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". 'By the end of the book, I felt like Frankie Owens was my cell-mate. His style and execution is either perversely skilful or an absolute fluke, but whatever it is, it is certainly good': Prison Service Journal. 'Absolutely hilarious, I'm not sure it'll ever be standard prison issue but maybe it should be! Packed full of witty and wry observations and some extremely pertinent advice. It is well-structured, easy to read and informative. I hope he continues writing as The Little Book of Prison is something that the general public would love to read as well as a guide book for other prisoners': Koestler Award Judges 'Funny and educational, in a tongue in cheek kind of way, and has a much wider appeal than you might think': thebookbag.co.uk Frankie Owens was prisoner A1443CA at Her Majesty's pleasure until 2 August 2011. If he had been given the information gathered in LBP, he thinks that the first weeks inside would have been better and the learning curve not as steep.

"Send Them to Hell" is a horrifying, authentic chronicle of life as lived by foreign inmates over the past two decades in Bangkok's notorious prison system. Murder, human-rights abuse, drugs, prisoner and child sex slavery, blackmail, extortion, extreme violence, medical maltreatment, and unjustifiable death penalties feature as everyday occurrences in the living hells that are Bangkwang and Klong Prem jails. Sebastian Williams has graphically revealed this shocking reality through the eyes of a long-term inmate who has endured at first hand the unimaginable, inhuman nightmare that constitutes the Thai penal system.

Though institutional care for people suffering from mental illness was phased out in the last century, mentally disordered offenders remain the exception to this rule. The numbers detained in medium secure care have increased and new initiatives in high secure care have created specialist facilities for individuals thought to be particularly dangerous to other people. This means that the nature of institutional life, and in particular the balance between continuing detention for its own sake and care and treatment designed to allow for discharge to a more normal life in the community, should continue to pre-occupy us. Secure Lives is a unique study of life in a high security hospital, based on original research material obtained in the mid 1990s. Compelling personal accounts from staff and patients, as well as case study material, illustrate the complex culture of a high security hospital. The book explores the complex relationship that exists between staff and patients, the social hierarchy, and life amongst potentially dangerous and mentally ill individuals. Though there are many texts on forensic psychiatry in practice, this book provides a first-hand account of life in an environment never seen by those outside its walls.

An ideal first source of reference for practitioners, judges, and legal representatives working on any case affecting prisoners, Blackstone's Prison Law Handbook is a complete practical guide to the main areas that give rise to prisoner complaints which include sentence calculation, Independent Adjudications, licence recall, and Parole Board hearings. The Handbook emphasises practical considerations which the practitioner should take into account and refers to the most recent relevant statutory provisions, key domestic and European cases, Prison Service Instructions (PSIs), and Prison Service Orders (PSOs), allowing practitioners to keep up to date in a fast moving area. Blackstone's Prison Law Handbook uses a similar format to Blackstone's Magistrates' Court Handbook with an easy-to-use layout, facilitating quick reading and instant decision-making. Diagrams, flowcharts, and a clear system of icons aid comprehension and speedy navigation. The Handbook also contains cross-references to Blackstone's Criminal Practice for further research.

The fascinating story behind the innocence movement's quest for justice. Documentaries like Making a Murderer, the first season of Serial, and the cause celebre that was the West Memphis Three captured the attention of millions and focused the national discussion on wrongful convictions. This interest is warranted: more than 1,800 people have been set free in recent decades after being convicted of crimes they did not commit. In response to these exonerations, federal and state governments have passed laws to prevent such injustices; lawyers and police have changed their practices; and advocacy organizations have multiplied across the country. Together, these activities are often referred to as the "innocence movement." Exonerated provides the first in-depth look at the history of this movement through interviews with key leaders such as Barry Scheck and Rob Warden as well as archival and field research into the major cases that brought awareness to wrongful convictions in the United States. Robert Norris also examines how and why the innocence movement took hold. He argues that while the innocence movement did not begin as an organized campaign, scientific, legal, and cultural developments led to a widespread understanding that new technology and renewed investigative diligence could both catch the guilty and free the innocent. Exonerated reveals the rich background story to this complex movement.

