I just started reading Eugene Deb’s "Wall and Bars", his book about being in prison, and how prison supports and is an inherent tool of repression of the capitalist system.
Debs was extraordinary. He was a socialist who was imprisoned on bogus charges for opposing US entry into World War I. In 1920 he ran for president as a socialist from prison and received over one million votes. Then-president Wilson, refused to pardon him, however Harding, the new president, did.
President Wilson, although he apparently loathed Debs, did eventally mirror Deb’s view on the war saying "Is there any man, woman, or child in America, let me repeat, is there any child in America – who does not know this was an industrial and commercial war?"
A quote by Debs from the dust jacket:
"Capitalism must have prisons to protect itself from the criminals it has created."
I’ll be blogging more on the book in the next several days.