Download or read book American Prison written by Shane Bauer and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-06-11 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An enraging, necessary look at the private prison system, and a convincing clarion call for prison reform.” —NPR.org New York Times Book Review 10 Best Books of 2018 * One of President Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2018 * Winner of the 2019 J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize * Winner of the Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism * Winner of the 2019 RFK Book and Journalism Award * A New York Times Notable Book A ground-breaking and brave inside reckoning with the nexus of prison and profit in America: in one Louisiana prison and over the course of our country's history. In 2014, Shane Bauer was hired for $9 an hour to work as an entry-level prison guard at a private prison in Winnfield, Louisiana. An award-winning investigative journalist, he used his real name; there was no meaningful background check. Four months later, his employment came to an abrupt end. But he had seen enough, and in short order he wrote an exposé about his experiences that won a National Magazine Award and became the most-read feature in the history of the magazine Mother Jones. Still, there was much more that he needed to say. In American Prison, Bauer weaves a much deeper reckoning with his experiences together with a thoroughly researched history of for-profit prisons in America from their origins in the decades before the Civil War. For, as he soon realized, we can't understand the cruelty of our current system and its place in the larger story of mass incarceration without understanding where it came from. Private prisons became entrenched in the South as part of a systemic effort to keep the African-American labor force in place in the aftermath of slavery, and the echoes of these shameful origins are with us still. The private prison system is deliberately unaccountable to public scrutiny. Private prisons are not incentivized to tend to the health of their inmates, or to feed them well, or to attract and retain a highly-trained prison staff. Though Bauer befriends some of his colleagues and sympathizes with their plight, the chronic dysfunction of their lives only adds to the prison's sense of chaos. To his horror, Bauer finds himself becoming crueler and more aggressive the longer he works in the prison, and he is far from alone. A blistering indictment of the private prison system, and the powerful forces that drive it, American Prison is a necessary human document about the true face of justice in America.
Download or read book Jail Journey written by James Leo Phelan and published by . This book was released on 1940 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Jail Journeys written by Philip Priestley and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-10-25 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1989, Jail Journeys was a contemporary history of the English prison system in the words of those who had endured it as prisoners or who had worked within it. More than 1000 extracts from more than 150 first-hand accounts of life ‘inside’ chronicle the empty routines of the prison day and tell of the loneliness, the despair, the squalor, the fights, the friendships, the sex, the humour. There are also eye-witness accounts of the Dartmoor Mutiny, of hangings and floggings, of escapes, and personal statements by the well-known – James Phelan, Wilfred Macartney, Albert Pierrepoint, Charles Kray, John McVicar, Jimmy Boyle, Alfie Hinds, Lord Alfred Douglas – and by many others less well known. These testimonies, by turn dramatic, literate and naïve, add up to an implicit sociology of the twentieth-century English prison, depicting a divided social structure with ‘screws’ on one side and ‘cons’ on the other. The book is aimed at anyone with an interest in social issues and twentieth-century history as well as students of law, history, sociology, criminology, and social administration, and at professionals working in all these fields.
Download or read book The Master Plan written by Chris Wilson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-02-05 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inspiring, instructive, and ultimately triumphant memoir of a man who used hard work and a Master Plan to turn a life sentence into a second chance. Growing up in a tough Washington, D.C., neighborhood, Chris Wilson was so afraid for his life he wouldn't leave the house without a gun. One night, defending himself, he killed a man. At eighteen, he was sentenced to life in prison with no hope of parole. But what should have been the end of his story became the beginning. Deciding to make something of his life, Chris embarked on a journey of self-improvement--reading, working out, learning languages, even starting a business. He wrote his Master Plan: a list of all he expected to accomplish or acquire. He worked his plan every day for years, and in his mid-thirties he did the impossible: he convinced a judge to reduce his sentence and became a free man. Today Chris is a successful social entrepreneur who employs returning citizens; a mentor; and a public speaker. He is the embodiment of second chances, and this is his unforgettable story.
Download or read book Getting Life written by Michael Morton and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-07-08 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A devastating and infuriating book, more astonishing than any legal thriller by John Grisham” (The New York Times) about a young father who spent twenty-five years in prison for a crime he did not commit…and his eventual exoneration and return to life as a free man. On August 13, 1986, just one day after his thirty-second birthday, Michael Morton went to work at his usual time. By the end of the day, his wife Christine had been savagely bludgeoned to death in the couple’s bed—and the Williamson County Sherriff’s office in Texas wasted no time in pinning her murder on Michael, despite an absolute lack of physical evidence. Michael was swiftly sentenced to life in prison for a crime he had not committed. He mourned his wife from a prison cell. He lost all contact with their son. Life, as he knew it, was over. Drawing on his recollections, court transcripts, and more than 1,000 pages of personal journals he wrote in prison, Michael recounts the hidden police reports about an unidentified van parked near his house that were never pursued; the bandana with the killer’s DNA on it, that was never introduced in court; the call from a neighboring county reporting the attempted use of his wife’s credit card, which was never followed up on; and ultimately, how he battled his way through the darkness to become a free man once again. “Even for readers who may feel practically jaded about stories of injustice in Texas—even those who followed this case closely in the press—could do themselves a favor by picking up Michael Morton’s new memoir…It is extremely well-written [and] insightful” (The Austin Chronicle). Getting Life is an extraordinary story of unfathomable tragedy, grave injustice, and the strength and courage it takes to find forgiveness.
Download or read book My Road Home written by Jerry Byrne and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2011-05 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On June 22nd, 2007, following a conviction for securities fraud, Jerry Byrne was sentenced to prison for 2 1/3rd to 7 years. Byrne is led away in tears. That very afternoon he is shackled and put on a steaming hot bus, along with 30 other prisoners, for the 2 hour drive out to notorious Rikers Island prison, NY. He spends his first night shuttled from cell to cell, one more overcrowded than the next. His journey begins........ His nightmarish 3 week stay at Rikers is followed by 3 weeks at Downstate Correctional Facility, a processing prison, where inmates get "state ready" for their eventual trip up North. Byrne eventually lands at Mohawk CF, in Rome NY, his new home for the next 11 months. What began as letters and a blog to his parents and family, turns into a 'daily diary' detailing all that he experiences during his ordeal. He takes you from the heartache and despair of his new surroundings, introducing the many characters he meets along the way. From a double murderer who befriends Byrne on day 1, to the kidnappers, drug dealers, and sexual predators he encounters along the way. Every move is watched, there is no such thing as privacy. Byrne works hard at gaining respect, befriending one or two inmates who look out for him, but the slashings & fighting are everywhere. He lives in constant fear of making a false move and winding up in the dreaded "Box," a prison within a prison. Follow him as the despair eventually turns into redemption and strength. For with the loss of freedom comes the realization that all those 'little things in life' that he once took for granted, mean so much to him now, and how he can't wait for the day to reclaim them. Vowing never to lose them again. Not being able to bear the thought of subjecting his loving sons to witness him 'behind the wall, ' Byrne is eventually released after 13 months and is reunited with his two sons.
Download or read book Face written by Matt Kern and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2003-07-08 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the beginning of the seventh to the end of the eighth grade Matt went from being an A student to flunking out. While repeating the eighth grade, he was the MVP in three sports and was stealing cars on weekends. One night in April, 1988, he and two friends went out to steal a car. One of the friends shot and killed the driver. Trying to avoid a mandatory 25 years in prison, Matt accepted a plea of 60 years because he hoped he could reduce time served from 30 years to 12. Most young males are victimized by the dominant inmates in prison. At DeSoto Correctional Institute he was the youngest male among 1,100 men. Unbeknownst to his parents, Matt thrived in prison. He made and sold wine and loansharked, among other things. With his profits he bank-rolled a gambling operation. At one point he was sending money home to his brother. He paid one inmate to iron his clothes and another one to make his bed. But in his 6th year of incarceration he hit a man with a pipe in the middle of the night. He was sent to Close Management or "Solitary," for 13 months. For the first time he had experienced guilt for something he had done. It was the beginning of a spiritual awakening. The details of the crime and of his life leading up to it, the details of Matt's "business interests" while in prison, a love affair with an attractive female guard, the details of the fight mentioned above and the providential way in which Matt got clemency from Governor Chiles four months before he died of a heart attack, is all part of a riveting story.
