Julie A Dowling and Jonathan Xavier Inda (eds), Governing Immigration through Crime: A Reader
| Author | Ingrid V Eagly |
| DOI | 10.1177/1462474513506836 |
| Published date | 01 December 2013 |
| Date | 01 December 2013 |
| Subject Matter | Book reviews |
federal and state laws on special education and the Americans with Disabilities Act
are being used to demand better treatment of youth in the justice system. There are
pending or emerging lawsuits in many states that challenge the practices of juvenile
corrections systems in these areas, whereas illegal practices in adult facilities, espe-
cially for persons under age 21 are yet to be litigated. Also the relatively new federal
Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 will expand protections and oversight to
children handled by the criminal justice system.
The American Juvenile Court was created, in part, to rescue youth from the
harsh criminal justice. This unique contribution to jurisprudence was often
honored in the breech. But the steady march toward more enlightened care of
our children seems to be moving every slowly forward. This fine book by Mays
and Ruddell is a valuable tool for modern day reformers.
References
Roper v Simmons 543 U.S.551, (2005).
Graham v. Florida 560 U.S. (2010).
Barry Krisberg
University of California, Berkeley, USA
Julie A Dowling and Jonathan Xavier Inda (eds), Governing Immigration through Crime: A Reader,
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013; 320 pp.: 9780804785419, $29.95 (pbk)
A compelling new volume of essays edited by Julie A Dowling and Jonathan
Xavier Inda, appropriately entitled Governing Immigration through Crime: A
Reader, begins by recounting a large-scale immigration raid at a meatpacking
plant in Postville, Iowa. In May 2008, federal immigration officers entered the
Postville plant and arrested hundreds of immigrant workers. Federal prosecutors
then brought criminal charges against these workers, accusing them of using false
documents to secure work in the United States. Most workers pled guilty, received
federal prison sentences, and ultimately were deported. The small Midwestern town
lost one-third of its residents and was left ‘in shambles’ (pp. 2–3).
The Postville raid thus sets the stage for the book’s objective, which, in the words
of the editors, is ‘to provide an interdisciplinary introduction to [the] terrain of
governing immigration through crime’ (p. 28). Readers learn that ‘governing
through crime’, a concept that builds on Jonathan Simon’s influential work, is the
process through which ‘crime and punishment’ becomes ‘the institutional context in
which efforts to guide the conduct of immigrants take place’ (p. 2). Immigration
governance through crime, according to Dowling and Inda, ‘has aggressively crim-
inalized unauthorized immigrants’, primarily through border enforcement, interior
policing, detention, and deportation (pp. 2–3). The editors explain that ‘undocu-
mented migrants have come to be governed through crime’ because they
‘have largely been constructed as criminal ‘‘illegal’’ immigrants who harm the
560 Punishment & Society 15(5)
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