Locked in. The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform. By John Pfaff. New York: Basic Books, 2017. Breaking the Pendulum: The Long Struggle Over Criminal Justice. By Philip Goodman, Joshua Page, and Michelle Phelps. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.

• Published date: 01 December 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lasr.12306
• Date: 01 December 2017

696

In many ways, the book becomes a compelling effort to recon-

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cile pragmatism with abolitionism. Reiter is ultimately a pragmatist,

698

sensitive to a political and legal landscape in which outright aboli-

699

tion of solitary is unlikely. But she knows how easily reforms fail to

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meaningfully improve the lives of people sitting in cages. “Is there

701

any kind of solution that would satisfy both a prison administrator

702

and the family members of inmates?” Reiter asks herself in the

703

aftermath of the legislative hearing.

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Her work is ultimately a call for scholars to take on the hard

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task of imagining an answer to that question, to think in a spirit of

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both pragmatism and idealism about what short-term changes can

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be made to solitary confinement—agreeable to a prison administra-

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tor and inmates’ loved ones alike—that will put the practice on the

709

road to abolition.

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References

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Dayan, Colin (2011) The Law is a White Dog: How Legal Rituals Make and Unmake Persons.

712

Princeton: Princeton Univ.Press.

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Lynch, Mona (2000) “The Disposal of Inmate #85271: Notes on a Routine Execution,”

714

20 Studies in Law, Politics, and Society 3–34.

715

Murakawa, Naomi(2015) The First Civil Right:How Liberals Built Prison America.New York:

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Oxford UniversityUniv. Press.

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Smith, Caleb (2009) The Prison and the American Imagination. New Haven: Yale Univ.

718

Press.

719

Smith, Philip (2008) Punishment and Culture. Chicago: Univ.of Chicago Press.

720*** 721

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Locked in. The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real

723

Reform. By John Pfaff. New York: Basic Books, 2017.

724

725

Breaking the Pendulum: The Long Struggle Over Criminal Justice. By Philip

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Goodman, Joshua Page, and Michelle Phelps. New York: Oxford

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University Press, 2017.

728

Reviewed by Hadar Aviram, UC Hastings College of the Law

729

Virtually every public conversation about American punishment

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begins with the quintessential chart: a timeline of incarceration

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rates, stable until the early 1970s, then alarmingly rising through

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the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, until a slight decline in the late 2000s.

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This striking visual aid goes hand in hand with a “standard story”:

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after several decades of following a rehabilitative punishment

Book Reviews 1017