Texas Tough: The Rise of America’s Prison Empire

Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire is a 2010 book by Robert Perkinson, published by Metropolitan Books.

Perkinson, an American Studies professor at University of Hawaii at Manoa, describes the criminal justice system in Texas and how it formed in the context of the post-United States Civil War environment. Perkinson states that, unlike the prisons described in his book, the early prison systems studied by many criminologists are those in New England. Perkinson describes the historical system as being punishment-only and primarily motivated to suppress black people when it was no longer possible to legally enslave them without their having committed a crime. Therefore, Perkinson perceived this system as a continuation of slavery. The book covers the terms of O.B. Ellis and George Beto as the heads of the Texas prison system, as well as the Ruiz v. Estelle lawsuit. The author argues that in the post-Civil Rights Movement era in the 20th Century the rest of the country ultimately adopted the punitive Southern attitude towards incarceration.

The book criticizes the expansion of incarceration and the pro-incarceration political movements.

The book's title originates from an October 2000 report by the Justice Policy Institute. Perkinson spent over 10 years researching the book; he consulted 30 archival collections, conducted ethnographic research, and used government records. Perkinson also interviewed David Ruiz, the plaintiff of Ruiz v. Estelle; William Wayne Justice, a federal judge; other current prisoners; former prisoners; prison guards; congressional officials; other writers; reform activists; and attorneys.

Sasha Abramsky of the Columbia Journalism Review argued that "Perkinson tells a generally compelling (if overlong and occasionally unfocused) story, which blends history, cultural commentary, folklore, and ethnography." Abramsky recommends reading Texas Tough and Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison (2010) at the same time, because of the juxtaposition of the two different types of prison environments and prisoners described.

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