Last Chance in Texas

Last Chance in Texas
Author: John Hubner
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2008-04-29
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1588361632

A powerful, bracing and deeply spiritual look at intensely, troubled youth, Last Chance in Texas gives a stirring account of the way one remarkable prison rehabilitates its inmates. While reporting on the juvenile court system, journalist John Hubner kept hearing about a facility in Texas that ran the most aggressive–and one of the most successful–treatment programs for violent young offenders in America. How was it possible, he wondered, that a state like Texas, famed for its hardcore attitude toward crime and punishment, could be leading the way in the rehabilitation of violent and troubled youth? Now Hubner shares the surprising answers he found over months of unprecedented access to the Giddings State School, home to “the worst of the worst”: four hundred teenage lawbreakers convicted of crimes ranging from aggravated assault to murder. Hubner follows two of these youths–a boy and a girl–through harrowing group therapy sessions in which they, along with their fellow inmates, recount their crimes and the abuse they suffered as children. The key moment comes when the young offenders reenact these soul-shattering moments with other group members in cathartic outpourings of suffering and anger that lead, incredibly, to genuine remorse and the beginnings of true empathy . . . the first steps on the long road to redemption. Cutting through the political platitudes surrounding the controversial issue of juvenile justice, Hubner lays bare the complex ties between abuse and violence. By turns wrenching and uplifting, Last Chance in Texas tells a profoundly moving story about the children who grow up to inflict on others the violence that they themselves have suffered. It is a story of horror and heartbreak, yet ultimately full of hope.

The Book of Chance

The Book of Chance
Author: Sue Whiting
Publisher: Walker Books Australia
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2020-04-01
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1760651451

Chance is a black-and-white thinker until she realises that sometimes there are shades of grey. Chance is in Year 7 and thinks she has it all - a loving mother, dog Tiges, best friend and almost-sister next door. But when a reality TV team makes over her house, she discovers newspaper cuttings from the past that cause her to question the world as she knows it and everyone in it. Then she finds herself caught between two realities, identities and worlds. Face-to-face with the truth, Chance has a very difficult decision to make, which almost splits her in two. This powerful story explores what is true and what is fake in today’s world. And while Chance is all about the truth, she ponders whether "Maybe being truthful was really just a big lie." The Book of Chance by Sue Whiting, Highly Commended, 2021 Davitt Awards Best Children’s Crime Book

A Second Chance at Murder

A Second Chance at Murder
Author: Diana Orgain
Publisher: Berkley
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2016
Genre: Man-woman relationships
ISBN: 0425271692

When former reality TV stars Georgia Thornton and her boyfriend, Scott, compete in a new show that takes them on an athletic journey across the countryside of Spain, the competition turns deadly when Scott disappears and a woman's body is found.

The Second Chance Club

The Second Chance Club
Author: Jason Hardy
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2021-02-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1982128607

A former parole officer shines a bright light on a huge yet hidden part of our justice system through the intertwining stories of seven parolees striving to survive the chaos that awaits them after prison in this illuminating and dramatic book. Prompted by a dead-end retail job and a vague desire to increase the amount of justice in his hometown, Jason Hardy became a parole officer in New Orleans at the worst possible moment. Louisiana’s incarceration rates were the highest in the US and his department’s caseload had just been increased to 220 “offenders” per parole officer, whereas the national average is around 100. Almost immediately, he discovered that the biggest problem with our prison system is what we do—and don’t do—when people get out of prison. Deprived of social support and jobs, these former convicts are often worse off than when they first entered prison and Hardy dramatizes their dilemmas with empathy and grace. He’s given unique access to their lives and a growing recognition of their struggles and takes on his job with the hope that he can change people’s fates—but he quickly learns otherwise. The best Hardy and his colleagues can do is watch out for impending disaster and help clean up the mess left behind. But he finds that some of his charges can muster the miraculous power to save themselves. By following these heroes, he both stokes our hope and fuels our outrage by showing us how most offenders, even those with the best intentions, end up back in prison—or dead—because the system systematically fails them. Our focus should be, he argues, to give offenders the tools they need to re-enter society which is not only humane but also vastly cheaper for taxpayers. As immersive and dramatic as Evicted and as revelatory as The New Jim Crow, The Second Chance Club shows us how to solve the cruelest problems prisons create for offenders and society at large.

