Can pris­ons escape that their prac­tices have par­al­lels in plan­ta­tions and con­cen­tra­tion camps? In Imper­mis­si­ble Pun­ish­ments, legal schol­ar Judith Resnik pro­vides an orig­i­nal transat­lantic analy­sis of the birth of the cor­rec­tions pro­fes­sion, debates about pris­ons’ pur­pos­es, and pris­on­ers win­ning recog­ni­tion of their rights. She weaves togeth­er sto­ries of peo­ple gen­er­at­ing pris­ons’ rules and those liv­ing under the results. She maps three cen­turies of pol­i­tics, ideas, and, even­tu­al­ly, legal con­straints delin­eat­ing per­mis­si­ble from imper­mis­si­ble pun­ish­ments. Resnik details the impact of World Wars I and II, con­cen­tra­tion camps, the Unit­ed Nations, the US Civ­il Rights Move­ment, the pio­neer­ing pris­on­ers insis­tent law pro­tect­ed them, the first tri­al of whipping’s con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty, and cur­rent fail­ures of pub­lic and pri­vate prison providers. Under­scor­ing the inter­de­pen­den­cy of peo­ple in and out of prison, Imper­mis­si­ble Pun­ish­ments argues that gov­ern­ments com­mit­ted to equal­i­ty can­not ruin peo­ple whom they detain and many con­tem­po­rary forms of pun­ish­ment need to end.