In 1998, the philosophy department at the State University of New York College at Cortland created an innovative program focused on social philosophy. The key components of the program are social and political philosophy, ethics, and applied philosophy. In 2007, following the successful implementation of the program, the department formed the Center for Ethics, Peace and Social Justice to extend the outreach of the program through publications, conferences, and a summer ethics institute for faculty, all centered on practice and activism. As part of that outreach, we are delighted to co-sponsor the VIBS special series in Social Philosophy. The way we view prisons has undergone constant change. Though popularly assumed that prisons have always been, few realize that the modern prison grew out of the workhouse movement in the early nineteenth century. Jails were holding places before punishment was enacted. Prisons have been considered as the place of penitence and reform (hence “penitentiaries” from a religious root), or punishment and correction. The current understanding of the prison is a conglomeration of all these ideas. The issues surrounding prisons are many and complex: from the moderate Howard League for Penal Reform in the United Kingdom, whose aims are “less crime, safer communities and fewer people in prison,” and The Pennsylvania Prison Society that aims to provide a more humane and restorative correctional system, to more radical calls for total prison abolition. If the aim of prisons is to prevent further harm to society, then neuroscience may yet trump all reformatory movements if it can lead us to discover which parts of the human brain may need modification through drugs or surgery to decrease criminal activities. But such solutions are fraught with moral ambiguity. Important questions this volume asks include: Why the United States has the highest rate of incarceration of all the developed nations? Is the present prison system effective in rehabilitating inmates? What ought to be our perspective on punishment, retribution, restitution and rehabilitation? Why is a disproportionate number of the poor and people of color in prison? The End of Prisons moves beyond abolition of literal prisons to call for the end of all forms of incarceration, including non-human animals and nature. As such, it is a controversial book. Few will agree with everything herein, but a key element of a free society is free discourse and exchange of ideas. Thanks are due to Provost Mark Prus and Amy Henderson-Harr of the Research and Sponsored Programs Office, SUNY Cortland for support and funding for the Social Philosophy series. Thanks, too, to EDB, copyeditor of choice with whom I have worked happily on many projects.