Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Y. Davis
Published 2003 · 278 pages · 30,000 words · about 2 hours at an average pace · Nonfiction, Politics & Society
How hard is Are Prisons Obsolete? to read?
Are Prisons Obsolete? scores 28 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 35 out of 100
- Academic vocabulary with legal and sociological terms. Accessible to general readers.
- Sentence structure: 30 out of 100
- Abstraction: 40 out of 100
- Structural analysis of institutions grounded in historical specifics.
- Information density: 48 out of 100
- Packed with historical evidence and statistical data in a short book.
- Narrative indirection: 80 out of 100
- Direct polemic. Thesis stated early and reinforced throughout.
- Symbolic density: 15 out of 100
- The prison as symbol of racial control.
- Ironic distance: 12 out of 100
- Controlled outrage. Lets facts carry the moral weight.
- Resolution withholding: 100 out of 100
- Davis proposes abolition as a concrete alternative.
- Structural complexity: 18 out of 100
- Six chapters. Linear argument building to a conclusion.
How Are Prisons Obsolete? is regarded
Are Prisons Obsolete? holds a literary regard score of 60 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.