Illness or Deviance?
Is drug addiction a disease that can be treated, or is it a crime that should be punished? In her probing study, Illness or Deviance?, Jennifer Murphy investigates the various perspectives on addiction, and how society has myriad ways of handling it – incarcerating some drug users while putting others in treatment.
Illness or Deviance? highlights the confusion and contradictions about labeling addiction. Murphy’s fieldwork in a drug court and an outpatient drug treatment facility yields fascinating insights, such as how courts and treatment centers both enforce the “disease” label of addiction, yet their management tactics overlap treatment with “therapeutic punishment”. The “addict” label is a result not just of using drugs, but also of being a part of the drug lifestyle, by selling drugs. In addition, Murphy observes that drug courts and treatment facilities benefit economically from their cooperation, creating a very powerful institutional arrangement.
Clean and White
A History of Environmental Racism in the United States, by Carl Zimring, environmental historian and professor of sustainability studies at Pratt institute. Environmental racism is an age-old theme of equating cleanliness with whiteness – including working in professions that clean – clothes, streets, sewers, and more. As well as cleanliness in living areas. CLEAN AND WHITE outlines how social, economic, media – from news to advertising, political and cultural practices have enforced, literally propagandistically, that notion. In a sense, not allowing cleanliness to define any race other than white. A University Press Audiobooks release.
The Poverty Industry
The exploitation of America’s most vulnerable, NYU Press Audiobooks. Law professor Daniel L. Hatcher (University of Baltimore) shows how money intended for orphans, foster kids, the disabled and seniors are diverted into the pockets of government agencies and private industry.
Forgotten Trials of the Holocaust
Law professors Frank M. Teurkheimer (also a former Watergate prosecutor) and Michael J. Bazyler describe 10 court dramas of trials held apart from the famous Nuremberg tribunal of World War II Nazi and kapo defendants accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and colluding in the genocide of more than 9 million people.
Just Violence: Torture and Human Rights in the Eyes of the Police
University of Virginia professor Rachel Wahl explains how police experience human rights policies and advocates in light of what they consider their duty – to support the state in maintaining order. Although her research focuses on Ghandi’s home of India, police attitudes and practices tend to be similar the world over.
Private Equity at Work: When Wall Street Manages Main Street
University Press Audiobooks. Professor Eileen Appelbaum, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research shows how lobbyists writing bills passed by funded politicians and deregulation have destroyed honest and successful businesses through avaricious financial engineering practices devoted almost exclusively to private equity firm owners’ profits. Co-author is Professor Rosemary L Blatt (Cornell University).
Lillian Hellman – Her Life and Legend
Carl Rollyson Audiobooks. Probably the most controversial American playwright, screenwriter and political activist – most noted for standing up to Sen. Joe McCarthy’s “Un-American Activities Committee” and refusing to give names – has her life story brought to life. Funny, informative, thoughtful, shocking, critical, outrageous and with a fair share of dish, biographer Carl Rollyson shares insights and take us beyond what’s in the book!
Where Rivers Meet the Sea: The Political Ecology of Water
Professor Stephanie C. Kane (Indiana University) takes us into the dark world where citizen water protectors are assassinated, corporations and government use water for profit while leaving the poor without enough, where pollution destroys fresh and sea water sources. Most of Kane’s research takes place in Brazil and Argentina, but the problems described are similar the world over.
Bullying – A Social Destruction of Self
By one of the world’s most authoritative experts on the subjects, Laura Martooci, sociologist and the Founder and Director of the S.A.R.A. Project (Students Against Relational Aggression). Laura discusses the latest findings on research of bullies themselves, targets of bullying and the effects of bullying on the individual as well as groups, culture and society. A University Press Audiobook.