Using close-up studies of eight prison riots, Resolution of Prison Riots gives readers an inside view of what these events are like. The riots examined include those that grabbed national attention - one in which over 100 hostages were taken and held for 11 days - as well as lesser-known disturbances whose details are equally gripping. The book explores the conditions that precipitate disturbances, the course of events during the disturbances, and the aftermath and recovery on the part of the corrections agencies. At its heart, the book seeks to explain why and how these events occurred. Along the way, the authors explore issues related to conflict management, negotiations, the use of force, and strategies of administrative organization. The analysis offers practical and timely advice for those responsible for preventing and resolving large-scale disorders.

During the past 25 years, the prison population in America shot upward to reach a staggering 1.53 million by 2005. This book takes a broad, critical look at incarceration, the huge social experiment of American society. The authors investigate the causes and consequences of the prison buildup, often challenging previously held notions from scholarly and public discourse. By examining such themes as social discontent, safety and security within prisons, and the impact on crime and on the labour market, Piehl and Useem use evidence to address the inevitable larger question, where should incarceration go next for American society, and where is it likely to go?

During the past 25 years, the prison population in America shot upward to reach a staggering 1.53 million by 2005. This book takes a broad, critical look at incarceration, the huge social experiment of American society. The authors investigate the causes and consequences of the prison buildup, often challenging previously held notions from scholarly and public discourse. By examining such themes as social discontent, safety and security within prisons, and the impact on crime and on the labour market, Piehl and Useem use evidence to address the inevitable larger question, where should incarceration go next for American society, and where is it likely to go?

In the last fifteen years alone, over 300 riots have erupted in US prisons, with enormous costs: over a hundred lives; uncounted beatings, rapes and assaults; and the destruction of hundreds of millions of dollars of prison property. Why and how do these riots occur? This book provides a fascinating and dramatic account of five major prison riots, including the Attica rebellion of 1971. They show how riots have evolved in the past twenty year in relation to America's changing penal system and society. They draw on in-depth interviews with rioters, transcripts of post-riot investigations, and results of a questionnaire about inmate disturbances in every maximum and medium-security prison in the US. By demonstrating that the growth of riots depends both on the state's capabilities and on inmates' pre-existing organizations, their ethnicity, and the revolts' root causes, the authors expose the absence of a consistent and realistic policy towards the prison population of the US.

This book examines case studies of recent prison riots in five states, including the 1971 radical uprising in Attica, New York, and the infamous 1981 bloodbath at the New Mexico Penitentiary. The most extensive and detailed work yet written on US prison riots, the authors explain the occurrence and variations of riots as a reflection of the administrative breakdown of the prison system within a changing ideological context. A theoretical appendix helps make this work an ideal introduction to sociological theories of collective action.