, 2013 vol xlviii no 51 EPW Economic & Political Weekly BOOK REVIEW the state’s cotton and sugar industry, apace and is recommended as a good in- Notes the building of its railroads depended vestment for the next decade (IBISWorld 1 Jim Crow is a term used to describe racial seg- regation and discrimination against African- on convict labour. Heartbreaking sto- 2012). A few architects have advocated Americans in housing, employment, use of ries of prisoners mutilating themselves that their profession refuse to design public facilities, etc. to avoid 15-hour work days, innumer- control units and execution chambers 2 The New York Times report excludes prisoners in local and county jails numbering 7,35,601 in 2011. able brutal beatings, being “attacked by (Carroll 2013). But solitary confi nement dogs, dangled from building rafters”, and and the war on drugs show no signs of References “whipped until they couldn’t walk no abating. They cast a dark shadow leav- Blackmon, Douglas A (2008): Slavery by Another more” (Perkinson 2010: 155) abound. It ing a long-lasting legacy of unbelievable Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to Second World War (New makes it hard to read the book without suffering. The havoc caused by them in- York: Anchor Books), pp 468, $17. stopping after a few pages. Later the volves continents. India may well wit- Carroll, Rory (2013): 19 July, http://www.guardi- images haunt...What begins at home US an.co.uk/world/2013/jul/19/california-prison- ness the export private prisons and hu nger-strike-retaliation spreads abroad. The US exported its pris- control units to it, just as it has for-profi t Cockburn, Alexander and Jeffrey St Clair (2013): on methods globally after the attacks on hospitals. Meanwhile in the US the 19-21 July, /www. counterpunch. org/ 2013/ 0http:/7/19/the-real-purpose-of-the-drug-war/ 11 September 2001. Jane Mayer’s The Dark criminalisation and demonisation of Downs, Ray (2013): 19 May, http://prisonmove- Side familiarises us with programmes black men persists leading to verdicts as ment. wordpress.com/ 2013/05/19/ whos -get- ting-rich-off-the-prison-industrial-complex/ like Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape perverse as the one of not guilty in the Freedom Archives (2013): http://www.freedomar- (SERE) which subjected US soldiers to recently concluded trial of George chives. org/Out_of _ Control/ index.html “the worst treatment the world could Goode, Erica (2013): New York Times, 26 July, Zimmerman for the murder of Trayvon http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/26/us/us- mete out, but ...in a limited and carefully Martin, a 17-year-old African-American prison-populations-decline-refl ecting-new-ap- controlled setting” (Mayer 2008: 157). proach-to-crime.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0. (for a trenchant criticism of President Her article Developed after the Korean war, the Obama’s comments on the case, see IBISWorld (2012): December, http://www.ibisworld. techniques were employed at the prison West 2013). com/industry/prison-jail-construction.html Karlin, Mark (2013): 26 April, http://www.truth- in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in pris- Michelle Alexander rightly concludes out.org/progressive-picks/item/16003-the- ons in Afghanistan and Iraq. New terms that racial justice will require “the com- prison-industrial-complex-the-pac-man-that- destroys-lives- like “enhanced interrogation”, “extraor- plete transformation of social institu- Mayer, Jane (2008): The Dark Side: The Inside Story dinary rendition” became part of the vo- tions and a dramatic restructuring of of How the War on Terror Turned into a War US on American Ideals (New York: Doubleday), cabulary of torture. Waterboarding, us- our (the ) economy, not superfi cial pp 392, $27.50. ing pounding music, bright strobe lights, changes that can be purchased on the Pelaez, Vicky (2013): 31 January, http://www.glo- balresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the- and extremely painful temperatures were cheap” (Alexander 2012: 249). Only a united-states-big-business-or-a-new-form-of- some of the practices employed to “break” national movement that challenges and slavery/8289 prisoners. The CIA helped build hi-tech dismantles racial inequality will suffi ce. Perkinson, Robert (2010): Texas Tough: The Rise of America’s Prison Empire, Picador, New York, prisons in east European countries which She argues that crime policy cannot be pp 484, $20. seen as purely about crime. Without an US Supreme Court (1890): “In Medley”, 134, US more intensely focused on psychological 160, 168. torment...The prisoners had no exposure to acknowledgement of the racial bias that West, Cornell (2013): 22 July, http://www.democ- natural light making it impossible for them tolerates the warehousing of poor racynow. org/2013/7/22/cornel_ west_obamas to tell if it was night or day. They interacted blacks and latinos, the focus on incar- _response_to_trayvon only with masked; silent guards....Meals Free video links of discussions or documentaries ceration alone will solve little. Her about the books discussed above include: were delivered sporadically, to ensure that heartfelt cry for an assault on the struc- The Dark Side: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/ pro- the prisoners remained temporally disori- gram/DarkSi ented (Mayer 2008: 276). tures of racism should have been heed- The New Jim Crow: http://www.booktv.org/Pro- ed decades ago. Piecemeal efforts result gram/ 14214/The+New+ Jim+Crow+Mass+I ncarceration+in+the+Age+of+Colorblindne Unbelievable Suffering in no change, for instance black child ss.aspx Currently (July 2013) there are hunger poverty rates are higher than in 1968 Texas Tough: http://www.booktv.org/ Program /11452/Texas+Tough+ The+Rise+of+Americ strikes by prisoners in California State and their unemployment rates rival as+Prison+Empire.aspx Prisons which has 10,000 individuals in those in poor nations. Slavery by Another Name: http://www. c-span- As she fervently declares “Last, but video.org/program/ByAn, http://video.pbs.org/ solitary confi nement and at the prison in video/2176766758 Guantanamo Bay. The adverse publicity defi nitely not the least, I am writing this worldwide about these protests has not book for all those trapped within America’s as yet had any impact upon either the US latest caste system. You may be locked government or the state of California. up or locked out of mainstream society available at The “race to incarcerate” may be slowing a but you are not forgotten.” It is up to us little2 (Goode 2013). Since 2000 more to alter this situation. Oxford Bookstore-Mumbai Apeejay House than half the states have enacted re- 3, Dinshaw Vacha Road forms to sentencing and drug policy, Bindu Desai ([email protected]) is a Mumbai 400 020 some states have decri minalised mari- semi-retired neurologist who divides her time Ph: 66364477 juana. However prison building continues between the US and India.

Economic & Political Weekly EPW december 21, 2013 vol xlviii no 51 33