Guards keep California in lockdown.

• Author: Cavanaugh, Tim
• Position: Briefly Noted - Brief article - Book review

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

University of Minnesota sociologist Joshua Page's The Toughest Beat: Politics, Punishment, and the Prison Officers Union in California (Oxford) chronicles the growth of the most powerful and politicized public-sector union in the country. Yet Page's protagonist, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA), offers more depth and pathos than you might expect from an organization of government employees.

In a skillful narrative, Page explains how the CCPOA's political vigor derives from the prison guards' hard experience as underdogs, hated first by the...