This classic book tells the harrowing and inspirational story of Robert Elliott Burns' imprisonment on a chain gang in Georgia in the 1920s, his subsequent escape from the chain gang (twice, no less!), and the public furor that developed across the nation. The book was immediately turned into a famous movie, sparking outrage about prison conditions and involuntary servitude that led to major reforms. This memoir is also simply a very interesting read. Originally issued in 1931 as a six-part serial in the pages of True Detective Mysteries magazine, and printed by the Vanguard Press the following year, this is an autobiographical account - written while in hiding, probably somewhere on the East Coast - of the author's painful adventures in the Georgia penal system, beginning with his arrest for stealing $5.80 from an Atlanta grocer in 1922. Burns' candid intent was to expose the brutality and corruption of the chain gang system, and he succeeded: the book created an instant furor upon publication and became a bestseller for its publisher. It served as the basis for the Mervyn LeRoy film released later in 1932, starring Paul Muni in the role of Robert Elliott Burns. The film heralded a new genre - the prison drama -and won three Oscars including a Best Actor Award for Muni. It is an enduring classic of its time and remains a compelling and timeless memoir.

Numerous studies indicate that completing a college degree reduces an individual's likelihood of recidivating. However, there is little research available to inform best practices for running college programs inside jails or prisons or supporting returning citizens who want to complete a college degree. Higher Education Accessibility Behind and Beyond Prison Walls examines program development and pedagogical techniques in the area of higher education for students who are currently incarcerated or completing a degree post-incarceration. Drawing on the experiences of program administrators and professors from across the country, it offers best practices for (1) developing, running, and teaching in college programs offered inside jails and prisons and (2) providing adequate support to returning citizens who wish to complete a college degree. This book is intended to be a resource for college administrators, staff, and professors running or teaching in programs inside jails or prisons or supporting returning citizens on traditional college campuses.

In this groundbreaking volume, based on extensive research in Chinese archives and libraries, Jan Kiely explores the pre-Communist origins of the process of systematic thought reform or reformation (ganhua) that evolved into a key component of Mao Zedong's revolutionary restructuring of Chinese society. Focusing on ganhua as it was employed in China's prison system, Kiely's thought-provoking work brings the history of this critical phenomenon to life through the stories of individuals who conceptualized, implemented, and experienced it, and he details how these techniques were subsequently adapted for broader social and political use.

A useful research resource and handy reference, this book discusses the many important ethical and legal issues that arise in the delivery of health care to prisoners at correctional facilities. It references national standards of professional practice as well as the advice of recognized experts. The mission of corrections is the care and custody of prisoners with a view to public safety within a place dedicated to punishment, while the mission of the medical and mental health professionals in a corrections facility is to care for the health and well-being of the prisoners. Both have a duty to provide care, but their differing roles and objectives give rise to ethical role conflict and disagreement regarding appropriate care strategies. Humane Health Care for Prisoners considers important ethical and legal issues that arise in the delivery of health care to prisoners, covering topics such as privacy, confidentiality, informed consent, extended isolation and solitary confinement, use of mace, strip searches and body cavity searches, and medical experimentation on prisoners as human subjects. It also considers participation by health care professionals in capital punishment, coerced substance abuse treatment, how much health care to provide, organizational structure and hierarchy, cooperation between correctional and health care staff, and the importance of recognizing mental illness as a chronic condition. This book is informative for professionals working in corrections facilities, such as physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, wardens, jail administrators, sheriffs, and corrections officials, as well as legislators and decision makers, attorneys involved in correctional healthcare lawsuits, students of criminal justice, and those seeking to work in the field of correctional health care or in corrections. Additionally, students and professors of medical ethics will find this book helpful in illustrating real-life topics for research and discussion. Clearly lays out the ethical issues in role conflicts or difficult policy questions in correctional health care management Makes the argument that while correctional and medical care professionals have their own goals, policies, and practices in the correctional environment, a willingness to accommodate the key principles and needs of the other party benefits both disciplines Investigates the central theme of what is right and what is wrong, by using ethical principles, court decisions, and accepted national standards as a guide Provides an index designed to facilitate the book's use as a quick and ready reference

