Listen free for 30 days

  • American Furies

  • Crime, Punishment, and Vengeance in the Age of Mass Imprisonment
  • Written by: Sasha Abramsky
  • Narrated by: Sasha Abramsky
  • Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo + applicable taxes after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
American Furies cover art

American Furies

Written by: Sasha Abramsky
Narrated by: Sasha Abramsky
Try for $0.00

$14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $23.31

Buy Now for $23.31

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Tax where applicable.

Publisher's Summary

In this disturbing yet elegant exposé of US penitentiaries and their surrounding communities, Sasha Abramsky shows how American prisons have abandoned their long-held ideal of rehabilitation, often for political reasons. After surveying our current state of affairs - life sentences for nonviolent crimes, appalling conditions for inmates, the growth of private prisons, the treatment of juveniles - Abramsky argues that our punitive policies are not only inhuman but deeply counterproductive.

Brilliantly researched and compellingly told, American Furies reveals the devastating consequences of a society that believes in "lock 'em up and throw away the key".

©2007 Sasha Abramsky (P)2018 Random House Audio

What the critics say

"The most intelligent and haunting indictment of the American prison system that I have ever read. Sasha Abramsky has shone an incandescent lamp on a shadowy underground universe that holds and in all too many cases brutalizes the lives of more than two million Americans. He should be commended for doing so, and his book made required reading for every legislator in the land, bar none." (Simon Winchester, author of A Crack in the Edge of the World and The Professor and the Madman)

"A well-researched book on a significant American problem that's often locked away behind bars." (Publishers Weekly)

"The most urgent book of the season. Sasha Abramsky provides us with an invaluable, if harrowing, audit of the cataclysmic damage inflicted upon American values by American prisons. The lack of compassion in our national life and the gangrened hearts of our politicians pose greater threats to our childrens' futures than any overseas terrorist conspiracy." (Mike Davis, professor of history at University of California, Irvine and author of seven books, including Planet of Slums and The Monster at Our Door)

What listeners say about American Furies

Average Customer Ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.