ABSTRACT
In America, more people are sentenced to more time in more prisons under more anachronistic conditions than at any time in recent memory. Prisons dot the American landscape, often opened and operated at the expense of schools, roads and social services. Most of these prisons are overcrowded, underfunded and located in remote areas, far from the urban centres from which most prisoners originate. The sheer number of prisons and prisoners is remarkable, creating what amounts to a parallel penal universe, a world surrounded by fortress walls or barbed-wire barriers that hold offenders at bay, away from the world, locked in a grim suspended animation.
