"The Big House" is America's idea of the prison---a huge, tough, ostentatiously oppressive pile of rock, bristling with rules and punishments, overwhelming in size and the intent to intimidate. Stephen Cox tells the story of the American prison--its politics, its sex, its violence, its inability to control itself--and its idealization in American popular culture. This book investigates both the popular images of prison and the realities behind them-: problems of control and discipline, maintenance and reform, power and sexuality. It conveys an awareness of the limits of human and institutional power, and of the symbolic and iconic qualities the "Big House" has attained in America's understanding of itself.
- ISBN10 0300124198
- ISBN13 9780300124194
- Publish Date 1 November 2009 (first published 1 January 2009)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 26 November 2014
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Yale University Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 256
- Language English