Prison Break: Why Conservatives Turned Against Mass Incarceration

Event Details

In this Great Issues book talk, Professor Steven Teles will be discussing his new book, Prison Break: Why Conservatives Turned Against Mass Incarceration. 

American conservatism rose hand-in-hand with the growth of mass incarceration and deployed "tough on crime" rhetoric. Over the last few years, conservatives in Washington, D.C. and in bright-red states like Georgia and Texas, have reversed course, and are now leading the charge to curb prison growth. Prison Break examines how this turn of events occurred, how it will affect mass incarceration, and what it teaches us about achieving policy breakthroughs in our polarized age. Combining insights from law, sociology, and political science, Prison Break offers the first comprehensive account of this major political shift.

Steven Teles is associate professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University, and is the author of The Conservative Legal Movement in America.