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 Restoring Peace written by Kirk Blackard and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2007-12 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each week crime victims engage in a process of peace and reconciliation with Texas prison inmates who perpetuated similar crimes against others. Restoring Peace shares their process with others interested in mending broken relationships.

Download or read book From Prison to Peace written by Mary A. Faher and published by WestBow Press. This book was released on 2019-09-19 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I was sentenced to twenty-three months to ten years in Michigan’s only state prison for women, and I would not change a thing about my time behind the barbed wires. I am blessed that God, my Father, loved me enough to sit me down, correct me, and lead me to the foot of the cross. Being born-again and having been adopted into God’s family, I have a new direction and purpose for my life. It has changed me and my life forever. Above all and most importantly, I now know that our Lord Jesus Christ has always been with me and loves me unconditionally. I now live in the peace that only can come from Jesus Christ.

Download or read book Travails To Truth My Peace From Prison written by Roger Chiang and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2009-01-09 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The sequel to "My Peace I Offer You." "Travails To Truth" is a jarring yet heartening memoir about Roger's tenuous twelve months in prison. Now it's Roger's turn to tell his side of the story: Roger is maliciously persecuted by a police foe. Imprisoned in the cosmos of abuse and corruption, prison officials coerce Roger to prevent him from being interviewed for a documentary about his sister's murder. Meanwhile, Roger has enrolled in a prison drug program that is a guise for mind control. Then, just months shy of his release, Roger is condemned to solitary confinement for fighting although prison officials are guilty. Roger boldly fights back by blowing the whistle and an unlikely ally comes to his aid. Still, Roger shows that his human spirit will not be broken by adversity. Join Roger as he sheds a sobering light on America, calls for changes to the beleagured criminal justice system and tells an awe-inspiring story about faith and God.

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"--

Download or read book Letter from a Birmingham Jail written by Dr Martin Luther King and published by HarperOne. This book was released on 2025-01-14 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book See You in the Sky written by Jeri Ross and published by . This book was released on 2019-11-05 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This memoir explores the harmful effects of domestic violence and parental incarceration on children and how families can heal from these experiences.

Download or read book From Prison to Peace written by Dorothy Woods and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2010-06-23 with total page 47 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dorothy Woods shares her testimony about her journey from Prison to Peace. She recalls her lust for material acquisitions and the problems it brought to her life. She thought that money would bring her the peace she needed but it was not until she found the Lord that she experienced true peace. “Before I got arrested I had a Bible in almost every room, but I never took the time to read one. So I started reading my Bible. The Bible became my only friend. The words seemed to just leap right off the pages into me. I read my Bible about 50 time’s front to back. During this time I experienced a “Spiritual Rebirth” which has changed my outlook, given me a new heart, new dreams, new hopes, new ideas, and a new look at the society in which I live.” In this small book the author outlines her journey step by and step and shares with the reader her spiritual experience as she searched for that peace

Download or read book My Fellow Prisoners written by Mikhail Khodorkovsky and published by ABRAMS. This book was released on 2015-02-24 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Russian oil mogul and activist offers reflections on his decades-long incarceration under Putin in this “illuminating and brave” prison memoir (The Washington Post). Mikhail Khodorkovsky was Russia’s most successful businessman—and an outspoken critic of the Kremlin. As his oil company Yukos revived the Russian oil industry, Khodorkovsky began sponsoring programs to encourage civil society and fight corruption. Then he was arrested at gunpoint. Sentenced to ten years in a Siberian penal colony on fraud and tax evasion charges in 2003, Khodorkovsky was put on trial again in 2010 and sentenced to fourteen years on new charges that contradicted the previous ones. While imprisoned, Khodorkovsky fought for the rights of his fellow prisoners, going on hunger strike four times. After he was pardoned in 2013, he vowed to continue fighting for prisoners’ rights, and this book is dedicated to that work. A moving portrait of the prisoners Khodorkovsky met, My Fellow Prisoners is an eye-opening account of Russia’s brutal prison system. “Vivid, humane and poignant” —Financial Times

Download or read book Prelude to Prison written by Marsha Weissman and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-08 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the close of the twentieth century, the United States became known for its reliance on incarceration as the chief means of social control, particularly in poor communities of color. The carceral state has been extended into the public school system in these communities in what has become known as the “school-to-prison pipeline.” Through interviews with young people suspended from school, Weissman examines the impact of zero tolerance and other harsh disciplinary approaches that have transformed schools into penal-like institutions. In their own words, students describe their lives, the challenges they face, and their efforts to overcome those challenges. Unlike other studies, this book illuminates the students’ perspectives on what happens when the educational system excludes them from regular school. Weissman draws attention to research findings that suggest punitive disciplinary policies and practices resemble criminal justice strategies of arrest, trial, sentence, and imprisonment. She demonstrates how harsh school discipline prepares young people from poor communities of color for their place in the carceral state. An invaluable resource for policy makers, Prelude to Prison presents recommendations for policy, practice, and political change that have the potential to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline.