A critical investigation into the use of psychotropic drugs to pacify and control inmates and other captives in the vast U.S. prison, military, and welfare systems For at least four decades, U.S. prisons and jails have aggressively turned to psychotropic drugs-antidepressants, antipsychotics, sedatives, and tranquilizers-to silence inmates, whether or not they have been diagnosed with mental illnesses. In Silent Cells, Anthony Ryan Hatch demonstrates that the pervasive use of psychotropic drugs has not only defined and enabled mass incarceration but has also become central to other forms of captivity, including foster homes, military and immigrant detention centers, and nursing homes. Silent Cells shows how, in shockingly large numbers, federal, state, and local governments and government-authorized private agencies pacify people with drugs, uncovering patterns of institutional violence that threaten basic human and civil rights. Drawing on publicly available records, Hatch unearths the coercive ways that psychotropics serve to manufacture compliance and docility, practices hidden behind layers of state secrecy, medical complicity, and corporate profiteering. Psychotropics, Hatch shows, are integral to "technocorrectional" policies devised to minimize public costs and increase the private profitability of mass captivity while guaranteeing public safety and national security. This broad indictment of psychotropics is therefore animated by a radical counterfactual question: would incarceration on the scale practiced in the United States even be possible without psychotropics?

In recent years European prison law and policy have emerged as a force to be reckoned with. This book explores its development and analyses the penological and human rights foundations on which it is based. It examines the findings of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, the recommendations of the Council of Europe, and the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. From these sources it makes the general principles that underlie European prison law and policy explicit, emphasising the principle of using imprisonment as a last resort and the recognition of prisoners' rights. The book then moves on to apply these principles to conditions of imprisonment, regimes in prison, contacts between prisoners and the outside world, and the maintenance of good order in prisons. The final chapter of the book considers how European prison law and policy could best be advanced in future. The authors argue that the European Court of Human Rights should adopt a more proactive approach to ensuring that imprisonment is used only as a last resort, and that a more radical interpretation of the existing provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights will allow it to do so. It concludes that the growing cooperation on prison matters within Europe bodes well for the increased recognition of prisoners' rights across Europe. In spite of some countervailing voices, Europe should increasingly be able to give an international lead in a human rights approach to prison law and policy in the same way it has done with the abolition of the death penalty.

""This book is something of a 'call to arms'... Towards the end of this carefully-researched and well-argued book there is an exhortation to 'step out', 'be brave', and Scott and Codd have, indeed, written a brave book which deserves to be read widely; not only for the detailed analysis it unfolds on the toxic effects of prison, but also for the energy and passion they bring to bear in exploding the many myths which support its continued use."
British Journal of Community Justice, Vol 9, Issues 1 & 2 special issue on the Rehabilitation Revolution"

""Scott and Codd's "Controversial Issues in Prison" is a passionate plea for academics to be 'be brave' and 'step out', and thus to acknowledge that the idea of, for example, an 'healthy prison' being (p.170) 'an oxymoron. Prisons are places of sadness and terror, harm and injustice, secrecy and oppression'. Set over ten chapters, eight of which deal with a 'controversial issue' - mental health problems in prison, women in prison, children and young people in custody, race and racism, self-inflicted deaths, the treatment of people who sexually offend, and prisoners and their families - Scott and Codd frame their argument to demonstrate that these issues raise fundamental concerns (p. ix) 'about the legitimacy of the confinement project and the kind of society in which it is deemed essential'."
Howard League Journal"

This textbook is designed to explore eight of the most controversial aspects of imprisonment in England and Wales. It looks at the people who are sent to prison and what happens to them when they are incarcerated. Each chapter examines a different dimension of the prison population and makes connections between the personal troubles and vulnerabilities of those confined.

The book investigates controversies surrounding the incarceration of people with mental health problems, women, children, BME and foreign nationals, offenders with suicidal ideation, sex offenders and drug takers, as well as looking at the consequences of incarceration on prisoners' families.

Each chapter addresses key questions, such as: How have people conceptualised this penal controversy? What does the official data tell us and what are its limitations? What is its historical context? What are the contemporary policies of the Prison Service? Are they legitimate and, if not, what are the alternatives?

