TY - BOOK AU - Benson,Sara M. TI - The Prison of Democracy: Race, Leavenworth, and the Culture of Law SN - 9780520969490 AV - HV9474.L5 U1 - 365/.978138 PY - 2019///] CY - Berkeley, CA : PB - University of California Press, KW - Prisons KW - United States KW - History KW - SOCIAL SCIENCE / Criminology KW - bisacsh N1 - Frontmatter --; Contents --; List of Illustrations --; Introduction: The Idea of Leavenworth and the Prison of Democracy --; 1. The Architecture of Liberalism and the Origins of Carceral Democracy --; 2. Territorial Politics: Mass Incarceration and the Punitive Legacies of the Indian Territory --; 3. Federal Punishment and the Legal Time of Bleeding Kansas --; 4. Federal Punishment and the Legal Time of Bleeding Kansas --; 5. Leavenworth's Political Prisoners: Race, Resistance, and the Prison's Archive --; Postscript: "Walls Turned Sideways Are Bridges": Abolition Dreams and the Prison's Aftermath --; Acknowledgments --; Notes --; Bibliography --; Index; Open Access N2 - At publication date, a free ebook version of this title will be available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Built in the 1890s at the center of the nation, Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary was designed specifically to be a replica of the US Capitol Building. But why? The Prison of Democracy explains the political significance of a prison built to mimic one of America's monuments to democracy. Locating Leavenworth in memory, history, and law, the prison geographically sits at the borders of Indian Territory (1825-1854) and Bleeding Kansas (1854-1864), both sites of contestation over slavery and freedom. Author Sara M. Benson argues that Leavenworth reshaped the design of punishment in America by gradually normalizing state-inflicted violence against citizens. Leavenworth's peculiar architecture illustrates the real roots of mass incarceration-as an explicitly race- and nation-building system that has been ingrained in the very fabric of US history rather than as part of a recent post-war racial history. The book sheds light on the truth of the painful relationship between the carceral state and democracy in the US-a relationship that thrives to this day. UR - https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520969490 UR - https://www.degruyter.com/cover/covers/9780520969490.jpg ER -