| Abstract: | Nelson Rockefeller is a key piece of the puzzle that is the explosion of the US prison population in the last forty years, thanks both to his drug policies of 1973 and his response to the Attica prison rebellion two years previously, which set in motion a series of changes in prison practice. This essay argues that understandings of Rockefeller’s attitudes about crime and pun-ishment, and US prison growth in general, would be enhanced by paying at-tention to transnational currents, in particular the riptides of the Cold War. It therefore places Rockefeller’s prison-related actions within the context of his long experience in Latin America prior to and during his governorship of New York, showing his evolving anti-communism to be a product of his Latin-American engagements, including a crucial trip to the region in 1969. Contextualizing Rockefeller in this way reveals some of the transnational currents of his punitive turn, as well as the nation’s. |