Download or read book Hope Beyond Bars written by Jedidiah Duaya and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2018-06-23 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Being behind bars doesnt make you, as an inmate, less of a human being. Therefore, do not identify yourself with your temporary situation. But since you are behind bars, you need to take responsibility. And while taking responsibility, you need to forgive yourself and forgive those who might have done you wrong. And once you forgive, then you need to live life in jail, in prison, or under house arrest by following rules and demonstrating good behavior to help make your sentence easier and maybe shorter. And until you get free, do not waste your time in a cell doing nothing of value; instead, put your potential, abilities, and gifts to use. And lastly, mentally prepare yourself to live life beyond bars by applying every single lesson learned from the cell. The church and society need to address the issue of ex-inmates reentry as partners and complement each other in facing this issue. The society and the church need to understand that just because these individuals are behind bars, that doesnt make them any less human than everybody else. They have a right to live, a right to be forgiven, and a right to be accepted back into society. These individuals are called inmates while serving time, but once they have paitd their dues and are set free, that name changes to ex-inmates and should eventually switch to citizens. Where society falls short, the church needs to pick up the slack and serve these citizens. And where the church falls short, society needs to step in and help these citizens. We cannot afford to let these ex-inmates live in a life cycle where they go in and out of jail, prison, and house arrest. We have to prove the statistics wrong. Society can provide programs to help these citizens reintegrate much more smoothly. The church can finally become what it was intended to be and provide a safe environment in which these restored citizens will live a life worthy of being called citizens and not return to old behavior and a life back behind bars.
Download or read book The Prison Angel written by Mary Jordan and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-05-30 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The winners of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting tell the astonishing story of Mary Clarke. At the age of fifty, Clarke left her comfortable life in suburban Los Angeles to follow a spiritual calling to care for the prisoners in one of Mexico's most notorious jails. She actually moved into a cell to live among drug king pins and petty thieves. She has led many of them through profound spiritual transformations in which they turned away from their lives of crime, and has deeply touched the lives of all who have witnessed the depth of her compassion. Donning a nun's habit, she became Mother Antonia, renowned as "the prison angel," and has now organized a new community of sisters-the Servants of the Eleventh Hour—widows and divorced women seeking new meaning in their lives. "We had never heard a story like hers," Jordan and Sullivan write, "a story of such powerful goodness." Born in Beverly Hills, Clarke was raised around the glamour of Hollywood and looked like a star herself, a beautiful blonde reminiscent of Grace Kelly. The choreographer Busby Berkeley spotted her at a restaurant and offered her a job, but Mary's dream was to be a happy wife and mother. She raised seven children, but her two unfulfilling marriages ended in divorce. Then in the late 1960s, in midlife, she began devoting herself to charity work, realizing she had an extraordinary talent for drumming up donations for the sick and poor. On one charity mission across the Mexican border to the drug-trafficking capitol of Tijuana, she visited La Mesa prison and experienced an intense feeling that she had found her true life's work. As she recalls, "I felt like I had come home." Receiving the blessings of the Catholic Church for her mission, on March 19, 1977, at the age of fifty, she moved into a cell in La Mesa, sleeping on a bunk with female prisoners above and below her. Nearly twenty-eight years later she is still living in that cell, and the remarkable power of her spiritual counseling to the prisoners has become legendary. The story of both one woman's profound journey of discovery and growth and of the deep spiritual awakenings she has called forth in so many lost souls, The Prison Angel is an astonishing testament to the powers of personal transformation.
