Prisongate


Book Description

During his time as Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons, Sir David Ramsbotham advocated radical reform, but his suggestions were barely acknowledged by ministers and officials. In this book, he reveals the truth about Britain's prisons.




From Prison Gates to a Gates Estate


Book Description

FOR ALMOST TWENTY YEARS, ROBERT DIXON made his living and sustained his methamphetamine addiction by robbing drug dealers. The dealers and the police of the San Francisco Bay Area all wanted him. He wasn't always able to allude them--over 50 arrests, eight prison stints, and two bullets in his body all testify to how dangerous an existence he had chosen. From Prison Gates to A Gated Estate is an adventure documentary of a life that seemed out of control and destined to be pitifully short lived. As retired Roseville police officer (Street Crimes Unit and Drug Enforcement) Scott Jetter wrote, "Bobby Dixon should be dead several times over. We in law enforcement consider individuals like him as hopeless. Rather than the risks and dangers associated with his lifestyle reforming him, he continued to perfect his 'craft' as a criminal, raising the likelihood that he would one day come to a violent end or life in prison." Here are Dixon's opinions of prison and how the system works (or, doesn't work) and his early life of crime, drugs, and run-ins with law enforcement. Later he recounts his highly successful and unorthodox rise in business, and his most recent activism and successes through picketing unjust lawyers, banks, and businesses. Though uneducated, he possesses an uncanny sense of human nature when dealing with the street and while incarcerated, and, obviously, as an entrepreneur. A true life-story with a compelling inspirational/motivational twist for people who need to understand that much of what makes a person successful is attitude, a strong self-image, and the ability to endlessly rebound. The author's story shows that no matter how old a person is, it's never too late to change directions. From Prison Gates to A Gated Estate should be especially useful to families and friends of people who are caught up in a destructive lifestyle--it proves that there is hope.




Prison Patter


Book Description

Rita Hayworth dancing by candlelight in a small Mexican village; Elizabeth Taylor devouring homemade pasta and tenderly wrapping him in her pashmina scarf; streaking for Sir Laurence Olivier in a drafty English castle; terrifying a dozing Jackie Onassis; carrying an unconscious Montgomery Clift to safety on a dark New York City street. Captured forever in a unique memoir, Frank Langella's myriad encounters with some of the past century's most famous human beings are profoundly affecting, funny, wicked, sometimes shocking, and utterly irresistible. With sharp wit and a perceptive eye, Mr. Langella takes us with him into the private worlds and privileged lives of movie stars, presidents, royalty, literary lions, the social elite, and the greats of the Broadway stage. What, for instance, was Jack Kennedy doing on that coffee table? Why did the Queen Mother need Mr. Langella's help? When was Paul Mellon going to pay him money owed? How did Brooke Astor lose her virginity? Why was Robert Mitchum singing Gilbert & Sullivan patter songs at top volume, and what did Marilyn Monroe say to him that helped change the course of his life? Through these shared experiences, we learn something, too, of Mr. Langella's personal journey from the age of fifteen to the present day. Dropped Names is, like its subjects, riveting and unforgettable.




Halfway Home


Book Description

A "persuasive and essential" (Matthew Desmond) work that will forever change how we look at life after prison in America through Miller's "stunning, and deeply painful reckoning with our nation's carceral system" (Heather Ann Thompson). Each year, more than half a million Americans are released from prison and join a population of twenty million people who live with a felony record. Reuben Miller, a chaplain at the Cook County Jail in Chicago and now a sociologist studying mass incarceration, spent years alongside prisoners, ex-prisoners, their friends, and their families to understand the lifelong burden that even a single arrest can entail. What his work revealed is a simple, if overlooked truth: life after incarceration is its own form of prison. The idea that one can serve their debt and return to life as a full-fledge member of society is one of America's most nefarious myths. Recently released individuals are faced with jobs that are off-limits, apartments that cannot be occupied and votes that cannot be cast. As The Color of Law exposed about our understanding of housing segregation, Halfway Home shows that the American justice system was not created to rehabilitate. Parole is structured to keep classes of Americans impoverished, unstable, and disenfranchised long after they've paid their debt to society. Informed by Miller's experience as the son and brother of incarcerated men, captures the stories of the men, women, and communities fighting against a system that is designed for them to fail. It is a poignant and eye-opening call to arms that reveals how laws, rules, and regulations extract a tangible cost not only from those working to rebuild their lives, but also our democracy. As Miller searchingly explores, America must acknowledge and value the lives of its formerly imprisoned citizens. PEN America 2022 John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction Finalist Winner of the 2022 PROSE Award for Excellence in Social Sciences 2022 PROSE Awards Finalist 2022 PROSE Awards Category Winner for Cultural Anthropology and Sociology An NPR Selected 2021 Books We Love As heard on NPR’s Fresh Air










Understanding Prison Staff


Book Description

The past decade has seen dramatic growth in every area of the prison enterprise. Yet our knowledge of the inner life of the prison remains limited. This book aims to redress this research gap by providing insight into various aspects of the daily life of prison staff. It provides a serious exploration of their work and, in doing so, will seek to draw attention to the variety, value and complexity of work within prisons. This book will provide practitioners, students and the general reader with a comprehensive and accessible guide to the contemporary issues and concerns facing prison staff.




The Mammoth Book of Prison Breaks


Book Description

True stories of prison breaks including those of Frank Abagnale, whose story is told in Catch Me If You Can; Henri Charrière who claimed to have escaped from the supposedly inescapable Devil's Island - the true story as opposed to his questionable memoir, Papillon; Bud Day, said to be the only US serviceman ever to have escaped to South Vietnam; the six prisoners who escaped from Death Row in Mecklenburg Correctional Center; and Pascal Payeret, the French armed robber who escaped not once, but twice from French prisons with the help of a helicopter.







Waiting at the Prison Gate


Book Description

The Russian Federation has one of the largest prison populations in the world. Women in particular are profoundly affected by the imprisonment of a family member. Families and Punishment in Russia details the experiences of these women-be they wives, mothers, girlfriends, daughters-who, as relatives of Russia's three-quarters of a million prisoners, are the "invisible victims" of the country's harsh penal policy. A pioneering work that offers a unique lens through which various aspects of life in twenty-first century Russia can be observed: the workings of criminal sub-cultures; societal attitudes to parenthood, marriage and marital fidelity; young women's quests for a husband; nostalgia for the Soviet period; state strategies towards dealing with political opponents; and the social construction of gender roles.