The book concludes that the eight penal controversies highlighted in the text collectively provide a damning indictment of the current state of imprisonment in England and Wales and points to the need for radical alternatives for dealing with human wrongdoing rooted in the principles of human rights and social justice.

"Controversial Issues in Prisons" is key reading for students and academics in the fields of criminology and criminal justice, as well as those studying crime and punishment on courses in social policy, sociology, social work and addiction studies.

In 1963 the last prisoner was escorted off Devil's Island and Alcatraz ceased to be a prison. Author J. Campbell Bruce chronicles in spellbinding detail the Rock's transition from a Spanish fort to the maximum-security penitentiary. Discover the intriguing and absorbing saga of Alcatraz, where America's most violent and notorious prisoners resided close to one of the world's favourite cities, San Francisco.

This practical guide about what first responders should do after a suicide, offers advice on identifying and recording a death as suicide, breaking the bad news and dealing with the impact of suicide in the short, middle and long term. Drawing on her own experience as a first responder and trainer, the author provides guidance and tips for best practice when responding to a suicide. These include what can happen to the body in the immediate aftermath, how to talk to the bereaved to limit or prevent secondary trauma, and how to manage suicide in public arenas such as schools. The scenarios covered include detailed scripts of how to deal with difficult situations. There are also sections that tackle complex issues such as religious or cultural customs, and unusual cases of suicide which can pose extra challenges. Straightforward and full of sage advice, each chapter includes real-world examples from the author's many years working as a first responder which highlight how suicide postvention techniques can be applied.

In recent years European prison law and policy have emerged as a force to be reckoned with. This book explores its development and analyzes the penological and human rights foundations on which it is based. It examines the findings of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, the recommendations of the Council of Europe, and the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. From these sources it makes explicit the general principles that underlie European prison law and policy, emphasizing the principle of using imprisonment as a last resort and the recognition of prisoners' rights. The book then moves on to apply these principles to conditions of imprisonment, regimes in prison, contacts between prisoners and the outside world, and the maintenance of good order in prisons.
In the final chapter the book considers how European prison law and policy could best be advanced in future. The authors argue that the European Court of Human Rights should adopt a more proactive approach to ensuring that imprisonment is used only as a last resort, and that a more radical interpretation of the existing provisions of the European Convention of Human Rights will allow it to do so. It concludes that the growing cooperation on prison matters within Europe bodes well for the increased recognition of prisoners' rights across Europe. In spite of some countervailing voices, Europe should increasingly be able to give an international lead in a human rights approach to prison law and policy in the same way as it has done with the abolition of the death penalty.

There have been more prisons in London than in any other European city. Of these, Newgate was the largest, most notorious and worst. Built during the twelfth century, it became a legendary place - the inspiration of more poems, plays and novels than any other building in London. It was a place of cruelty and wretchedness, at various times holding Dick Turpin, Titus Oates, Daniel Defoe, Jack Sheppard and Casanova. Because prisons were privately run, any time spent in prison had to be paid for by the prisoner. Housing varied from a private cell with a cleaning woman and a visiting prostitute, to simply lying on the floor with no cover. Those who died inside - and only a quarter of prisoners survived until their execution day - had to stay in Newgate as a rotting corpse until relatives found the money for the body to be released. Stephen Halliday tells the story of Newgate's origins, the criminals it held, the punishments meted out and its rebuilding and reform. This is a compelling slice of London's social and criminal history.

Since 1980, the number of people in U.S. prisons has increased more than 450%. Despite a crime rate that has been falling steadily for decades, California has led the way in this explosion, with what a state analyst called 'the biggest prison building project in the history of the world'. "Golden Gulag" provides the first detailed explanation for that buildup by looking at how political and economic forces, ranging from global to local, conjoined to produce the prison boom. In an informed and impassioned account, Ruth Wilson Gilmore examines this issue through statewide, rural, and urban perspectives to explain how the expansion developed from surpluses of finance capital, labor, land, and state capacity. Detailing crises that hit California's economy with particular ferocity, she argues that defeats of radical struggles, weakening of labor, and shifting patterns of capital investment have been key conditions for prison growth. The results - a vast and expensive prison system, a huge number of incarcerated young people of color, and the increase in punitive justice such as the 'three strikes' law - pose profound and troubling questions for the future of California, the United States, and the world. "Golden Gulag" provides a rich context for this complex dilemma, and at the same time challenges many cherished assumptions about who benefits and who suffers from the state's commitment to prison expansion.

