Prisons of Poverty

European governments are increasingly relying on guns and prisons to deal with the effects of unemployment and the withering of social protection, says Wacquant (sociology, U. of California-Berkeley and Center de sociologie europeenne in Paris), and he lays the blame squarely on the doorstep of the US. Writing for both academics and activists, he describes how Reagan-era conservative think tanks devised this new punitive reality as a weapon in their crusade to dismantle the welfare state, and how it jumped borders and became established in the Old World. The shift from social state to penal state, he warns portends a society in which the Invisible Hand of the market is enforced by the Iron Fist of punishment. Les Prisons de la misere was first published in 1999 by Raisons d'agir Editions, Paris. Annotation c2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)