A Wall Is Just a Wall

Summary:"A Wall is Just a Wall examines the connections between incarcerated people and those outside of prisons in the United States since the conclusion of World War II. Reiko Hillyer shows how these connections decreased in the latter half of the twentieth century and incarcerated people became increasingly cut off from the free world. Beginning with an examination of the notorious Louisiana State Penitentiary known as Angola and its Travelling Ambassadors program, which allowed inmates to travel throughout the state for speaking engagements, Hillyer notes that, until the late 1970s, even lifetime sentences to prison were understood as temporary. Louisiana State prisoners with life sentences were routinely let out after 10 years and 6 months, while the federal system defined a life sentence as 15 years. Thus, interaction between inmates and free populations encouraged inmates' eventual reintegration into outside society. By the 1990s, state and national legislation restricted outside visits and lengthened sentences, further separating incarcerated populations from free populations and limiting the ability of prisoners to fashion constructive social identities. Each of the book's three sections focuses on a single policy that allows for connections between inmates and free citizens: gubernatorial clemency and pardons, conjugal and family visits, and temporary furloughs. A Wall is Just a Wall demonstrates that the current impermeability of the prison is neither natural nor inevitable, but rather a recent, uneven, and contested phenomenon"-- Provided by publisher