Book Review - Are Prisons Obsolete?, by Angela Y. Davis. New York, Seven Stories Press, 2003.
While the US prison population has surpassed 2 million people, this figure is more than 20 percent of the entire global imprisoned population combined. Angela Y. Davis shows, in her most recent book, Are Prisons Obsolete?, that this alarming situation isn't as old as one might think. Just a little over 30 years ago the entire prison population stood at 200,000 in the US; that is a tenfold jump in just one generation. In California alone, 3 prisons were built between 1852 and 1952; from 1984 to the present, over 80 facilities were constructed that now house almost 160,000 people. While being jailed or imprisoned has become "an ordinary dimension of community life," according to Davis, for men in working-class Black, Latino, Native American and some Asian American communities, it is also increasingly an issue women of these communities have come to face. Davis points to the increased involvement of corporations in prison construction, security, health care delivery, food programs and commodity production using prison labor as the main source of the growth of the prison-industrial complex. As prisons became a new source of profits, it became clear to prison corporations that more facilities and prisoners were needed to increase income. It is evident that increased crime is not the cause of the prison boom. Davis writes "that many corporations with global markets now rely on prisons as an important source of profits helps us to understand the rapidity with which prisons began to proliferate precisely at a time when official studies indicated that the crime rate was falling." (...) http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/view/103/1/28/ Angela Yvonne Davis was born 1944 in Birmingham, Alabama, the daughter of schoolteachers. She studied at home and overseas (1961-67) before becoming a doctoral candidate at the University of California, San Diego, under Herbert Marcuse. Davis joined the Communist Party in 1968. Because of her political opinions and despite her record as instructor at the university's Los Angeles campus, the California Board of Regents in 1970 refused to renew her appointment as lecturer in philosophy. Through the Black Panthers, Davis became an advocate for black political prisoners, and spoke out in defense of the inmates known as the Soledad Brothers. After the killing of inmate George Jackson by guards at Soledad Prison, Jackson's younger brother, Jonathan, attempted to free another prisoner from the Hall of Justice in Marin County, California on August 7, 1970 by taking hostages. Four people were killed in the shoot-out that followed, including the trial judge. The guns Jackson used were registered in the name of Angela Davis. Even although she was not near the courthouse at the time, a warrant for her arrest went out. When Davis defied the arrest warrant and went into hiding, she was placed on the FBI's ten-most-wanted list. Her capture in a New York motel room in October 1970 and her subsequent imprisonment inspired "Free Angela" rallies around the world. Davis spent 16 months in jail, before she was released on bail in 1972. She was later acquitted of all charges by an all-white jury. Davis resumed teaching at San Francisco State University, and subsequently lectured in all 50 US states, as well as internationally throughout Europe, Africa, the Carribean, Russia and the Pacific. She is now a member of the Advisory Board of the Prison Activist Resource Center. In 1994 Republicans objected to her appointment to a presidential chair at University of California, Santa Cruz, where she is professor in the History of Consciousness Department. The final protest song on John Lennon's album "Some Time in New York City" (1972) was devoted to Angela, but some rock critics thought it was facile. Robert Christgau stated: "Agitprop that fails to reach its constituency, however, is hardly a thing at all, and since Lennon's forte has always been the communication of new truths to a mass audience, that possibility is very distressing. He isn't exploiting his charisma this time, he's gambling it. Not that he isn't singing better than ever. Not that Phil Spector hasn't added brilliant musical touches--invisible strings, bottleneck guitar, little Peggy March riff--or that Elephant's Memory, a fine-rocking movesymp band, doesn't boogie throughout. But the lyrics exhibit a fatal movement (and avant-gardist) flaw: While striving to enlighten, they condescend. I have yet to hear of a woman, feminist or no, who isn't offended by the presumption of the two feminist songs [on the album]. Does Angela Davis have to be told that she's one of the million political prisoners in the world? It's bad enough to praise David Peel and worse still to record him, but imitating his thoughtless hip-left orthodoxy is worst of all. Still, you can trust a paradox-finder to discern some hope in all of this. Imagine was a successful popularization of Plastic Ono Band's experiments. Who is to say John can't do it again? Wouldn't it be wonderful if all this heart-in-the-right-place effort could be transformed into something that could be expected to be real to people? Maybe we could even learn to love Yoko's singing as much as John does. Just imagine." http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/bk-aow/lennon.php. Here is the lyrics of John Lennon's song: Sister, there's a wind that never dies Sister, we're breathing together Sister, our love and hopes forever keep on moving oh so slowly in the world They gave you sunshine They gave you sea They gave you everything but the jailhouse key They gave you coffee They gave you tea They gave you everything but equality Angela, can you hear the earth is turning? Angela, the world watches you Angela, you soon will be returning to your sisters and brothers in the world Sister, you're still a people teacher Sister, your word reaches far Sister, there's a million different races but we all share the same future in the world They gave you sunshine They gave you sea They gave you everything but the jailhouse key They gave you coffee They gave you tea They gave you everything but equality Angela, they put you in prison Angela, they shot down your man Angela, you're one of the millions of political prisoners in the world Lennon's 1972 double album was released in America, 3 months before its release in the UK and that meant that import copies were appearing in the UK before its local release. The reasons for the delay were copyright problems with Yoko's name appearing as co-writer on some songs. Northern Songs refused to acknowledge this claim. Also, the album was meant to be a single album with a free bonus album of the "Live Jam", but it was given a catalogue number, pushing it into a higher retail price bracket. The album cover is designed to look like a newspaper. The UK version also came with a postcard of the Statue of Liberty and a petition about John's expulsion from the US (not included in the American release). A quote from Angela Davis: "I think it's really important to acknowledge that Dr. [Martin Luther] King, precisely at the moment of his assassination, was re-conceptualizing the civil rights movement and moving toward a sort of coalitional relationship with the trade union movement. It's I think quite significant that he was in Memphis to participate in a demonstration by sanitation workers who had gone out on strike. Now, if we look at the way in which the labor movement itself has evolved over the last couple of decades, we see increasing numbers of black people who are in the leadership of the labor movement and this is true today." http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/race/interviews/davis.html Books by Angela Davis: If They Come in the Morning: Voices of Resistance (1971) Autobiography (1974) Women, Race, and Class (1981) Women, Culture, and Politics (1989) Violence Against Women and the Ongoing Challenge to Racism (1992) The Angela Y. Davis Reader (1998) The House That Race Built (1998) Blues Legacies and Black Feminism (1998) The Angela Y Davis Reader (1999). Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003) Some books about Angela Davis: Ashman, Charles R.: The People vs. Angela Davis. New York, Pinnacle Books, 1972. Aptheker, Bettina: The Morning Breaks: The Trial of Angela Davis. New York, International Publishers, 1975. Major, Reginald: Justice in the Round: The Trial of Angela Davis. New York Third Press, 1973. Nadelson, Regina: Who is Angela Davis? The Biography of a Revolutionary. New York, P.H. Wyden, 1972. New York Committee to Free Angela Davis. A Political Biography of Angela Davis. 1971. Parker, J.: Angela Davis: The Making of a Revolutionary, Arlington House, 1973. Timothy, Mary: Jury Woman: The Story of the Trial of Angela Y. Davis. Written by a member of the Jury. San Francisco, Glide Publications, 1975. Jurriaan
