Worldwide Publication Day: January 7, 2025
It is impossible to deny the impact of lies and white supremacy on the institutional conditions in US prisons. There is a particular power dynamic of racist intent in the prison system that culminates in what Brittany Friedman terms "carceral apartheid." Prisons are a microcosm of how carceral apartheid operates as a larger governing strategy to decimate political targets and foster deceit, disinformation, and division in society.
Among many shocking discoveries, Friedman shows that beginning in the 1950s, California prison officials declared war on imprisoned Black people and sought to identify Black militants as a key problem, creating a strategy for the management, segregation, and elimination of these individuals from the prison population that continues into the present day.
Carceral Apartheid delves into how the California Department of Corrections deployed various official, clandestine, and at times extralegal control techniques, including officer alliances with imprisoned white supremacists, to suppress Black political movements, revealing the broader themes of deception, empire, corruption, and white supremacy in American mass incarceration. Drawing from original interviews with founders of Black political movements such as the Black Guerilla Family, white supremacists, and a swath of little-known archival data, Friedman uncovers how the US domestic war against imprisoned Black people models and perpetuates genocide, imprisonment, and torture abroad.
Learn more about the "Justice, Power, & Politics" book series.
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Book Reviews
REVIEW: Carceral Apartheid by Brittany Friedman
"Friedman strips bare the carceral foundations of the US empire, both domestically and abroad and centers the history of Black revolutionary movements resisting from within the prison system, while also detailing the white supremacist movements within the prison system that were used by the prison officials to maintain carceral apartheid."
- Annie Windholz
New Book Looks at the History of Carceral Apartheid
"Iron-willed control was subsequently sanctioned as a legitimate expression of prison authority; virtually every manner of abuse and neglect was permitted."
- Eleanor J. Bader
Carceral Apartheid turns spotlight on state department of corrections
“Carceral Apartheid will no doubt be enjoyed by truth-tellers, social justice warriors, activists, healers, community organizers, prisoner’s rights activists, civil rights lawyers, investigative journalists and true crime enthusiasts."
-Marissa Wells
January 2025 Reads for the Rest of Us
"We’re in this together. And together, we’ll rise. We’ll rest and read and write and resist. Start wherever you like and help however you can. Which one of these books will be the catalyst you’re looking for?"
- Karla J. Strand
"Carceral Apartheid - Prison Hierarchy Mirrors Outside World"
"Inside the walls “white above all” was a bright line that brought immediate retribution for anyone who dared to cross it. But the dangers at San Quentin extended beyond violence. For dozens of years, the prison’s Chief Surgeon, Dr. Leo Stanley, performed procedures on inmates including sterilization, castration, and injection with foreign or animal substances."
- Brian Tanguay
More praise for Carceral Apartheid
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