MICHAEL WELCH received a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of North Texas and is Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey (USA). He has correctional experience at the federal, state, and local levels. His research interests include punishment and social control, and he has published numerous articles for academic journals, edited volumes, and other scholarly publications. His key writings have appeared in Justice Quarterly, Journal of Research in Crime & Delinquency, The Prison Journal, Crime, Law & Social Change, Social Justice, Youth & Society, Race, Gender & Class, Critical Criminology: An International Journal, Contemporary Justice Review, American Journal of Criminal Justice, Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, Women & Criminal Justice, Journal of Sport & Social Issues, Criminal Justice Policy Review, Journal of Crime & Justice, Addictive Behaviors: An International Journal, Dialectical Anthropology, Journal of Offender Counseling, Services & Rehabilitation, Social Pathology, Crisis Intervention & Time-Limited Treatment, Federal Probation: Journal of Correctional Philosophy & Practice, and The Justice Professional. Also he is author of Detained: Immigration Laws and the Expanding I.N.S. Jail Complex (2002, Temple University Press), Flag Burning: Moral Panic and the Criminalization of Protest (2000, de Gruyter), Punishment in America: Social Control & the Ironies of Imprisonment (1999, Sage), and Corrections: A Critical Approach, (2>nd edition, 2004, McGraw-Hill). He serves as an Affiliate with Center for Mental Health Services and Criminal Justice Research at Rutgers University. Welch invites you to visit his website www.professormichaelwelch.com
In Punishment in America Michael Welch gathers together his seminal contributions to the most crucial and controversial issues in criminal justice. Topics range from the war on drugs, boot camps and institutional violence to AIDS and HIV, capital punishment and the entire corrections industry. This coherent, but critical vision of punishment and corrections emphasizes social control but takes account of key social forces such as politics, religion and morality.