Beyond Prisons
Beyond Prisons: A New Interfaith Paradigm for Our Failed Prison System explores the history of the American penal system and presents a moral and ethical criticism of the state of the current prison system.
Beyond Prisons: A New Interfaith Paradigm for Our Failed Prison System is available for purchase on Amazon.
The Autobiography of an Execution
David Dow’s new book The Autobiography of an Execution chronicles his own life as a defense lawyer for inmates on death row.“I do not want my clients to be killed, and I can’t stand them,” he writes.
Read more about the book here.
Inside and Out: Women, Prison, and Therapy
Elaine Leeder’s book Inside and Out: Women, Prison, and Therapy takes a look at the growing problem of female incarceration. Leeder’s uses her feminist perspective to dispel stereotypes about women offenders. The book also includes an in-depth analysis of how violence has affected women and led to increased criminality.
Inside and Out: Women, Prison, and Therapy can be purchased on Amazon.com.
The Prison and the American Imagination
Caleb Smith’s The Prison and the American Imagination is a study of incarceration and the dehumanizing loss of freedom as an inherent part of being an American. Smith references political as well as literary texts in his argument.
The Prison and the American Imagination is available to purchase from Amazon.
Islam in Prison
Islam in American Prisons takes a close look at the pattern of conversion to Islam among inmates in American prisons. The book states that prisoners looking for some form of redemption often turn to religion, and specifically Islam.
Islam in American Prisons is available for purchase on Amazon.
Warden
…I’d tell them that I’d be back a little before six. This was never a surprise. They knew what six meant. Most of them had had years to think about it.
-Excerpt from Warden by Jim Willet
Jim Willett has presided over 89 legal executions, more than any man alive. Warden is Willett’s account of working in Texas prisons. Using his own journals, Willett recalls big events and small details that make up the fabric of his prison career. Warden is available for purchase on Amazon.
Sensible Justice
Former New York Times editor, David C. Anderson’s Sensible Justice: Alternatives to Prison describes the writer’s research of alternative criminal justice systems such as community based work and house arrest.
Sensible Justice: Alternatives to Prison is available for purchase on Amazon.
053803: Life at Fifteen
Robert Gagnon’s autobiography, 053803: Life at Fifteen, recounts his experiences in Florida prison after he was given a life sentence at the age of 15 in 1976. Gagnon purposely attempted to get arrested by robbing a bank, hoping to get access to drug and alcohol counseling, however by accidentally wounding a bank employee, was tried as an adult by the conspiring prosecution and judge.
Gagnon describes his techniques for surviving the violent prisoners, corrupt guards, and insanity by listening to older prisoners, learning a trade skill, and at one point even starting his own cult in which he manipulated other prisoners to torture and kill animals. Gagnon’s 10 year ordeal is truly a story of survival.
053803: Life at Fifteen is available for purchase on Amazon.
Prison Hospital Reform
Reform in a Prison Hospital: A Dramatic Case Study of Bioethics, Criminal Justice and Public Administration gives the account of the degradation that a whistle-blowing physician and an ombudsman where treated with after pointing out the insufficient conditions of medical treatment in Nebraska State Prisons.
…what it teaches is not something we want to learn. But, having sanctioned this incarceration regime, we American voters must sit still to hear the truth about what, in our willful stupidity, we have caused to happen.
Thomas Schrock, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Santa Barbara
Reform in a Prison Hospital: A Dramatic Case Study of Bioethics, Criminal Justice and Public Administration is available for purchase on Amazon.
Everything I Didn’t Learn in Kindergarten I Learned in Prison
Restorative Justice System in a Prison Community: Everything I Didn’t Learn in Kindergarten I Learned in Prison by Cheryl Swanson shows an inside look of the development of an “Honor Dorm” in an Alabama Prison. The book recounts the developments in policy that gave way to the Honor Dorm as well as recounts everyday problem-solving with inmates.
Restorative Justice System in a Prison Community: Everything I Didn’t Learn in Kindergarten I Learned in Prison is available for purchase on Amazon.
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