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 Jail Journeys written by Philip Priestley and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2023-10 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1989, this title presents the English prison system in the words of those who had endured it as prisoners or who had worked within it. 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.

Download or read book Going Up the River written by Joseph T. Hallinan and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2003-07-08 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American prison system has grown tenfold in thirty years, while crime rates have been relatively flat: 2 million people are behind bars on any given day, more prisoners than in any other country in the world — half a million more than in Communist China, and the largest prison expansion the world has ever known. In Going Up The River, Joseph Hallinan gets to the heart of America’s biggest growth industry, a self-perpetuating prison-industrial complex that has become entrenched without public awareness, much less voter consent. He answers, in an extraordinary way, the essential question: What, in human terms, is the price we pay? He has looked for answers to that question in every corner of the “prison nation,” a world far off the media grid — the America of struggling towns and cities left behind by the information age and desperate for jobs and money. Hallinan shows why the more prisons we build, the more prisoners we create, placating everyone at the expense of the voiceless prisoners, who together make up one of the largest migrations in our nation’s history.

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 Going Up the River written by Joseph T. Hallinan and published by Random House. This book was released on 2001-06-01 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American prison system has grown tenfold in thirty years, while crime rates have been relatively flat: 2 million people are behind bars on any given day, more prisoners than in any other country in the world — half a million more than in Communist China, and the largest prison expansion the world has ever known. In Going Up The River, Joseph Hallinan gets to the heart of America’s biggest growth industry, a self-perpetuating prison-industrial complex that has become entrenched without public awareness, much less voter consent. He answers, in an extraordinary way, the essential question: What, in human terms, is the price we pay? He has looked for answers to that question in every corner of the “prison nation,” a world far off the media grid — the America of struggling towns and cities left behind by the information age and desperate for jobs and money. Hallinan shows why the more prisons we build, the more prisoners we create, placating everyone at the expense of the voiceless prisoners, who together make up one of the largest migrations in our nation’s history.

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 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 Prison Nation written by Paul Wright and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-23 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prison Nation is a distant dispatch from a foreign and forbidden place--the world of America's prisons. Written by prisoners, social critics and luminaries of investigative reporting, Prison Nation testifies to the current state of America's prisoners' living conditions and political concerns. These concerns are not normally the concerns of most Americans, but they should be. From substandard medical care the inadequacy of resources for public defenders to the death penalty, the issues covered in this volume grow more urgent every day. Articles by outstanding writers such as Mumia Abu-Jamal, Noam Chomsky, Mark Dow, Judy Green, Tracy Huling and Christian Parenti chronicle the injustices of prison privatization, class and race in the justice system, our quixotic drug war, the rarely discussed prison AIDS crisis and a judicial system that rewards mostly those with significant resources or the desire to name names. Correctional facilities have become a profitable growth industry, for companies like Wackenhut that run them and companies like Boeing that use cheap prison labor. With fascinating narratives, shocking tales and small stories of hope, Prison Nation paints a picture of a world many Americans know little or nothing about.

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 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 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 For a Song and a Hundred Songs written by Yiwu Liao and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2013 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the renowned Chinese poet in exile comes a gorgeous and shocking account of his years in prison following the Tiananmen Square protests.

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 The Buddhist on Death Row written by David Sheff and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the #1 New York Times bestselling author, an extraordinary story of redemption in the darkest of places.

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 American Prison written by Shane Bauer and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-09-18 with total page 368 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 Getting Life written by Michael Morton and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-07-28 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "On August 13, 1986 ... 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 Sheriff's office in Texas wasted no time in pinning her murder on [him] ... Michael was swiftly sentenced to life in prison for a crime he had not committed ... It would take twenty-five years--and thousands of hours of effort on the part of Michael's lawyers, including the team at the New York-based Innocence Project--before DNA evidence was brought to light that would ultimately set Michael free"--