Patricia O'Brien traces the creation and development of a modern prison system in nineteenth-century France. The study has three principal areas of concern: prisons and their populations; the organizing principles of the system, including occupational and educational programs for rehabilitation; and the extension of punishment outside the prison walls. Originally published in 1982. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

THE FASCINATING SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER Assaults. Riots. Cell fires. Medical emergencies. Understaffed wings. Suicides. Hooch. Weapons. It's all in a week's work at HMP Parkhurst. After 28 years working as a prison officer, with 22 years at HMP Parkhurst, once one of Britain's most high security prisons, David Berridge has had to deal with it all: serial killers and gangsters, terrorists and sex offenders, psychopaths and addicts. Inside Parkhurst is his raw, uncompromising look at what really goes on behind the massive walls and menacing gates. Thrown in at the deep end, David quickly had to work out how to deal with the most cunning and volatile of prisoners, and learn how to avoid their many scams. He has been assaulted and abused; he has tackled cell fires and attempted suicides, riots and dirty protests; he has helped to foil escaped plans, talked inmates down from rooftop protests, witnessed prisoners setting fire to themselves, and prevented prisoners from attempting to murder other prisoners. And now he takes us inside this secret world for the first time. With this searingly honest account he guides us around the wings, the segregation unit, the hospital and the exercise yard, and gives vivid portraits of the drug taking, the hooch making, the constant and irrepressible violence, and the extraordinary lengths our prison officers go to everyday. Divided into three parts - the first from David's early years on the wings, the second the middle of his career, and the third his disillusioned later years - David will take readers into the heart of life inside and shine a light on the escalating violence and the impact the government cuts are having on the wings. Both horrifying and hilarious, David's diaries are guaranteed to shock and entertain in equal measure.

Pyrooz and Decker pull apart the bars on prison gangs to uncover how they compete for control. While there is much speculation about these gangs, there is little solid research. This book draws on interviews with 802 inmates - half of whom were gang members - in two Texas prisons; one of the largest samples of its kind. Using this data, the authors explore how gangs organize and govern, who joins gangs and how they get out, the dark side of gang activities including misconduct and violence, the ways in which gang membership spills onto the street, and the direct and indirect links between the street and prison gangs. Competing for Control captures the nature of gangs in a time of transition, as prison gangs become more horizontal and their power is diffused across groups. There is no study like this one.

Darrell Figgis (1882-1925) was a journalist, author and nationalist propagandist. "A Chronicle of Jails" is Figgis' account of his arrest in the aftermath of the 1916 Rising and subsequent internment in Ireland and Britain. Figgis was among a minority of internees identified as leadership material and held at Reading Goal rather than at Frongoch Camp. This memoir is of particular interest because, unlike most accounts of imprisonment during this period, it was written with propagandistic intent and was first published by The Talbot Press in 1917.

The Centenary Classics series examines the fascinating time of change and evolution in the Ireland of 100 years ago during the 1916-23 revolutionary period. Each volume is introduced by Fearghal McGarry who sets the scene of this important period in Ireland's history. A Chronicle of Jails is Darrell Figgis's account of his arrest in the aftermath of the 1916 Rising and subsequent internment in Ireland and Britain. He was among a minority of internees identified as leadership material and held at Reading Gaol rather than at Frongoch Camp. This memoir was first published by the Talbot Press in 1917 and is fascinating in its propagandistic intent. It reveals much about political imprisonment in that era and much about Darrell Figgis. The introduction by William Murphy gives a contemporary analysis of this original text.

