Soros Justice Fellowships

University of Hawaii

Robert Perkinson is writing a history of American punishment with an emphasis on the country’s most incarcerated and politically influential state: Texas. Examining the dynamics of race, crime, culture, and politics from slavery to the present, the book argues that Texas has served as the crucible of a uniquely harsh, racialized, and profit-driven style of punishment that became a template for the nation in the post-civil-rights era. Based on archival, legal, cultural, and ethnographic sources, it promises not only a richly textured history of the nation’s flagship penal system but critical insights into the evolution of modern American politics. Charting the enduring influence of slavery and segregation on American life, the book casts new light on the rise of Southern conservatism, the collapse of the social welfare state, and carceral elements of the war on terror. Titled Texas Tough: The Rise of a Prison Empire, Perkinson’s book will be published by Metropolitan Books/ Henry Holt.

Perkinson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of American Studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. He received his BA from the University of Colorado at Boulder and his MA and PhD in American Studies from Yale University. He has written on an array of historical, social, and political topics. Recent articles have addressed the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, the history of the World Bank in Asia, U.S. foreign policy since 9/11, and the legacy of convict leasing. His work has appeared in numerous popular and scholarly forums, from The Straights Times and Boston Review to Radical History Review and the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars. Perkinson has also worked with numerous activist and criminal justice reform organizations, among them the Drug Policy Forum of Hawai‘i, Critical Resistance, the University of Hawai‘i Professional Assembly, and Yale’s Graduate Employee Student Organization.

Honolulu, HI |  One Year |