When is the death penalty considered "cruel and unusual punishment" or "constitutionally permissible"? This book exposes readers directly to landmark opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court that strive to answer difficult questions regarding capital punishment. This book provides far more than an effective overview of the history, current status, and future of capital punishment in America; it supplies excerpts of the words of the justices themselves to make these judicial opinions readily accessible and understandable to general audiences. As a result, readers can see what the justices had to say for themselves regarding more than 30 important cases involving the death penalty-without relying on any intermediary interpretations of their statements. After a brief historical summary of the debate over capital punishment and the arguments favoring and opposing capital punishment, the book "decodes" how the justices have interpreted and applied constitutional provisions to historical and contemporary controversies. Each case includes brief narrative commentaries inserted by the authors to provide context for the justices' words. Additionally, the excerpted judicial opinions are presented as primary source documents for the reader's inspection and reflection. Presents the opinions of the Supreme Court in significant capital punishment or cruel and unusual punishment cases through the carefully excerpted words of the justices themselves Organizes information chronologically to facilitate students tracing the evolution of capital punishment in the United States Uses documents and insightful commentary to clarify and explain the arguments for and against capital punishment, providing unbiased information that allows readers to fairly consider both sides of the debate Recognizes the trends in the Supreme Court's decisions involving the death penalty and cruel and unusual punishment Ties court opinions to developments in law, technology, and society, such as the advent of DNA evidence Provides an ideal resource for undergraduate students studying constitutional law, civil rights/liberties, criminal justice, American government, and American history; as well as high school students in relevant advanced placement courses

Justice is blind...but it's not perfect. Everyday, people are convicted or accused of crimes they did not commit. Sometimes the accusations are racially motivated, sometimes they are profiled for the clothes they wear, and sometimes they are just at the wrong place at the wrong time. The 15 people in this book all share one thing in common: they are innocent, but still sent to prison. You will never look at a court room the same way again

Punishing the Black Body examines the punitive and disciplinary technologies and ideologies embraced by ruling white elites in nineteenth-century Barbados and Jamaica. Among studies of the Caribbean on similar topics, this is the first to look at the meanings inscribed on the raced, gendered, and classed bodies on the receiving end of punishment. Dawn P. Harris uses theories of the body to detail the ways colonial states and their agents appropriated physicality to debase the black body, assert the inviolability of the white body, and demarcate the social boundaries between them.,br> Noting marked demographic and geographic differences between Jamaica and Barbados, as well as any number of changes within the separate economic, political, and social trajectories of each island, Harris still finds that societal infractions by the subaltern populations of both islands brought on draconian forms of punishments aimed at maintaining the socio-racial hierarchy. Her investigation ranges across such topics as hair-cropping, the 1836 Emigration Act of Barbados and other punitive legislation, the state reprisals following the 1865 Morant Bay Rebellion in Jamaica, the use of the whip and the treadmill in jails and houses of correction, and methods of surveillance, policing, and limiting free movement. By focusing on meanings ascribed to the disciplined and punished body, Harris reminds us that the transitions between slavery, apprenticeship, and post-emancipation were not just a series of abstract phenomena signaling shifts in the prevailing order of things. For a large part of these islands' populations, these times of dramatic change were physically felt.

Understanding Wrongful Conviction: How Innocent People Are Convicted of Crimes They Did Not Commit identifies and discusses breakdowns in the criminal justice system that can have profoundly negative effects on individuals operating within or who are subjects of the system. The text also explores what can be done to successfully reduce the incidence of wrongful conviction. The opening chapter defines wrongful conviction, explains the importance of its study, and provides readers with context as to how often it happens within the American criminal justice system. Readers are provided with an overview of the history of wrongful conviction and the innocence movement. They read chapters that describe how errors and misconduct related to eyewitness testimony, forensic science, false confessions, false accusations, police error, prosecutorial error, and defense attorney error can lead to wrongful convictions. The final chapters address the aftereffects of wrongful conviction and what can be done to reduce instances of wrongful conviction. Providing readers with a unique and critical perspective, Understanding Wrongful Conviction is an ideal resource for courses and programs in criminal justice.

Issues in Criminal Justice: A Reader for Critical Thought provides students with scholarly articles that address a variety of challenges within the criminal justice system. The anthology exposes readers to a spectrum of diverse perspectives and is intended to inspire thoughtful consideration and lively debate regarding aspects, concepts, and viewpoints related to criminal justice. The text is organized into six units that address topics often discussed in introductory criminal justice courses. Each unit addresses a major element associated with the criminal justice system and features an introduction, readings, and discussion questions. The units explore the structure and management of the criminal justice system, policing and law enforcement, the judicial system, punishment and corrections, juvenile justice, and victimology. Specific issues include the prison industrial complex, the use of police body cameras, mental health courts, reform and retrenchment in juvenile justice, elder abuse, and more. Designed to foster critical thinking skills, Issues in Criminal Justice is ideal for senior-level capstones or seminars and upper-division or graduate-level courses with focus on contemporary issues in the discipline.

