“Schoenfeld’s meticulously researched Building the Prison State is a major contribution to our understanding of mass incarceration. Schoenfeld conveys the horrors of the US punishment system, while at the same time capturing the most basic fact that this horror—and the racism at its core—is routine. Rather than focus on the agendas of conservatives, or liberals, she rightly focuses on the massive increase in carceral capacity that both have developed through new reforms that expand our ever-growing system of policing, parole, probation, and prisons. This is an indispensable book.”

Naomi Murakawa, Princeton University, author of The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America

“Schoenfeld masterfully merges punishment and race theories to explain how state punitive policies and practices not only endure over time and space, but are dramatically expanded through carceral capacity—a state’s ability to punish by creating new criminal justice institutions. This is a must-read for anyone thinking deeply about the racial politics of criminal justice policy and potential solutions for prison reform.”

John Eason, Texas A&M University, author of Big House on the Prairie: Rise of the Rural Ghetto and Prison Proliferation

"Nuanced and complicated. . . . Schoenfeld’s flexible approaches toward reform intent, and [her] nimble shifts from macro- to micro-levels of analysis, are promising."

Law and Social Inquiry