Abstract
With more than 550,000 people under some form of criminal justice supervision, and having recently performed its 517th execution by lethal injection, the Lone Star State has a reputation for harsh judicial punishment. Similarly, while the Texan prison population has actually decreased (albeit marginally) over the past five years, the phrase ‘Don’t Mess With Texas’ has nevertheless gained symbolic significance far beyond the anti-littering campaign for which it was originally contrived. Still heralded as one of the most punitive places in the Western world, Texas supposedly ‘reigns supreme in the punishment industry’ (Perkinson 2010, p. 4).
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Thurston, H. (2016). Introduction. In: Prisons and Punishment in Texas. Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53308-1_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53308-1_1
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