UC Press Blog

Unless considerable prisons reforms are made now—like an aggressive 50% reduction in prison population—the next epidemic will provoke calamities similar to COVID-19.

In This Place Called Prison offers a vivid account of religious life within an institution designed to punish. Rachel Ellis conducted a year of ethnographic fieldwork inside a U.S. state women’s prison, talking with hundreds of incarcerated women, staff, and volunteers. Through their stories, Ellis

By Stuart Schrader, author of Badges Without Borders: How Global Counterinsurgency Transformed American PolicingJuly 17, 2020Fifty years ago today, Life magazine printed photographs taken inside a prison on an island off the coast of Vietnam called Côn Sơn.The photos depicted a wing of a

In light of Father's Day and ongoing conversations on police and prison reform, UC Press acknowledges incarcerated fathers and the challenges that families face. The following titles highlight numerous issues in the criminal justice system from wrongful convictions to the California parole system.

From the massive prison system of California, to an abolitionist sanctuary movement, and the reimagining of how to provide safety in Puerto Rico, the following recommended titles offer in-depth research on alternatives to policing and incarceration. Golden GulagPrisons, Surplus, Crisis,