Download or read book From Conflict to Prison and from Prison to Peace written by and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 78 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book When Prisoners Come Home written by Joan Petersilia and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-04-21 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every year, hundreds of thousands of jailed Americans leave prison and return to society. Largely uneducated, unskilled, often without family support, and with the stigma of a prison record hanging over them, many if not most will experience serious social and psychological problems after release. Fewer than one in three prisoners receive substance abuse or mental health treatment while incarcerated, and each year fewer and fewer participate in the dwindling number of vocational or educational pre-release programs, leaving many all but unemployable. Not surprisingly, the great majority is rearrested, most within six months of their release. What happens when all those sent down the river come back up--and out? As long as there have been prisons, society has struggled with how best to help prisoners reintegrate once released. But the current situation is unprecedented. As a result of the quadrupling of the American prison population in the last quarter century, the number of returning offenders dwarfs anything in America's history. What happens when a large percentage of inner-city men, mostly Black and Hispanic, are regularly extracted, imprisoned, and then returned a few years later in worse shape and with dimmer prospects than when they committed the crime resulting in their imprisonment? What toll does this constant "churning" exact on a community? And what do these trends portend for public safety? A crisis looms, and the criminal justice and social welfare system is wholly unprepared to confront it. Drawing on dozens of interviews with inmates, former prisoners, and prison officials, Joan Petersilia convincingly shows us how the current system is failing, and failing badly. Unwilling merely to sound the alarm, Petersilia explores the harsh realities of prisoner reentry and offers specific solutions to prepare inmates for release, reduce recidivism, and restore them to full citizenship, while never losing sight of the demands of public safety. As the number of ex-convicts in America continues to grow, their systemic marginalization threatens the very society their imprisonment was meant to protect. America spent the last decade debating who should go to prison and for how long. Now it's time to decide what to do when prisoners come home.

Download or read book Iran Awakening written by Shirin Ebadi and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2007-04-10 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • The moving, inspiring memoir of one of the great women of our times, Shirin Ebadi, winner of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize and advocate for the oppressed, whose spirit has remained strong in the face of political persecution and despite the challenges she has faced raising a family while pursuing her work. Best known in this country as the lawyer working tirelessly on behalf of Canadian photojournalist, Zara Kazemi—raped, tortured and murdered in Iran—Dr. Ebadi offers us a vivid picture of the struggles of one woman against the system. The book movingly chronicles her childhood in a loving, untraditional family, her upbringing before the Revolution in 1979 that toppled the Shah, her marriage and her religious faith, as well as her life as a mother and lawyer battling an oppressive regime in the courts while bringing up her girls at home. Outspoken, controversial, Shirin Ebadi is one of the most fascinating women today. She rose quickly to become the first female judge in the country; but when the religious authorities declared women unfit to serve as judges she was demoted to clerk in the courtroom she had once presided over. She eventually fought her way back as a human rights lawyer, defending women and children in politically charged cases that most lawyers were afraid to represent. She has been arrested and been the target of assassination, but through it all has spoken out with quiet bravery on behalf of the victims of injustice and discrimination and become a powerful voice for change, almost universally embraced as a hero. Her memoir is a gripping story—a must-read for anyone interested in Zara Kazemi’s case, in the life of a remarkable woman, or in understanding the political and religious upheaval in our world. Praise for Shirin Ebadi and Iran Awakening “This is the riveting story of an amazing and very brave woman living through some quite turbulent times. And she emerges with head unbowed.”—Archbishop Desmond Tutu “The safety and freedom of citizens in democracies is irretrievably bound with the safety and freedom of people like Shirin Ebadi who are fighting to reassert the best achievements of mankind: universal human rights. One of the staunchest advocates for human rights in her country and beyond, Ms. Ebadi, herself a devout Muslim, represents hope for many in Muslim societies that Islam and democracy are indeed compatible.”—Azar Nafisi “A moving portrait of a life lived in truth.”—The New York Times Book Review “A riveting account of a brave, lonely struggle . . . [Iran Awakening] reads like a police thriller, its drama heightened by Ebadi’s determination to keep up the quotidian aspects of her family life.”—The Washington Post Book World “A must read . . . may be the most important book you could read this year.”—Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Download or read book The Toughest Beat written by Joshua Page and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In America today, one in every hundred adults is behind bars. As our prison population has exploded, 'law and order' interest groups have also grown -- in numbers and political clout. In The Toughest Beat, Joshua Page argues in crisp, vivid prose that the Golden State's prison boom fueled the rise of one of the most politically potent and feared interest groups in the nation: the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA). As it made great strides for its members, the prison officers' union also fundamentally altered the composition and orientation of the penal field. The Toughest Beat is essential reading for anyone concerned with contemporary crime and punishment, interest group politics, and public sector labor unions.

Download or read book The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace written by Jeff Hobbs and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-07-28 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jeff Hobbs tells the story of Robert DeShaun Peace, who went from a New Jersey ghetto to Yale but never truly escaped his past.

Download or read book Fourth City written by Doran Larson and published by MSU Press. This book was released on 2014-02-01 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At 2.26 million, incarcerated Americans not only outnumber the nation’s fourth-largest city, they make up a national constituency bound by a shared condition. Fourth City: Essays from the Prison in America presents more than seventy essays from twenty-seven states, written by incarcerated Americans chronicling their experience inside. In essays as moving as they are eloquent, the authors speak out against a national prison complex that fails so badly at the task of rehabilitation that 60% of the 650,000 Americans released each year return to prison. These essays document the authors’ efforts at self-help, the institutional resistance such efforts meet at nearly every turn, and the impact, in money and lives, that this resistance has on the public. Directly confronting the images of prisons and prisoners manufactured by popular media, so-called reality TV, and for-profit local and national news sources, Fourth City recognizes American prisoners as our primary, frontline witnesses to the dysfunction of the largest prison system on earth. Filled with deeply personal stories of coping, survival, resistance, and transformation, Fourth City should be read by every American who believes that law should achieve order in the cause of justice rather than at its cost.

Download or read book From Prison to Peace written by Anthony Jae Gonzalez and published by . This book was released on 2022-06-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: