New anthology from Temple Univ. Press. http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/1478_reg_print.html "Prison Masculinities edited by Don Sabo, Terry Kupers and Willie London paper 1-56639-816-9 $24.95, Jan 01, Active (Ironic !) cloth 1-56639-815-0 $79.50, Feb 01, Active 296 pp 7x10 A remarkable book, which confirms our worst fears about the ongoing failure of the U.S. prison system. And yet if offers real hope, real ideas for change. Every legislator in America should be locked in Solitary and forced to read Prison Masculinities." —Tom Fontana, creator of Oz The opening section, which features an essay by Angela Davis, focuses on the historical roots of the prison system, cultural practices surrounding gender and punishment, and the current expansion of corrections into the "prison-industrial complex."
The next section examines the dominant or subservient roles that men play in prison and the connections between this hierarchy and male violence. Another section looks at the spectrum of intimate relationships behind bars, from rape to friendship, and another at physical and mental health.
The last section is about efforts to reform prisons and prison masculinities, including support groups for men. It features an essay about prospects for post-release success in the community written by a man who, after doing time in Soledad and San Quentin, went on to get a doctorate in counseling.
The contributions from prisoners include an essay on enforced celibacy by Mumia Abu-Jamal, as well as fiction and poetry on prison health policy, violence, and intimacy. The creative contributions were selected from the mo re than 200 submissions received from prisoners.
Reviews
"The enforced sequestration of men and women results in hard time, and invites adaptive responses that can often be unseemly, ugly, and destructive. This book shows how male prisons have becme stages for the display and posturing of caricatured masculinity, including the victimization of vulnerable fellow-prisoners. The contribution is impotant, timely, and challenging." —Hans Toch, Distinguished Professor, School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany, SUNY, and author of Mosaic of Despair and Corrections: A Humanistic Approach
About the Author(s)
Don Sabo, Professor of Social Sciences at D'Youville College in Buffalo, is author or editor of five books, most recently, with David Gordon, Men's Health and Illness: Gender, Power, and the Body and, with Michael Messner, Sex, Violence, and Power in Sports: Rethinking Masculinity. Sabo has appeared on The Today Show, Oprah, and Donahue.
Terry A. Kupers, M.D., a psychiatrist, teaches at the Wright Institute in Berkeley. He is the author of four books, editor of a fifth. His latest books are Prison Madness: The Mental Health Crisis Behind Bars and What We Must Do About It and Revisioning Men's Lives: Gender, Intimacy, and Power. Kupers has served as an expert witness in more than a dozen cases on conditions of confinement and mental health services.
Willie London, a published poet, is General Editor of the prison publication Elite Expressions. He is currently an inmate at Eastern Corrections. For nine years he was a prisoner at Attica. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kupers, is a local therapist who is active in the prison support movement. See the o.p. book by Eric Cummins, "The Rise and Fall of California's Radical Prison Movement." Stanford Univ. Press. Maurice Isserman reviewed favorably in Radical History Review in '93 or so. Michael Pugliese P.S. Play, "Prison and Men's Eyes." And the book and movie Querelle. Brad Davis, R.I.P.