Having gained unique access to California prisoners and corrections officials and to thousands of prisoners' written grievances and institutional responses, Kitty Calavita and Valerie Jenness take us inside one of the most significant, yet largely invisible, institutions in the United States. Drawing on sometimes startlingly candid interviews with prisoners and prison staff, as well as on official records, the authors walk us through the byzantine grievance process, which begins with prisoners filing claims and ends after four levels of review, with corrections officials usually denying requests for remedies. Appealing to Justice is both an unprecedented study of disputing in an extremely asymmetrical setting and a rare glimpse of daily life inside this most closed of institutions. Quoting extensively from their interviews with prisoners and officials, the authors give voice to those who are almost never heard from. These voices unsettle conventional wisdoms within the sociological literature for example, about the reluctance of vulnerable and/or stigmatized populations to name injuries and file claims, and about the relentlessly adversarial subjectivities of prisoners and correctional officials and they do so with striking poignancy. Ultimately, Appealing to Justice reveals a system fraught with impediments and dilemmas, which delivers neither justice, nor efficiency, nor constitutional conditions of confinement.

Millions in India have long been obsessed with the vicissitudes of the Nehru-Gandhi family's fate. Inextricably linked to the ups and downs of their lives was the future of the nation itself. It was Jawaharlal Nehru's leadership that guided India onto the world stage as a modern nation. Despite the varied scholarship of Nehruvian studies, one important aspect-the experiences of the Nehrus in prison during the national movement-has received only scant consideration. This book addresses that omission by highlighting the significance of prison time in shaping the lives of the members of this illustrious family. For Motilal and Jawaharlal Nehru, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, and Krishna Hutheesing, among others, serving prison time was much more than just a marker of participation in the Independence movement. The grim walls of jail provided the place and time to the Nehrus to reflect on and give direction to the nationalist struggle. Such important literary works as Glimpses of World History and Discovery of India, which remain timeless in their appeal, were crafted in gaol. In tracing the intellectual biography of the Nehru-Gandhi family, this book documents the ethos of an entire era during the colonial period.

In most countries, problematic drug use is dealt with primarily as a criminal justice issue, rather than a health issue. Accordingly, a large proportion of people in prison have a history of alcohol, tobacco and/or illicit drug use and, despite the best efforts of correctional authorities, some continue to use these substances in prison, often in very risky ways. After release from prison, many relapse to risky substance use, and are at high risk of poor health outcomes, preventable death, or reincarceration. In this edited volume, for the first time we bring together 40 contributors from 10 countries to review what is known about alcohol, tobacco and illicit drug use in people who cycle through prisons, and the harms associated with use of these substances. We consider some evidence-based responses to these harms - both in prison and after return to the community - and discuss their implications for policy reform. This book is international in scope and multi-disciplinary in character. It brings together and integrates the perspectives of public health and addictions researchers, criminologists and correctional leaders, epidemiologists, physicians, and human rights lawyers. Our contributors are unified in their commitment to evidence-informed policy - that is, doing what we know works. An overarching theme pervading all of the chapters is that people who cycle through prisons come from the community, and almost always return to the community. Their health problems are therefore our health problems; in other words, 'prisoner health is public health'.

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2019 ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING 'Davies's absorbing study serves up just enough sensationalism - and eccentricity - along with its serious inquiry' SUNDAY TIMES '[A] revealing account of the jail's 164-year history' DAILY TELEGRAPH, 5* review 'Insightful and thought-provoking and makes for a ripping good read' JEREMY CORBYN 'A much-needed and balanced history' OBSERVER 'Davies explores how society has dealt with disobedient women - from suffragettes to refugees to women seeking abortions - for decades, and how they've failed to silence those who won't go down without a fight' STYLIST Society has never known what to do with its rebellious women. Those who defied expectations about feminine behaviour have long been considered dangerous and unnatural, and ever since the Victorian era they have been removed from public view, locked up and often forgotten about. Many of these women ended up at HM Prison Holloway, the self-proclaimed 'terror to evil-doers' which, until its closure in 2016, was western Europe's largest women's prison. First built in 1852 as a House of Correction, Holloway's women have come from all corners of the UK - whether a patriot from Scotland, a suffragette from Huddersfield, or a spy from the Isle of Wight - and from all walks of life - socialites and prostitutes, sporting stars and nightclub queens, refugees and freedom fighters. They were imprisoned for treason and murder, for begging, performing abortions and stealing clothing coupons, for masquerading as men, running brothels and attempting suicide. In Bad Girls, Caitlin Davies tells their stories and shows how women have been treated in our justice system over more than a century, what crimes - real or imagined - they committed, who found them guilty and why. It is a story of victimization and resistance; of oppression and bravery. From the women who escaped the hangman's noose - and those who didn't - to those who escaped Holloway altogether, Bad Girls is a fascinating look at how disobedient and defiant women changed not only the prison service, but the course of history.

