A lucky windfall jump-starts his miserably unfulfilled life, and so his incredible journey begins. A second prize win on 'spot the ball' may not sound a life changing amount, but it's enough for Terry Johnson to follow his dream. A dreary grey council estate existence and an overbearing, money squandering shoplifter wife of 25 years - he's desperate to get away. Retirement approaching, this flamboyant charmer and seasoned risk-taker isn't quite ready for the quiet life - his free bus pass can wait He craves adventure and excitement and finds both in equal measure - in Africa. Terry snubs the usual tourist trail of safaris and beaches - he prefers to plan a more extreme unorthodox route, 'off road' and dangerous. That's the way he likes it. Risks galore, he gets himself into dangerous and bizarre situations along the way - until he's caught with drugs at Nairobi Airport. Four months of squalor in Nairobi remand prison, he struggles to survive the harsh cramped conditions which ravage his mind and body. Finally sentenced, he's off to a prison notorious for a blatant disregard for human rights. All the time his biggest challenge awaits him in England.

This timely series is based upon 15 years of experience and work of trainers and researchers in the field of criminal justice. Each book is filled with the practical skills and actual techniques and methods. The focus is on how to communicate and get others to what is desired with minimal hassles. Examples and techniques are based on the real world and can readily be used as a part of a hands-on training program. The highly successful intervention model is demonstrated through practical skill related exercises including - The Basics (sizing up skills), The Add-ons (communicating skills), and The Applications (controlling skills). This is a worthwhile series for any Law Enforcement or Governmental Organization.

Prison Law is the leading text in its field. It offers comprehensive coverage of the substantive law, the Prison Rules, and the remedies available to prisoners, including complaints procedures, civil claims, judicial review, and claims under the Human Rights Act. Both domestic and international avenues of redress are explained in detail. The book covers all aspects of prison life, from categorization and allocation to living conditions, access to the outside world, transfer and repatriation, discipline, and the procedures governing the release of fixed term prisoners and those serving life sentences. In recent years, restricted access to legal aid and the ongoing threat to the Human Rights Act have made it increasingly difficult for prisoners to exercise their rights. It would now be impossible for prison law to play the same major role in developing constitutional and public law as it has for the past 30 years. As a result, prison law practitioners are having to adapt and evolve their approach to cope with new challenges. The new edition has been completely revised and updated to take account of relevant decisions under the Human Rights Act and at the European Court of Human Rights, including important decisions on IPP sentences, ministerial involvement in prison release, conditions of detention, and their policy ramifications in the UK. The changes to the life sentence regime and the prison disciplinary system, implemented since publication of the previous edition, have been fully addressed. It also covers the Equality Act and its application in the prison context. Further, it includes a new introduction summarizing the development of prison law over the 20 years since the first edition, and its importance in the wider context of public law principles especially the expansion of jurisdiction (St Germain, Leech and Hague), fairness (Duggan, Doody), the principle of legality (Raymond v Honey, Leech No 2, Pierson, Simms and O'Brien) and HRA review (Daly and subsequent HRA decisions). Critical analysis is combined with practical guidance to make Prison Law immensely useful to practitioners, academics, and anyone with a professional interest in crime and punishment.

State prisons played an indispensable part in the terror of the Third Reich, incarcerating many hundreds of thousands of men and women during the Nazi era. This important book illuminates the previously unknown world of Nazi prisons, their victims, and the judicial and penal officials who built and operated this system of brutal legal terror. Nikolaus Wachsmann describes the operation and function of legal terror in the Third Reich and brings Nazi prisons to life through the harrowing stories of individual inmates. Drawing on a vast array of archival materials, he traces the series of changes in prison policies and practice that led eventually to racial terror, brutal violence, slave labor, starvation, and mass killings. Wachsmann demonstrates that "ordinary" legal officials were ready collaborators who helped to turn courts and prisons into key components in the Nazi web of terror. And he concludes with a discussion of the whitewash of the Nazi legal system in postwar West Germany.

