{"id":3705,"date":"2015-08-25T15:47:18","date_gmt":"2015-08-25T19:47:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/?p=3705"},"modified":"2015-08-25T15:47:18","modified_gmt":"2015-08-25T19:47:18","slug":"locked_down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/25\/locked_down\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking Down A Prison Nation: A review of Locked Down, Locked Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"book<\/a>At the center of Maya Schenwar\u2019s book are the personal truths written to her from the confines of the prison nation. It is from these selected words, transcribed from correspondences with Lacino Hamilton, an incarcerated man from Detroit, that Schenwar\u2019s core message shines through, \u201cHuman lives are what weighs in the balance\u2026what are we waiting for?\u201d.<\/p>\n

Locked Down, Locked Out<\/a><\/i> is a piercing breakdown of the \u201cprison nation\u201d we live in today and the complexities of working towards a future free of these walls. The scope and depth of Locked Down, Locked Out<\/i> make this short 200-page read a great introduction for a beginner or a great addition to one\u2019s growing collection of prison justice literature. Divided in half, the first part of this book lays out the details of a nation that has come \u201capart\u201d, taking distorted notions of safety and protection to obscure the realities of a system that is failing people at every turn. The second half is hopeful, exploring what it means for communities to come \u201ctogether\u201d and struggle for a brighter future. <\/p>\n

Early on, it becomes clear that this book is as much about Schenwar\u2019s personal experience with the prison system as it is about her extensive knowledge. She did not write this book just as a theorist or activist, but also as a directly affected member, recognizing the reality of prison: \u201cprison doesn\u2019t stop at the bared wire fence, and it doesn\u2019t end on a release date.\u201d Further, Schenwar doesn\u2019t shy away from the deep racism of the prison nation, constantly highlighting that she and her family’s experience of the prison industrial complex comes from a privileged position of being both white and middle class in a nation where the justice system is, bluntly put, “a modern version of the slave auction book.”<\/p>\n

The hardships of Schenwar’s personal relationship with the prison system take a brighter turn in \u201cComing Together\u201d, the second portion of the book. Here, Schenwar dives into the complexity of dismantling the prison nation, as she explores the relationships between families, prison activists, those incarcerated, and the hundreds of thousands caught in the wider net of correctional control<\/a>. For example, when speaking about abolition-based action, she describes how successful efforts to close multiple state facilities led to ultimate overcrowding and even higher limitations on medical access for the incarcerated, placing the burden of \u201cprogressive\u201d change on those locked inside. Schenwar\u2019s support for prison abolition is undeniable, but she is always mindful of its complexities<\/span> because \u201cwhen it comes to decarceration, a victory is never the end.”<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, victories are still necessary, and Maya Schenwar spends the final half of Locked Down, Locked Out<\/i><\/a> detailing how to tear down the walls created by the grim isolation, failure and cruelty of the USA\u2019s carceral state. The prison nation is not the finale to this country\u2019s dark history. From halting the school-to-prison pipeline with Peace Rooms to removing the state’s ability to ‘punish’ crime through community-led transformative justice circles, Schenwar leaves the reader with hope that the prison nation is a destructible wall gradually but surely being broken down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Schenwar’s book Locked Down, Locked Out is as much about her personal experience with the prison system as it is about her extensive knowledge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[30],"class_list":["post-3705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3705\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3705"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}