Walls and Bars

Walls and Bars is a book written by Eugene Victor Debs, a prominent American socialist, labor leader, and political activist. The book is a collection of Debs' speeches and writings on the topic of prison reform and the criminal justice system in the United States. Debs argues that prisons are not effective in rehabilitating criminals and instead perpetuate a cycle of crime and punishment. He advocates for a more humane approach to incarceration, including education and vocational training for prisoners, as well as greater focus on addressing the root causes of crime such as poverty and social inequality. Walls and Bars provides a compelling critique of the American prison system and offers a vision for a more just and equitable society.1927. The book is dedicated To the countless thousands of my brothers and sisters who have suffered the cruel and pitiless torture and degradation of imprisonment in the jails, penitentiaries and other barbarous and brutalizing penal institutions of capitalism under our much-vaunted Christian civilization, and who in consequence now bear the ineffaceable brand of convicts and criminals, this volume is dedicated with affection and devotion by one of their number. Contents: The Relation of Society to the Convict; The Prison as an Incubator of Crime; I Become U.S. Convict, No. 9653; Sharing the Lot of Les Miserables; Transferred From My Cell to the Hospital; Visitors and Visiting; The 1920 Campaign for President; A Christmas Eve Reception; Leaving the Prison; General Prison Conditions; Poverty Populates the Prison; Creating the Criminal; How I Would Manage the Prison; Capitalism and Crime; Poverty and the Prison; Socialism and the Prison; Leaving the Prison; Prison Labor, Its Effects on Industry and Trade; Studies Behind Prison Walls; and Wasting Life.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.