During a career lasting nearly half a century, Meister Frantz Schmidt (1554-1634) personally put to death 392 individuals and tortured, flogged, or disfigured hundreds more. The remarkable number of victims, as well as the officially sanctioned context in which they suffered at Schmidt's hands, was the story of Joel Harrington's much-discussed book The Faithful Executioner. The foundation of that celebrated work was Schmidt`s own journal--notable not only for the shocking story it told but, in an age when people rarely kept diaries, for its mere existence. Available now in Harrington's new translation, this fascinating document provides the modern reader with a rare firsthand perspective on the thoughts and experiences of an executioner who routinely carried out acts of state brutality yet remained a revered member of the local community and was widely respected for his piety, steadfastness, and popular healing. Based on a long-lost manuscript thought to be the most faithful to the original journal, this modern English translation is fully annotated and includes an introduction providing historical context as well as a biographical portrait of Schmidt himself. The executioner appears to us not as the frightening brute we might expect but as a surprisingly thoughtful, complex person with a unique voice, and in these pages his world emerges as vivid and unforgettable.

This groundbreaking book offers a comprehensive documentary history of children whose parents were identified as enemies of the Soviet regime from its inception through Joseph Stalin's death. When parents were arrested, executed, or sent to the Gulag, their children also suffered. Millions of children, labeled "socially dangerous," lost parents, homes, and siblings. Co-edited by Cathy A. Frierson, a senior American scholar, and Semyon S. Vilensky, Gulag survivor and compiler of the Russian documents, the book offers documentary and personal perspectives. The editors present top-secret documents in translation from the Russian state archives, memoirs, and interviews with child survivors. The editors' narrative reveals how such prolonged child victimization could occur, who knew about it, and who tried to intervene on the children's behalf. The editors show how the emotions from childhood trauma persist into the twenty-first century, passing from victims to their children and grandchildren. Interviews with child survivors also display their resilient ability to fashion productive lives despite family destruction and stigma.

After decades of the American "war on drugs" and relentless prison expansion, political officials are finally challenging mass incarceration. Many point to an apparently promising solution to reduce the prison population: addiction treatment. In Addicted to Rehab, Bard College sociologist Allison McKim gives an in-depth and innovative ethnographic account of two such rehab programs for women, one located in the criminal justice system and one located in the private healthcare system-two very different ways of defining and treating addiction. McKim's book shows how addiction rehab reflects the race, class, and gender politics of the punitive turn. As a result, addiction has become a racialized category that has reorganized the link between punishment and welfare provision. While reformers hope that treatment will offer an alternative to punishment and help women, McKim argues that the framework of addiction further stigmatizes criminalized women and undermines our capacity to challenge gendered subordination. Her study ultimately reveals a two-tiered system, bifurcated by race and class.

In this enlightening study, Ian Cummins traces changing attitudes to penal and welfare systems. From Margaret Thatcher's first cabinet, to austerity politics via New Labour, the book reveals the ideological shifts that have led successive governments to reinforce their penal powers. It shows how 'tough on crime' messages have spread to other areas of social policy, fostering the neoliberal political economy, encouraging hostile approaches to the social state and creating stigma for those living in poverty. This is an important addition to the debate around the complex and interconnected issues of welfare and punishment.

Typical offender risk factors include a history of antisocial behavior, an antisocial personality, antisocial cognition, antisocial associates, family and/or marital problems, school or work problems, leisure or recreation problems, and substance abuse. Though there are roughly 66 risk assessment instruments that measure these factors, only 19 of them are in wide use. Of these tools, micro-level and personal factors are included on typical risk instruments while external or macro-level matters are not. Community Risk and Protective Factors for Probation and Parole Risk Assessment Tools: Emerging Research and Opportunities is an essential research publication that explores tools for predicting recidivism rates among incarcerated individuals. The study provides evidence for an alternative explanation for a still prevailing notion that recidivism is primarily a result of personal/internal failings (such as mental illness or cognitive impairment) versus external/societal ones. Featuring a wide range of topics such as affordable housing, policy reform, and adult education, this book is ideal for criminologists, sociologists, law enforcement, corrections officers, wardens, therapists, rehabilitation counselors, researchers, policymakers, criminal justice professionals, academicians, and students.

During the 20th century, only six women were legally executed by the State of New York at Sing Sing Prison. In each case, the condemned faced a process of demonization and public humiliation that was orchestrated by a powerful and unforgiving media. When compared to the media treatment of men who went to the electric chair for similar offenses, the press coverage of female killers was ferocious and unrelenting. "Granite woman," "black-eyed Borgia," "roadhouse tramp," "sex-mad," and "lousy prostitute" are just some of the terms used by newspapers to describe these women. Unlike their male counterparts, females endured a campaign of expulsion and disgrace before they were put to death. Not since the 1950s has New York put another woman to death. Gado chronicles the crimes, the times, and the media attention surrounding these cases. The tales of these death row women shed light on the death penalty as it applies to women and the role of the media in both the trials and executions of these convicts. In these cases, the press affected the prosecutions, the judgements, and the decisions of authorities along the way. Contemporary headlines of the era are revealing in their blatant bias and leave little doubt of their purpose. Using family letters, prison correspondence, photographs, court transcripts, and last- minute pleas for mercy, Gado paints a fuller picture of these cases and the times.

Revelations about U.S. torture and prisoner abuse in blatant violation of the long-established and universally recognized Geneva Conventions have horrified most Americans. Nevertheless, it has been argued that the high stakes of the "War on Terror" have made the protections offered by the Conventions obsolete, or that the abuses are the work of a few rogue soldiers and officers. This book reaches past the headlines into the historical record to document POW torture and also domestic prisoner abuse dating well back in our history as well as government and military knowledge of and collusion in such ostensibly illegal and reprehensible acts. Is torture and prisoner abuse justified in the name of some greater good? As a society we shall have to decide. The historical record presented here can contribute much to an informed national discussion. Series features: BLTimeline anchoring the discussion in time and place BLBibliography of print and Internet resources guiding further exploration of the subject BLCharts and tables analyzing complex data, including survey results

Rape is a fact of life for the incarcerated. Can American society maintain the commitment expressed in recent federal legislation to eliminate the rampant and costly sexual abuse that has been institutionalized into its system of incarceration? Each year, as many as 200,000 individuals are victims of various types of sexual abuse perpetrated in American prisons, jails, juvenile detention facilities, and lockups. As many as 80,000 of them suffer violent or repeated rape. Those who are outside the incarceration experience are largely unaware of this ongoing physical and mental damage-abuses that not only affect the victims and perpetrators, but also impose vast costs on society as a whole. This book supplies a uniquely full account of this widespread sexual abuse problem. Author Michael Singer has drawn on official reports to provide a realistic assessment of the staggering financial cost to society of this sexual abuse, and comprehensively addressed the current, severely limited legal procedures for combating sexual abuse in incarceration. The book also provides an evaluation of the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 and its recently announced national standards, and assesses their likely future impact on the institution of prison rape in America.

The death penalty remains one of the most controversial issues in the United States. Its proponents claim many things in their defense of its continued application. For example, they claim that it deters crime, that death by lethal injection is painless and humane, that it is racially neutral, and that it provides "closure" to families of the victims. In this comprehensive review of the major death penalty issues, the authors systematically dismantle each one of these myths about capital punishment in a hard-hitting critique of how our social, political, and community leaders have used fear and myth (symbolic politics) to misrepresent the death penalty as a public policy issue. They successfully demonstrate how our political and community leaders have used myth and emotional appeals to misrepresent the facts about capital executions. Successive chapters address the following topics: the notion of community bonding, the expectation of effective crime fighting, the desire for equal justice, deterrence, the hope for fidelity to the Constitution, the claim of error-free justice, closure, retribution, cost-effectiveness, and the messianic desires of some politicians. In each of these areas the authors quote from death penalty advocates making these claims and then proceed to analyze and ultimately dismember the claimed advantages of the death penalty.

This Sunday Times bestseller is a shocking and at times darkly funny account of life as a prison officer in one of the country's most notorious jails. 'Authentic, tough, horrifying in some places and hilarious in others . . . the author's honesty and decency shine through' - Jonathan Aitken ______________ Neil 'Sam' Samworth spent eleven years working as a prison officer in HMP Manchester, aka Strangeways. A tough Yorkshireman with a soft heart, Sam had to deal with it all - gangsters and gangbangers, terrorists and psychopaths, addicts and the mentally ill. Men who should not be locked up and men who should never be let out. He tackles cell fires and self-harmers, and goes head to head with some of the most dangerous men in the country. He describes being attacked by prisoners, and reveals the problems caused by radicalization and the drugs flooding our prisons. As staffing cuts saw Britain's prison system descend into crisis, the stress of the job - the suicides, the inhumanity of the system, and one assault too many - left Sam suffering from PTSD. Strangeways by Neil Samworth is a raw, searingly honest memoir that is a testament to the men and women of the prison service and the incredibly difficult job we ask them to do. ______________ 'A frequently shocking read' - Daily Express