This week continues the conversation between Toussaint Losier and Micol Seigel.

This is part two of a series in which we hear Losier, author of Rethinking the American Prison Movement, speak to Seigel about his research while writing his book, in which he builds a cohesive picture of the long history of incarceration.  In this episode, Losier speaks about resistance to incarceration from WWII to the early 1970s.  For Losier, this period is where we find the rise of the “big house” ideal, with prisons seen as a primarily rehabilitative institution.  This period saw unprecedented gains in prisoner self-determination and labor organizing, and particularly intense struggle in “the prison rebellion years” of 1968-1972.