Author Appearance: Robert Perkinson

An epic story of convict rebellions, spirited reform movements, and fearsome crackdowns, Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire makes clear why the world’s oldest republic has built the most expansive prison system in the history of democratic governance and why racial disparities in criminal justice have worsened over the past forty years, despite the breakthroughs of civil rights. A sobering account of political demagoguery and persistent injustice, the book underscores the bankruptcy of America’s singularly vengeful approach to lawmaking and lawbreaking. Yet by illuminating forgotten alternatives, it also holds out hope for the future. At a moment when budget shortfalls and a changing political climate have made significant reforms possible for the first time in a generation, this forceful, engaging book is vital reading. At stake is not just the fate of 2.4 million Americans living behind bars but the vibrancy of American ideals.

About the author: Robert Perkinson's family hails from the South (Mississippi, Virginia, and Texas), and he grew up in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He became interested in criminal justice as a college student in Colorado, where prisons were springing up faster than Wal-Marts in the 1980s and 1990s. In graduate school at Yale, he decided to focus his research on the history of racism and criminal justice in the South, and he eventually settled on the Lone Star State, where the action is. His book Texas Tough is a history of American punishment from slavery to the present, with an emphasis on Texas, the most incarcerated and politically influential state in the nation. He is currently a professor at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. He was awarded a Soros Justice Fellowship in 2006.