By John Irwin

Combining extensive interviews with his own experience as an inmate, John Irwin constructs a powerful and graphic description of the big-city jail. Unlike prisons, which incarcerate convicted felons, jails primarily confine arrested persons not yet charged or convicted of any serious crime. Irwin argues that jail disorients and degrades and instead of controlling the disreputable, actually increases their number by helping to indoctrinate new recruits to the rabble class. In a forceful conclusion, Irwin addresses the issue of jail reform and the matter of social control demanded by society.

Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. 1985. 160p.

Edited by Kenneth E. Kerle, American Jail Association

“People familiar with the American jail scene realize that jails rank at the bottom of the criminal justice hierarchy in influence. Courts, prosecuting attorneys, police, and even probation and parole offi­cials exert more political clout than jail administrators. Jail popu­lation figures have nearly doubled in a decade, and now more than 300,000 ADP (average daily population) are found in the 3,338 jails in the 3,000 plus counties and cities that operate these institutions of incarceration. During 1987, there were more than 17 million ad­missions and releases from county and city jails. These local gov­ernment agencies serve as the dumping grounds for the arrested criminal, the chronic drunk, the DWI (driving while intoxicated), the mentally ill, the homeless, and juveniles ranging from the run­away to the amoral killer.”

Nelson-Hall. 1991. 299p.