The Warehouse: A Visual Primer on Mass Incarceration

Mass incarceration is a lived, sensory experience.

The most eye-popping statistics alone cannot relate the enormity of its psychological and societal impacts. This concise, illustrated primer is a collaboration between one of mass incarceration’s sharpest opponents, James Kilgore, and information artist Vic Liu. It brings to life the histories and means of daily survival of the marginalized people ensnared in this racist, ableist system of class-based oppression. The book elegantly weaves together the most insightful activist scholarship with vivid testimonials by incarcerated people as they fight back against oppression and imagine freedom.

Those targeted for incarceration do not simply submit to a monochromatic existence behind bars. The Warehouse showcases the abolition futures being crafted from the inside as people resist through direct action and artistic expression. This book is designed to inform, enrage, and ultimately inspire the same radical hope propelling incarcerated underminers of the carceral state.

Praise for Understanding Mass Incarceration

“This important polemic from Kilgore presents a grim picture of the U.S. criminal justice system… With stunning statistics and heartbreaking stories, the book reveals how the system prevents individuals and their families from moving beyond incarceration.”
—Publishers Weekly

“A graphically pleasing, very readable, emotionally and intellectually engaging work. It is concise, fairly complete, and quite convincing in its presentation of the facts surround the inhumane and socially destructive policy of mass incarceration.”
—Counterpunch

“James Kilgore is one of my favorite commentators regarding the phenomenon of mass incarceration and the necessity of pursuing truly transformative change. Understanding Mass Incarceration provides an excellent, much-needed introduction to the racial, political, and economic dimensions of mass incarceration, as well as a brilliant overview of the competing schools of thought regarding what must be done to end it.”
—Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow

“Useful for anyone with a horse in the race regarding law enforcement—in other words, most American citizens.”
—Kirkus Reviews

About the Creators

James Kilgore is a researcher and activist based in Urbana, Illinois. He is the author of six books, including the National Book Foundation Award-winning A People’s Guide to Mass Incarceration. He drafted four of those volumes during his six and a half years in California prisons. He is a research fellow at MediaJustice, where he founded the Challenging E-Carceration project and is director of advocacy and outreach for FirstFollowers Reentry Program in Champaign, Illinois.

Vic Liu is an artist and author who uses design to communicate complex information with empathy. Most recently, Vic published the expanded version of her visually designed masturbation sex-ed book, Bang! Masturbation for All Genders and Abilities, with Microcosm Publishing.

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