Download or read book Un Trip through the Mind Jail y Otras Excursiones written by Raul Salinas and published by Arte Publico Press. This book was released on 1999-11-30 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is the long-awaited second edition of a pioneer work of Chicano literature, originally published as a collection in 1980 after individual poems by Salinas had appeared in numerous magazines, newspapers, and anthologies from the 1960s through the 1970s. These fifteen years of poetry forged in the heat of the Chicano movement (a period Salinas spent, in part, in prison) reveal the growing politicization of intelligent and talented minority convicts incarcerated at a time when their communities were marching forward. As with Ricardo Sànchez and Jimmy Santiago Baca, prison bars were not strong enough to limit SalinasÍs highly lyric, even rhapsodic calls for liberationpoems inspired by jazz, the Beat writers, nature, and political skirmishes. Un Trip through the Mind Jail will stand for generations as a seminal text of Chicano and U. S. minority literature.
Download or read book Incarceration Nations written by Baz Dreisinger and published by Other Press, LLC. This book was released on 2016-02-09 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this crucial study, named one of the Washington Post's Notable Nonfiction Books of 2016 and now in paperback, Baz Dreisinger goes behind bars in nine countries to investigate the current conditions in prisons worldwide. Beginning in Africa and ending in Europe, Incarceration Nations is a first-person odyssey through the prison systems of the world. Professor, journalist, and founder of the Prison-to-College-Pipeline program, Dreisinger looks into the human stories of incarcerated men and women and those who imprison them, creating a jarring, poignant view of a world to which most are denied access, and a rethinking of one of America's most far-reaching global exports: the modern prison complex. From serving as a restorative justice facilitator in a notorious South African prison and working with genocide survivors in Rwanda, to launching a creative writing class in an overcrowded Ugandan prison and coordinating a drama workshop for women prisoners in Thailand, Dreisinger examines the world behind bars with equal parts empathy and intellect. She journeys to Jamaica to visit a prison music program, to Singapore to learn about approaches to prisoner reentry, to Australia to grapple with the bottom line of private prisons, to a federal supermax in Brazil to confront the horrors of solitary confinement, and finally to the so-called model prisons of Norway. Incarceration Nations concludes with climactic lessons about the past, present, and future of justice.
Download or read book Making Preparations for Your Prison Journey What Your Attorney Can T Tell You written by Sheryl A. Loftis and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2015-12-16 with total page 46 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is written for all of the women and men that are already incarcerated and for those who are getting ready to take a journey to prison. So many times we wonder how could I have gotten myself into this mess or why me? My answer to you is why not you? A person sentenced to a term in prison, can either do their time or let their time do them. Although, you feel whats the use, I have no control over anything that happens. I disagree; your control lies in the Masters Hands. Its not so much your going to prison, but it is what you do while you are in prison. Women and men alike go to prison with the mentality Im bad or I can make it through this, but not so. Im sure you have heard the saying, make the money, dont let the money make you, well the same it is with prison. Do your time, dont let the time do you, because whether you believe it or not, time can and will do you. How do I know? I am glad you asked. Anyone that goes to prison whether guilty or innocence, once they are released and return back to prison or if they are bitter and not better; guess what, they did not do the time the time did them.
