About this item
In this crucial study, named one of the Washington Post's Notable Nonfiction Books of 2016 and now in paperback, Baz Dreisinger goes behind bars in nine countries to investigate the current conditions in prisons worldwide.Beginning in Africa and ending in Europe, Incarceration Nations is a first-person odyssey through the prison systems of the world. Professor, journalist, and founder of the Prison-to-College-Pipeline program, Dreisinger looks into the human stories of incarcerated men and women and those who imprison them, creating a jarring, poignant view of a world to which most are denied access, and a rethinking of one of America's most far-reaching global exports: the modern prison complex.From serving as a restorative justice facilitator in a notorious South African prison and working with genocide survivors in Rwanda, to launching a creative writing class in an overcrowded Ugandan prison and coordinating a drama workshop for women prisoners in Thailand, Dreisinger examines the world behind bars with equal parts empathy and intellect.
About the Author
Dr. Baz Dreisinger is: professor, journalist, justice worker, film and radio producer, cultural critic and activist.
Based in the English department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, she is the founder and Academic Director of the Prison-to-College Pipeline program, which offers college courses and reentry planning to incarcerated men throughout New York State, and broadly works to increase access to higher education for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals. Her book "Incarceration Nations: A Journey to Justice in Prisons Around the World" (February, 2016) is a first-person odyssey through prisons in nine countries, beginning in Africa and concluding in Europe. It offers a poignant window into a world most never see, and offers a radical rethinking of one of America's most devastating exports and national experiments: the modern prison system. Dr. Dreisinger was named a 2017-2018 Global Fulbright Scholar for her work promoting education and restorative justice internationally, and she is working to replicate the prison-to-college model in countries ranging from Jamaica and Trinidad to South Africa and Australia.
As a journalist and critic, Dr. Dreisinger writes about Caribbean culture, race-related issues, travel, music and pop culture for such outlets as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and ForbesLife, and produces on-air segments about music and global culture for National Public Radio (NPR) . Together with Oscar-nominated filmmaker Peter Spirer, Professor Dreisinger produced and wrote the documentaries "Black & Blue: Legends of the Hip-Hop Cop," which investigates the New York Police Department's monitoring of the hip-hop industry, and "Rhyme & Punishment," about hip-hop and the prison industrial complex.
Dr. Dreisinger earned her Ph.D. in English from Columbia University, where she specialized in African-American studies and critical race theory and was named a Whiting Fellow. Her first book "Near Black: White-to-Black Passing in American Culture" (2008) , a cultural history of whites who pass as black, was featured in the New York Times Book Review and on NPR and CNN.
