Irwin (San Francisco State U.) examines the cause of the five-fold increase in the US prison population during the last two decades of the 20th century, the new forms of imprisonment it produced, and the particular and broader effects it caused. In particular, he looks at the contemporary warehouse and supermax prisons, how prisoners cope in them, how they fare after release, the role of punishment in society, the development of the prison as society's primary penal device, and the history of American prisons.