Download or read book My Prison Journey An Incredible Achievement written by BHANUBHAI PATEL and published by BHANUBHAI PATEL. This book was released on with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have you ever heard or read about a world record in education in the most adverse environment of the prison? Probably the answer would be 'No'. I must admit that I was fortunate to accomplish such an achievement in the prison and outside the prison. I am very curious to share with you and reveal to you all the aspects and secrets of my achievement that led to the world record in education in prison. 'Adversity causes some men to break, others to break records' a maxim by famous maxim writer 'William Arthur Ward' which has been proved appropriate by my achievement. Because I accomplished this achievement in the most adverse and indifferent prison environment. The goal was very tough and difficult because education and prison are very contradictory and conflicting in nature. Generally, studying in a prison environment is a very difficult task. It's like swimming in the opposite direction of the flow. Have I also revealed what kind of environment is there in prison? From the outside, only projections and guesses can be made about it. Most prisoners in prison suffer from negative factors such as anxiety, frustration, worry, fear, depression, despair, anger, feelings of retaliation, etc. Sometimes they may lose their mental stability and mental balance. Incarceration makes life difficult for prisoners inside the prison and outside the prison after their release. In such a prison's negative environment, it is very difficult to form a circle of mental peace, mental balance, and a positive attitude for noble and sacred activities like education which needs a special role of the sound mind. At the age of fifty, I began to study again in life in an adverse and negative environment of prison. Even though both my place of study (prison) and my age (50+) did not match with the activities of study, I completed 31 educational courses in this adverse environment of the prison, At the same time, performing the duty of managing study centers located inside the prison premises and set a world record in education. This book has been written with my sublime desire to share my immense pleasure and contentment with my unique, unparalleled achievement and how I accomplished it. After being released from prison, I continued my study while doing a full-time job at Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Open University and completed 23 more educational courses taking the tally of my educational courses to 54. I completed them with good grades and in just 12 years. Being a prisoner is destiny; but establishing a world record as a prisoner in education in prison is a testament to the ability to shape one's personality with strong morale, self-confidence, and inner strength. This book is based on my prison experience or my prison journey and in my prison experience, education was at the center. I chose the medium of this book to convey my message to my readers revealing how I accomplished this gigantic task. Hopefully, this life story will prove to be inspiring to you and will encourage you with great vigor and passion to achieve your unique, unimaginable achievements and to conquer the highest peaks in life. With best wishes. "Prison is a laboratory of turning difficulties and adversities into success." – Bhanu Patel
Download or read book Rage to Redemption written by Joseph W. Hahne and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2011-06-20 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of the 17 years Joe spent living an out of control life on the edge, five of those years resulted in time behind bars in various county jails and prisons in three different states. It was during these times when he found himself locked up that Joe wrote hundreds of poems as a release from the many emotions he experienced while incarcerated. The poems shared in Rage to Redemption were compiled and published in the order in which they were originally written. If you choose to read the poems in order from front to back, you will actually see a life transforming through the words on these pages. The book as a whole tells a beautiful story that starts with much despair and unfolds into a life of love, faith, hope and joy. While Rage and Redemption has a spiritual base, it also contains some graphic imagery that portrays where the author's frame of mind was during his darkest hours. This book is full of pain, loneliness, inspiration and redemption. There is something for everyone in this poetry, even if you are not a traditional poetry fan. They are real poems that were written by a real man who deals with real issues. Take a minute to read some of this work. We're sure you too will find something that touches you.
Download or read book Crash Course written by Pippin Ross and published by Fulton Books, Inc.. This book was released on 2024-01-26 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is an overdue and provocative account from the frontline of how a reporter's search for the truth resulted in bad-guy revenge and professional and emotional demise. An intriguing, fact and personality-packed, often humorous, chronicle on how she deployed drugs and alcohol to numb her mission to ignore life's setbacks. Instead of relief came guilt, shame, the demolition of friends, family, career, and a prison sentence. Ross provides a simple solution. Life is more intriguing when we take ego and attitude out to the trash.
Download or read book Jail Journeys written by Philip Priestley and published by Routledge. This book was released on 1989-01-01 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Prison Life Thoughts written by Simon Mohler Landis and published by Good Press. This book was released on 2020-12-08 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experience the profound reflections in "Prison-Life Thoughts." Set in the 1870s, this classic work by Landis delves deep into historical narratives, offering readers a glimpse into the past. Its timeless themes resonate with those interested in understanding the intricacies of history and society.
