The Prison and the American Imagination

The Prison and the American Imagination
Author: Caleb Smith
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2009
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780300141665

How did a nation so famously associated with freedom become internationally identified with imprisonment? After the scandals of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, and in the midst of a dramatically escalating prison population, the question is particularly urgent. In this timely, provocative study, Caleb Smith argues that the dehumanization inherent in captivity has always been at the heart of American civil society. Exploring legal, political, and literary texts—including the works of Dickinson, Melville, and Emerson—Smith shows how alienation and self-reliance, social death and spiritual rebirth, torture and penitence came together in the prison, a scene for the portrayal of both gothic nightmares and romantic dreams. Demonstrating how the “cellular soul” has endured since the antebellum age, The Prison and the American Imagination offers a passionate and haunting critique of the very idea of solitude in American life.

Special Category

Special Category
Author: Ruan O'Donnell
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012
Genre: Northern Ireland
ISBN: 9780716531418

A major 3-part work that is the definitive history of Irish Republican prisoners detained in England's maximum security prisons during the modern 'Troubles'. Based on private correspondence, declassified government documents, international media reports, and memoirs of key protagonists, this book tells the story of all the major riots, roof top protests, sabotage attacks and escape attempts undertaken by the IRA, as well as the little-known 'blanket protest' in several prison locations in England. Volume 2 tells the full story of the Wormwood Scrubs 'riot' of August 1979, Brixton breakout of December 1980 and the pivotal Albany 'mutiny' of May 1983, told for the firs time using fresh eye-witness accounts as well official and public sources. This ground breaking book confirms that the 'prison war' in England was a far more important IRA theatre of action than previously believed. -- Publisher description.

Sentence

Sentence
Author: Daniel Genis
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2022-02-22
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0698405765

A memoir of a decade in prison by a well-educated young addict known as the "Apologetic Bandit" In 2003 Daniel Genis, the son of a famous Soviet émigré writer, broadcaster, and culture critic, was fresh out of NYU when he faced a serious heroin addiction that led him into debt and ultimately crime. After he was arrested for robbing people at knifepoint, he was nicknamed the “Apologetic Bandit” in the press, given his habit of expressing regret to his victims as he took their cash. He was sentenced to twelve years—ten with good behavior, a decade he survived by reading 1,046 books, taking up weightlifting, having philosophical discussions with his fellow inmates, working at a series of prison jobs, and in general observing an existence for which nothing in his life had prepared him. Genis describes in unsparing and vivid detail the realities of daily life in the New York penal system. In his journey from Rikers Island and through a series of upstate institutions, he encounters violence on an almost daily basis, while learning about the social strata of gangs, the “court” system that sets geographic boundaries in prison yards, how sex was obtained, the workings of the black market in drugs and more practical goods, the inventiveness required for everyday tasks such as cooking, and how debilitating solitary confinement actually is—all while trying to preserve his relationship with his wife, whom he recently married. Written with empathy and wit, Sentence is a strikingly powerful memoir of the brutalities of prison and how one man survived them, leaving its walls with this book inside him, “one made of pain and fear and laughter and lots of other books.”

Within Prison Walls

Within Prison Walls
Author: Thomas Mott Osborne
Publisher: Good Press
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2023-10-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

"Within Prison Walls" by Thomas Mott Osborne. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

English Society and the Prison

English Society and the Prison
Author: Alyson Brown
Publisher: Boydell Press
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2003
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781843830177

This social history analyses a period in which the modern prison faced serious challenges both on practical & philosophical grounds. These included the use of prison to victimise the poor, the disaffected & political activists, & the failure to establish the prison as a satisfactory means of punishment.

Little Book of Prison

Little Book of Prison
Author: Frankie Owens
Publisher: Waterside Press
Total Pages: 115
Release: 2012
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 1904380832

Koestler Platinum Award Winner (judged by author and comedian Will Self). As Frankie Owens writes in The Little Book of Prison (LBP), Society wants to know about prison life, an interesting place to visit but you wouldn't want to live there. --An easy-to-read prison survival guide of do's and don'ts. --Perfect for anyone facing trial for an offence that may lead to imprisonment, their families and friends --Packed with humour as well as more serious items --Backed by prisoner support organizations --Straightforward and highly entertaining. Frankie started writing the LBP from day two of entering prison as a first-time offender. He had no idea how the system or a prison worked. He was clueless about it all and it was hard for him going in and frightening for the family and loved ones he left behind. The writing began as self-help and as the days progressed it occurred to Frankie that the LBP would prove useful to first-time offenders as well as other prisoners and help them get through what is surely one of the most difficult times in their lives. It also motivated him to get out on the prison wing and find out as much as possible about his new home. There are a lot of books about people in prison, people in far worse places than Frankie was and on far longer sentences. But the LBP is a book about prison not people, and will help new inmates, their friends and families get to know what to expect from the system. The LBP is a masterpiece in comic writing but somehow gets through to people with serious information in a way that more formal texts cannot. Already organizations connected to the criminal justice system are beginning to acknowledge that Frankie Owen's LBP is an ideal read for people facing the trauma of a first prison sentence. It will also be of considerable interest to other prisoners or people working in a custodial setting. "If people want to know what prison is like it's for them, if people need to know what happens in prison it's definitely for them". Frankie Owens was prisoner A1443CA at Her Majesty's pleasure until 2 August 2011. Publisher's note.

The Puzzle of Prison Order

The Puzzle of Prison Order
Author: David Skarbek
Publisher:
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2020
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0190672498

Many people think prisons are all the same-rows of cells filled with violent men who officials rule with an iron fist. Yet, life behind bars varies in incredible ways. In some facilities, prison officials govern with care and attention to prisoners' needs. In others, officials have remarkably little influence on the everyday life of prisoners, sometimes not even providing necessities like food and clean water. Why does prison social order around the world look so remarkably different? In The Puzzle of Prison Order, David Skarbek develops a theory of why prisons and prison life vary so much. He finds that how they're governed-sometimes by the state, and sometimes by the prisoners-matters the most. He investigates life in a wide array of prisons-in Brazil, Bolivia, Norway, a prisoner of war camp, England and Wales, women's prisons in California, and a gay and transgender housing unit in the Los Angeles County Jail-to understand the hierarchy of life on the inside. Drawing on economics and a vast empirical literature on legal systems, Skarbek offers a framework to not only understand why life on the inside varies in such fascinating and novel ways, but also how social order evolves and takes root behind bars.

In Prison

In Prison
Author: Kate Richards O'Hare
Publisher: New York, A. A. Knopf
Total Pages: 234
Release: 1923
Genre: Crime
ISBN:

The Prison Within

The Prison Within
Author: Don Cummins
Publisher:
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2020-11-20
Genre:
ISBN: 9781734892604

It's 2011 and Don is homeless. He's a hard-core, street-level drug addict. He's a secluded loner, and he's been declared by the courts to be insane. And as if that weren't enough, he's also served over twenty years in prison for bank robberies - and he's been charged with yet another one. It's 2018 and Don is a homeowner. He's sober and has genuine friends. He's married and he's become the father of two young boys. He's the Director of Software Development for an international financial services company. He's also a transformational speaker, helping others by spreading a message of hope and self-forgiveness. The Prison Within: A Memoir of Breaking Free is the true, inspirational story of how despair and extreme isolation miraculously turned to hope, connection, and true success. The journey begins as an out of control train wreck, twisting downward through the madness of seedy drug motels, mental institutions, and prison yards. But Don's path takes a desperate turn, and a slow climb leads to personal awakening, transformation, and healing that propels him upward to make an astonishing comeback.