A groundbreaking contribution to the study of nontheatrical film exhibition, Carceral Fantasies tells the little-known story of how cinema found a home in the U.S. penitentiary system and how the prison emerged as a setting and narrative trope in modern cinema. Focusing on films shown in prisons before 1935, Alison Griffiths explores the unique experience of viewing cinema while incarcerated and the complex cultural roots of cinematic renderings of prison life. Griffiths considers a diverse mix of cinematic genres, from early actualities and reenactments of notorious executions to reformist exposes of the 1920s. She connects an early fascination with cinematic images of punishment and execution, especially electrocutions, to the attractions of the nineteenth-century carnival electrical wonder show and Phantasmagoria (a ghost show using magic lantern projections and special effects). Griffiths draws upon convict writing, prison annual reports, and the popular press obsession with prison-house cinema to document the integration of film into existing reformist and educational activities and film's psychic extension of flights of fancy undertaken by inmates in their cells. Combining penal history with visual and film studies and theories surrounding media's sensual effects, Carceral Fantasies illuminates how filmic representations of the penal system enacted ideas about modernity, gender, the body, and the public, shaping both the social experience of cinema and the public's understanding of the modern prison.

The United States has the highest per-capita incarceration rate in the world. But are we any safer? Journalist Maya Schenwar proves that locking people up actually makes society less safe - and that there are alternatives that do a better job of deterring crime and providing justice for victims. Schenwar looks at how incarceration breaks the bonds that hold people together and deprives incarcerated people of exactly the kind of support and life skills necessary to reintegrate into society - which is why more than two-thirds of prisoners are re-arrested within three years of release. She draws heavily on her personal experience (her sister has spent the better part of ten years entangled in the system), as well as the struggles of other prisoners and their families. Far from advocating the complete abolition of prisons, Schenwar simply argues that they shouldn't be the only approach. She describes how highly effective alternative justice programs in the US and other countries do a better job of both preventing recidivism and providing meaningful restitution to victims. Above all, however, Schenwar seeks to convince her readers that prisoners, for all their hurtful deeds, shouldn't be treated as "non-persons." Her book is a passionate argument that "throwing away the key" ultimately hurts individuals and society.

An intimate, first-hand account of the emotional and physical experience of doing time in jail and the strategies for enduring it. Jails are the principal people-processing machines of the criminal justice system. Mostly they hold persons awaiting trial who cannot afford or have been denied bail. Although jail sentences max out at a year, some spend years awaiting trial in jail-especially in counties where courts are jammed with cases. City and county jails, detention centers, police lockups, and other temporary holding facilities are regularly overcrowded, poorly funded, and the buildings are often in disrepair. American jails admit over ten million people every year, but very little is known about what happens to them while they're locked away. Indefinite is an ethnographic study of a California county jail that reflects on what it means to do jail time and what it does to men. Michael L. Walker spent several extended spells in jail, having been arrested while trying to pay parking tickets in graduate school. This book is an intimate account of his experience and in it he shares the routines, rhythms, and subtle meanings that come with being incarcerated. Walker shows how punishment in jail is much more than the deprivation of liberties. It is, he argues, purposefully degrading. Jail creates a racial politics that organizes daily life, moves men from clock time to event time, normalizes trauma, and imbues residents with substantial measures of vulnerability. Deputies used self-centered management styles to address the problems associated with running a jail, some that magnified individual conflicts to potential group conflicts and others that created divisions between residents for the sake of control. And though not every deputy indulged, many gave themselves over to the pleasures of punishment.