The Jail Is Everywhere

Fighting the New Geography of Mass Incarceration

Jack Norton (Editor), Lyda Pelot-hobbs (Editor), Judah Schept (Editor) Verso (JAN 23) Softcover $19.95 (208pp) 978-1-80429-131-3

Through the social justice-themed essays of The Jail Is Everywhere, activists work against the expansion and normalization of jails.

After decades of massive expansion in the United States’s carceral system, most counties now host at least one facility; more than ten million people are incarcerated annually. And while prison reform has become the rallying point for much recent activism, jails don’t always receive the same pushback. To fill in the gap, the book includes lessons and case studies that activists can reference in their fights against jail expansion. Some are high-level and theory-centric; others impart personal stories from around the country for inspiration or to model change.

In “Decarcerating Sacramento,” Liz Blum recounts a successful movement to prevent the further expansion of California’s jail system, sharing historical context for how the state embarked on a record prison-building trend from 1982 to 2002. Herein, a 2010s “realignment” shifted incarceration policy from state prisons to county and local jails, thanks to pressure campaigns, public education, and framing the issue well to grow a successful opposition movement. And an interview with Tennessee’s Free Hearts organizational leaders shows that jails have become a key part of immigration policy, with groups like ICE and the US Marshals using them as de facto prison systems for non-citizens. An interview with formerly incarcerated activist James Kilgore covers his jail experiences in Champaign, Illinois, where the government shifted its arguments in favor of jail expansion after the project faced opposition.

With its bevy of perspectives and individual case studies, The Jail Is Everywhere is a revealing overview of the growing problem of jail expansion in the US, with a survey of approaches to addressing it.