Author Description

"This edited volume compares and contrasts the prison systems of sixteen nations throughout the world, approaching them along a variety of dimensions and focusing on patterns of crisis and change over the last two decades." "Filling a lacuna in comparative studies of penal practice, this book identifies the common and unique problems that penal systems around the world face and, in sociological analyses, the authors compare the variety of penal responses. This volume brings together for the first time analyses of non-industrial and industrial nations and compares relatively "stable" nations such as Japan with nations experiencing profound political and economic change such as South Africa and Poland. The book concludes with a discussion of the prospects for social and penal change in these various nations."--Jacket.