Since the 1970s, the corrections system has experienced exponential growth. Over the past four decades, the number of inmates held in US prisons and jails has quadrupled. This massive growth is associated with a number of different issues and challenges within prisons and jails, including overcrowding; gang activity and misconduct; a shift away from rehabilitation and programming; expanded use of solitary confinement; inmates' human rights; criticisms of health care; and massive, publicly funded budgets. Many states now spend more on corrections than on higher education. This book explores these issues in depth. It takes current topics in institutional corrections and explores the main issues surrounding each. Themes include institutional corrections, prison behavior (including gangs and misconduct), solitary confinement, prison programming, and rehabilitation.

The Culture of Urban Control: Jail Overcrowding in the Crime Control Era explores and analyzes the growth and expansion of the United States' largest single-site urban jail system. Through an analysis of a United States Federal Court initiated consent decree this research provides a narrative of criminal justice policy, politics and legal maneuvering between the years of 1993 and 2003 associated with overcrowding within the Cook County Jail. As a result of increased policing presence and subsequent arrests during the crime control era of the 1990's, the Cook County Department of Corrections experienced a continually overcrowded correctional facility resulting in pre-trial and post-convicted inmates sleeping on floors in overcrowded and dilapidated facilities. Beginning in the early 1990's and under the supervision of the federal court, Chicago and Cook County, Illinois undertook the largest expansion of local level incarceration and correctional control in their history. The disputing process between local, state and federal level claims-makers within the legal arena and through media representations are analyzed in conjunction with infrastructure growth, changing correctional populations, community level expansion of correctional programming and the social reality of the inmate experience. How local level corrections and federal interdiction were shaped by local level politics and criminal justice systems are examined.

The Culture of Urban Control: Jail Overcrowding in the Crime Control Era explores and analyzes the growth and expansion of the United States' largest single-site urban jail system. Through an analysis of a United States Federal Court initiated consent decree this research provides a narrative of criminal justice policy, politics and legal maneuvering between the years of 1993 and 2003 associated with overcrowding within the Cook County Jail. As a result of increased policing presence and subsequent arrests during the crime control era of the 1990's, the Cook County Department of Corrections experienced a continually overcrowded correctional facility resulting in pre-trial and post-convicted inmates sleeping on floors in overcrowded and dilapidated facilities. Beginning in the early 1990's and under the supervision of the federal court, Chicago and Cook County, Illinois undertook the largest expansion of local level incarceration and correctional control in their history. The disputing process between local, state and federal level claims-makers within the legal arena and through media representations are analyzed in conjunction with infrastructure growth, changing correctional populations, community level expansion of correctional programming and the social reality of the inmate experience. How local level corrections and federal interdiction were shaped by local level politics and criminal justice systems are examined.

Since the 1970s, the corrections system has experienced exponential growth. Over the past four decades, the number of inmates held in US prisons and jails has quadrupled. This massive growth is associated with a number of different issues and challenges within prisons and jails, including overcrowding; gang activity and misconduct; a shift away from rehabilitation and programming; expanded use of solitary confinement; inmates' human rights; criticisms of health care; and massive, publicly funded budgets. Many states now spend more on corrections than on higher education. This book explores these issues in depth. It takes current topics in institutional corrections and explores the main issues surrounding each. Themes include institutional corrections, prison behavior (including gangs and misconduct), solitary confinement, prison programming, and rehabilitation.