Golden Gulag 1. How does the text circulate? The material analyzed by Ruth Wilson Gilmore circulates in the form of a book that was originally published on December 9, 2006. The author’s intended audience consists of individuals who have been directly or indirectly affected by any form of social racism and in particular those individuals who continue to fight for human rights. Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California, promises to analyze the underlying causes that have perpetuated the exponential growth of state run prisons in California from a socioeconomic framework. Lastly, parenthetical citations are used throughout different sections of the reading to provide additional information and credit
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What is the main argument and goal of the writing? The main argument of the book is to analyze and inform the general public about the economic and geographic conditions that enabled the exponential development of prisons in the State of California. For instance, the author carefully formulates her arguments around political and economic premises in order to explain how social concepts such as retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitation have each contributed to both the radical expansion of prisons in California and the political influence of California’s Department of Corrections as a whole. A perfect example of this can be found on page 14, where the author individually dissects each concept and explains how they all collectively relate to maintaining social stability through the application of “mix care, indifference, compulsory training, and cruelty to people in …show more content…
Write a paragraph discussing a passage that inspired you, made you think, or frustrated you,and how it did so. The paragraph should be between 160-300 words, and you should cite the page number of the passage. One of the more interesting passages in the book is located on paragraph 2 of page 21. The premise of the argument mainly revolves around the theory of “New Slavery” and how it can be used as a plausible explanation for the radical expansion of prisons in the State of California. For example, the author states that proponents of the new slavery theory believe that economic incentives such as access to a cheap work force represent a highly profitable opportunity for many corporations and thus, contribute to the overall incarceration rates and the expansion of prisons. Interestingly enough, the author also offers a counter argument for the theory of “New Slavery,” by discussing how the socially accepted goal of prisons has been to incapacitate prisoners and therefore, only a small amount of them actually work while they are incarcerated. In addition, the author contends that the principal reason private interests fail to exploit prisoner labor is because they cannot out compete big firms at setting up satellite work
What is the main argument and goal of the writing? The main argument of the book is to analyze and inform the general public about the economic and geographic conditions that enabled the exponential development of prisons in the State of California. For instance, the author carefully formulates her arguments around political and economic premises in order to explain how social concepts such as retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitation have each contributed to both the radical expansion of prisons in California and the political influence of California’s Department of Corrections as a whole. A perfect example of this can be found on page 14, where the author individually dissects each concept and explains how they all collectively relate to maintaining social stability through the application of “mix care, indifference, compulsory training, and cruelty to people in …show more content…
Write a paragraph discussing a passage that inspired you, made you think, or frustrated you,and how it did so. The paragraph should be between 160-300 words, and you should cite the page number of the passage. One of the more interesting passages in the book is located on paragraph 2 of page 21. The premise of the argument mainly revolves around the theory of “New Slavery” and how it can be used as a plausible explanation for the radical expansion of prisons in the State of California. For example, the author states that proponents of the new slavery theory believe that economic incentives such as access to a cheap work force represent a highly profitable opportunity for many corporations and thus, contribute to the overall incarceration rates and the expansion of prisons. Interestingly enough, the author also offers a counter argument for the theory of “New Slavery,” by discussing how the socially accepted goal of prisons has been to incapacitate prisoners and therefore, only a small amount of them actually work while they are incarcerated. In addition, the author contends that the principal reason private interests fail to exploit prisoner labor is because they cannot out compete big firms at setting up satellite work