The Great American Crime Decline

The Great American Crime Decline
Author: Franklin E. Zimring
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2008-11-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0199702535

Many theories--from the routine to the bizarre--have been offered up to explain the crime decline of the 1990s. Was it record levels of imprisonment? An abatement of the crack cocaine epidemic? More police using better tactics? Or even the effects of legalized abortion? And what can we expect from crime rates in the future? Franklin E. Zimring here takes on the experts, and counters with the first in-depth portrait of the decline and its true significance. The major lesson from the 1990s is that relatively superficial changes in the character of urban life can be associated with up to 75% drops in the crime rate. Crime can drop even if there is no major change in the population, the economy or the schools. Offering the most reliable data available, Zimring documents the decline as the longest and largest since World War II. It ranges across both violent and non-violent offenses, all regions, and every demographic. All Americans, whether they live in cities or suburbs, whether rich or poor, are safer today. Casting a critical and unerring eye on current explanations, this book demonstrates that both long-standing theories of crime prevention and recently generated theories fall far short of explaining the 1990s drop. A careful study of Canadian crime trends reveals that imprisonment and economic factors may not have played the role in the U.S. crime drop that many have suggested. There was no magic bullet but instead a combination of factors working in concert rather than a single cause that produced the decline. Further--and happily for future progress, it is clear that declines in the crime rate do not require fundamental social or structural changes. Smaller shifts in policy can make large differences. The significant reductions in crime rates, especially in New York, where crime dropped twice the national average, suggests that there is room for other cities to repeat this astounding success. In this definitive look at the great American crime decline, Franklin E. Zimring finds no pat answers but evidence that even lower crime rates might be in store.

The Boss

The Boss
Author: Rebecca Gannon
Publisher:
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2021-05-16
Genre:
ISBN:

Abrianna Leo Carfano was my everything. Until I woke up one day and he was gone, leaving me with three parting words written on a piece of paper that have haunted me for the past five years. But even after all this time, the pain in my chest is still as prominent as ever, and there isn't a day that goes by without him invading my mind. He's my walking nightmare. When my eyes meet his hard stare again in the last place I expect to see him, he makes me question everything I thought I knew about why he left. He seeks absolution in his confessions, and although they break me further, I can't help but see the truth that's laced in everything he does and says. I'm his. Always. Which is why he's the only one I trust when everything I thought I knew about my life is a lie. Leo Abrianna Fleming was the light in my dark world. An angel I never deserved. I wanted to give her forever, but she was never mine to keep. When it was time for me to step up and claim the throne I was born to rule, I did the only thing I knew would keep her safe and alive. Dragging her into my world would make her the number one target of my enemies, but after five years of depriving myself of her, one look into her eyes has me forgetting any plan I thought I had. Because I'll be damned if I give her up a second time. Being together has the potential to destroy the both of us and the family names we bear, but Abrianna is mine, and I'll eliminate anyone who tries to hurt or take her away from me.

Chinaman's Chance

Chinaman's Chance
Author: Ross Thomas
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2005-01-14
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0312334141

Originally published: New York: Simon & Schuster, 1978.

The Hunting Accident

The Hunting Accident
Author: David L. Carlson
Publisher: First Second Books
Total Pages: 472
Release: 2017-09-19
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1626726760

The hunting accident -- Little Italy -- A young man's trouble with the law -- Code of silence -- The truth -- Nathan Leopold -- The darkness -- Plato's cave -- The inferno -- The übermensch -- Principles of sound -- The woods of the suicides -- Final exam -- The sins of the fathers -- The glim box -- The letter -- Purgatorio -- Paradiso.

Chance

Chance
Author: Andrew Rule
Publisher: Macmillan Publishers Aus.
Total Pages: 323
Release: 2021-08-31
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1760988359

'If you want to bet on numbers, go to a casino. If you want theatre, go to the races.' - Les Carlyon All his life, Andrew Rule has watched racing's heroes and villains, dreamers and schemers. In Chance, he distils the daring, the desperation and danger of the track, peeling back some of racing's most famous and infamous moments, its celebrations and its secrets, the grittiness behind the glitz. There are stories of those who set the odds and those who take them, betting plunges planned more carefully than bank robberies, of tricky trainers, reckless jockeys and bold bookmakers. Tough and sometimes tender, dark and sometimes funny, Chance transcends the industry they call the sport of kings.

Crime, Shame and Reintegration

Crime, Shame and Reintegration
Author: John Braithwaite
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 242
Release: 1989-03-23
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780521356688

Crime, Shame and Reintegration is a contribution to general criminological theory. Its approach is as relevant to professional burglary as to episodic delinquency or white collar crime. Braithwaite argues that some societies have higher crime rates than others because of their different processes of shaming wrongdoing. Shaming can be counterproductive, making crime problems worse. But when shaming is done within a cultural context of respect for the offender, it can be an extraordinarily powerful, efficient and just form of social control. Braithwaite identifies the social conditions for such successful shaming. If his theory is right, radically different criminal justice policies are needed - a shift away from punitive social control toward greater emphasis on moralizing social control. This book will be of interest not only to criminologists and sociologists, but to those in law, public administration and politics who are concerned with social policy and social issues.