Robert Perkinson – Texas Tough

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Adult Event

Start: 07/14/2010 7:00 pm

In the prison business, all roads lead to Texas. The most locked-down state in the nation has led the way in
criminal justice severity, from assembly-line executions to isolation
supermaxes, from prison privatization to sentencing juveniles as
adults. Texas Tough, a sweeping history of American imprisonment from
the days of slavery to the present, shows how a plantation-based
penal system once dismissed as barbaric became the national template.
Drawing on convict accounts, official records, and interviews with prisoners, guards, and
lawmakers, historian Robert Perkinson reveals the Southern roots of
our present-day prison colossus. Illuminating for the first time the
origins of America’s prison juggernaut, Texas Tough points toward a
more just and humane future.