Skyscraper Jails: The Fight Against Jail Expansion in New York City

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Description

A damning account of the latest transformation in mass incarceration, revealing how powerful nonprofits and so-called progressives used the language of social movements to build new jails.

jails, a network of skyscraper facilities amounting to the largest carceral construction the city has seen in decades.

How did this happen

Zhandarka Kurti detail how progressive forces in New York City appropriated the rhetoric of social movements and social justice to promise downsized and humane jails. The principal advocates of these new jails were not right-wing politicians, but prominent city activists and progressive non-profit organizations.

is at once a case study and a cautionary tale for what will be coming to cities and towns across the United States and beyond.

Author Bio

Zhandarka Kurtiis an assistant professor of criminal justice and criminology at Loyola University Chicago. Her work examines race, class, criminalization and punishment through a historical and contemporary perspective. She is the co-author of States of Incarceration: Rebellion, Reform and the Future of Americas Punishment System and editor of Treason to Whiteness is Loyalty to Humanity.

Jarrod Shanahan is the author of Captives: How Rikers Island Took New York City Hostage, co-author of States of Incarceration: Rebellion, Reform, and America's Punishment System, and City Time: On Being Sentence to Rikers Island, forthcoming from NYU Press, and editor of Treason to Whiteness Is Loyalty to Humanity. He lives in Chicago and works as an assistant professor of Criminal Justice at Governors State University in University Park, IL.