Good Punishment?

<DIV>More than 2 million persons occupy America's prisons and jails today -- the highest per capita incarceration rate in U.S. history. With just 6 percent of the world's population the United States now holds 25 percent of its prisoners. At what social cost do we build and fill more prisons?<BR /><BR /> In <I>Good Punishment?</I> James Samuel Logan critiques the American obsession with imprisonment as punishment calling it "retributive degradation" of the incarcerated. His analysis draws on both salient empirical data and material from a variety of disciplines -- social history anthropology law and penal theory philosophy of religion -- as he uncovers the devastating social consequences (both direct and collateral) of imprisonment on such a large unprecedented scale.<BR /><BR /> A distinctive contribution of this book lies in its development of a Christian social ethics of "good punishment" embodied as a politics of "healing memories" and "ontological intimacy." Logan earnestly explores how Christians can best engage with the real-life issues and concerns surrounding the American practice of imprisonment.</DIV>