Winner of the American Society of Criminology's Michael J. Hindelang Book Award

The mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic in California’s prisons stands out as the state’s worst-ever medical catastrophe in a carceral setting. Fester offers a cultural history of this correctional disaster through first-person accounts, courtroom observations, policy documents, and years of carefully collected quantitative data. Bearing witness to the immense suffering wrought on people behind bars through dehumanization, fear, and ignorance, Fester explains how carceral cruelty also threatens the health and well-being of all Californians. This book stands as a monument to the brave coalition of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people and their loved ones, along with activists, doctors, journalists, and lawyers, who fought to shed light on one of the darkest times in the Golden State’s correctional system.