Contempt of Court
A Scholar's Battle for Free Speech from Behind Bars
Published on 16. June 2005
Book
Paperback/Softback
248 pages
978-0-7591-0643-7 (ISBN)
Description
In 1993 Rik Scarce was imprisoned for contempt of court in Spokane, Washington. For five months he refused to testify to a federal grand jury about his interviews with animal rights activists after they had broken into a research laboratory, and his story made headlines in numerous newspapers. Now Scarce tells of his jailing and the rationale behind his ethical stance, bringing an ethnographer's trained sensibility and a journalist's storytelling skill to his tale. Viewed as an outsider even by his fellow inmates, Scarce gained from his imprisonment a painful, rare glimpse of the jail world. This text raises serious questions about the failures of the American justice system and protection of civil liberties, and is a valuable resource for criminologists, sociologists, and corrections professionals.
Reviews / Votes
Contempt of Court is the story of one man's 'constitutional struggle,' as Rik Scarce puts it, a fight in support of the First Amendment, but an intensely personal struggle as well. His journey to and through jail is a moving study in courage and American ideals in practice. Anyone interested in the darker side of our criminal justice system, and in the lives of all those who are locked in our jails, will find in Contempt of Court a first-hand account like none other. -- Richard A. Leo, University of California, Irvine Books dealing with life in prison typically have relied on interviews or questionnaires administered by social scientists or informal descriptions by prisoners who are not social scientists. This book by sociologist Rik Scarce bridges this gap with a penetrating ethnographic analysis based on his 159 days of incarceration, occasioned by his refusal to identify the subjects used in his dissertation. He brings the prison situation to life to a degree that few have been able to achieve. -- John F. Galliher, Missouri University-ColumbiaMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
California
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 228 mm
Width: 149 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
384 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-7591-0643-7 (9780759106437)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Rik Scarce is the author of two books, Eco-Warriors: Understanding the Radical Environmental Movement (1990) and Fishy Business: Salmon, Biology, and the Social Construction of Nature (2000). He is a professor in the Department of Sociology at Skidmore College, and previously taught at Michigan State University and Montana State University. He has also been a newspaper reporter, worked as an aide to two politicians, and has done research and writing for a consulting firm.
Content
1 Foreword 2 Acknowledgements 3 Cast of Characters and Glossary 4 Chapter 1: A Sense of Justice 5 Chapter 2: Kicking Uncle Sam's Ass 6 Chapter 3: Find Me Some Amendments 7 Chapter 4: The Meaning of Devotion 8 Chapter 5: I'd Gladly Die Right Now 9 Chapter 6: Joint Joints 10 Chapter 7: A Final Rollup 11 Chapter 8: Some Things Do Not Come to Pass 12 About the Author