America's Jails: The Search for Human Dignity in an Age of Mass Incarceration - Paperback

by Derek Jeffreys (Author)

A look at the contemporary crisis in U.S. jails with recommendations for improving and protecting the dignity of inmates

Twelve million Americans go through the U.S. jail system on an annual basis. Jails, which differ significantly from prisons, are designed to house inmates for short amounts of time, and are often occupied by large populations of legally innocent people waiting for a trial. Jails often have deplorable sanitary conditions, and there are countless records of inmates being brutalized by staff and other inmates while in custody. Local municipalities use jails to institutionalize those whom they perceive to be a threat, so hundreds of thousands of inmates suffer from mental illness. People abandoned by families or lacking health insurance, or those who cannot afford bail, often cycle in and out of jails.

Author Biography

Derek. S. Jeffreys is Professor of Humanistic Studies and Religion at the University of Wisconsin,
Green Bay. His work focuses on ethics and violence, and he has written books on Pope John Paul II, ethics and solitary confinement and ethics and torture.