Logo Oapen
  • Search
  • Join
    • Deposit
    • For Librarians
    • For Publishers
    • For Researchers
    • Funders
    • Resources
    • OAPEN
    • For Librarians
    • For Publishers
    • For Researchers
    • Funders
    • Resources
    • OAPEN
    View Item 
    •   OAPEN Home
    • View Item
    •   OAPEN Home
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    The Prison of Democracy

    Race, Leavenworth, and the Culture of Law

    Thumbnail
    Download PDF Viewer
    Author(s)
    Benson, Sara M.
    Collection
    Knowledge Unlatched (KU)
    Language
    English
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    Built in the 1890s at the center of the nation, Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary was designed specifically to be a replica of the US Capitol Building. But why? The Prison of Democracy explains the political significance of a prison built to mimic one of America’s monuments to democracy. Locating Leavenworth in memory, history, and law, the prison geographically sits at the borders of Indian Territory (1825–1854) and Bleeding Kansas (1854–1864), both sites of contestation over slavery and freedom. Author Sara M. Benson argues that Leavenworth reshaped the design of punishment in America by gradually normalizing state-inflicted violence against citizens. Leavenworth’s peculiar architecture illustrates the real roots of mass incarceration—as an explicitly race- and nation-building system that has been ingrained in the very fabric of US history rather than as part of a recent post-war racial history. The book sheds light on the truth of the painful relationship between the carceral state and democracy in the United States—a relationship that thrives to this day.  “The imaginative rereading, through primary sources, of Fort Leavenworth and a host of other subjects including abolitionism, border prisons, North-South relations, and the campaign against Native Americans adds up to an original and exceptionally significant piece of research and scholarship.” DESMOND KING, author of Separate and Unequal  “A significant contribution to the literature regarding race, crime, and punishment. The analytical insight that the author provides through a rereading and recentering of Leavenworth is both a contribution to and an immanent critique of racialized notions of mass incarceration.” DANIEL KATO, author of Liberalizing Lynching  SARA M. BENSON is a Lecturer in the Department of Political Science at San Jose State University and teaches at Oakes College at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
    URI
    https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/43705
    Keywords
    Social Science; Criminology
    DOI
    https://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.66
    ISBN
    9780520969490
    Publisher
    University of California Press
    Publisher website
    https://www.ucpress.edu/
    Publication date and place
    2019
    Grantor
    • Knowledge Unlatched
    Imprint
    University of California Press
    Classification
    Crime and criminology
    Rights
    https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode
    • Harvested from KU

    Browse

    All of OAPENSubjectsPublishersLanguagesCollections

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    Export

    Repository metadata
    Logo Oapen
    • For Librarians
    • For Publishers
    • For Researchers
    • Funders
    • Resources
    • OAPEN

    Newsletter

    • Subscribe to our newsletter
    • view our news archive

    Follow us on

    License

    • If not noted otherwise all contents are available under Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

    Credits

    • logo EU
    • This project received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 683680, 810640, 871069 and 964352.

    OAPEN is based in the Netherlands, with its registered office in the National Library in The Hague.

    Director: Niels Stern

    Address:
    OAPEN Foundation
    Prins Willem-Alexanderhof 5
    2595 BE The Hague
    Postal address:
    OAPEN Foundation
    P.O. Box 90407
    2509 LK The Hague

    Websites:
    OAPEN Home: www.oapen.org
    OAPEN Library: library.oapen.org
    DOAB: www.doabooks.org

     

     

    Export search results

    The export option will allow you to export the current search results of the entered query to a file. Differen formats are available for download. To export the items, click on the button corresponding with the preferred download format.

    A logged-in user can export up to 15000 items. If you're not logged in, you can export no more than 500 items.

    To select a subset of the search results, click "Selective Export" button and make a selection of the items you want to export. The amount of items that can be exported at once is similarly restricted as the full export.

    After making a selection, click one of the export format buttons. The amount of items that will be exported is indicated in the bubble next to export format.