Since the publication of Michele Alexander's The New Jim Crow books on the criminal justice system have proliferated. In distinction from most of those often excellent investigative reports and analyses of the contemporary moment, this title attempts to sketch a history of crime and punishment's role in the development of capitalist society on explicitly Marxist terms. Title will benefit from the growing academic audience for the book series of which it is a part Peer reviewed nature of the book series provides an inbuilt credibility to other academics working within the field.