In 2006, after a scandal that gripped the country, the British government began to transform its prison system. Under pressure to find and expel foreigners, Her Majesty's Prison Service began concentrating non-citizens in prisons with 'embedded' border agents. Today, prison officers refer anyone suspected of being foreign to immigration authorities and prisoners facing deportation are detained in special prisons devoted to confining non-citizens. Those who cannot be deported linger, sometimes for years, indefinitely detained behind prison walls. The British approach to foreign nationals reflects a broader trend in punishment. Over the past decade, penal institutions across England, the United States, and Western Europe have become key sites for border control. Offering the first comprehensive account of the imprisonment of non-citizens in the United Kingdom, Punish and Expel: Border Control, Nationalism, and the New Purpose of the Prison draws on extensive empirical data, based on fieldwork in five men's prisons, to explore the relationship between punishment and citizenship. Using first-hand testimonies from hundreds of prisoners, prison officers, and high-level policy makers, it describes how prisons create a national identity and goes inside citizenship classes and 'all-foreign' prisons, documenting the treatment of non-citizens by other prisoners and staff. Passionately argued and meticulously researched, Punish and Expel links prisons to the history of British colonialism and the contemporary politics of race, whilst challenging readers to rethink their approach to prisons, and to the people held inside them.

No matter where in Canada they occur, inquiries and inquests into untimely Indigenous deaths in state custody often tell the same story. Repeating details of fatty livers, mental illness, alcoholic belligerence, and a mysterious incapacity to cope with modern life, the legal proceedings declare that there are no villains here, only inevitable casualties of Indigenous life. But what about a sixty-seven-year-old man who dies in a hospital in police custody with a large, visible, purple boot print on his chest? Or a barely conscious, alcoholic older man, dropped off by police in a dark alley on a cold Vancouver night? Or Saskatoon's infamous and lethal starlight tours, whose victims were left on the outskirts of town in sub-zero temperatures? How do we account for the repeated failure to care evident in so many cases of Indigenous deaths in custody? In Dying from Improvement, Sherene H. Razack argues that, amidst systematic state violence against Indigenous people, inquiries and inquests serve to obscure the violence of ongoing settler colonialism under the guise of benevolent concern. They tell settler society that it is caring, compassionate, and engaged in improving the lives of Indigenous people - even as the incarceration rate of Indigenous men and women increases and the number of those who die in custody rises. Razack's powerful critique of the Canadian settler state and its legal system speaks to many of today's most pressing issues of social justice: the treatment of Indigenous people, the unparalleled authority of the police and the justice system, and their systematic inhumanity towards those whose lives they perceive as insignificant.

"A story of courage and boundless compassion." - Stephen Reid In Human on the Inside , Gary Garrison takes readers out of their comfort zones and into "The Max," one of Canada's most notorious and violent prisons, introducing us to a menacing yet vibrant subculture of inmates, guards, and staff. Through personal stories, Garrison illuminates a criminal justice system that ignores poverty, racism, mental illness, and addiction and deals instead with society's problems with razor wire and harsh treatment. It is a system that degrades the individual and sees inmates as less than human. Providing a counterbalance to fear-mongering about criminals, he argues that a dehumanizing system generates more crime, not less, and perpetuates another injustice, this time committed on behalf of all Canadians.

Shaw deals with key events, issues and developments and the book will be invaluable to anyone wishing to cut through the mass of fine detail and data which can be found in other works in favour of a direct, authoritative and well-informed short history. Novel, original and highly accessible, this book makes it altogether easier to understand penal affairs. Touching on the key events which continue to shape penal policy in England and Wales, it looks at 'seismic shifts' since 1980, points to 'a new democratic mood' and anticipates how things might shape up in coming decades. A remarkable account which goes to the heart of penal policy in England and Wales. Refreshing and insightful, this work will prove to be invaluable to practitioners, students, researchers and those wishing to understand 'the new democratic mood', its relationship to crime and punishment and where it is leading.

What explains the boom in private prisons-especially since the record of privatisation for rehabilitating prisoners and saving taxpayer dollars is, at best, mixed? Karyl Kicenski examines the privatisation of California state prisons to illuminate the forces that shape and distort our criminal justice policies. Tracing the growth of private prisons from 1980 to the current day, Kicenski explores the role of political and economic factors, as well as the impact of changing public attitudes towards crime and governance. The result is a clear set of lessons for the uneasy partnership between public safety and for-profit enterprise.

Following the fall of African dictator Idi Amin, remnants of his army were rounded-up and thrown in jail. John Pancras Orau, a member of Amin's Ugandan Air Force was one of these men. He saw first-hand the privations, isolation, hunger and humiliation in what were little more than concentration camps. In this book he describes the uncertainty and arbitrary punishments that - alongside fear that prisoners might just 'disappear' - were part of daily life. A true story of hope and belief, Amin's Soldiers is a masterpiece of tragicomic writing falling somewhere between Catch 22 and Animal Farm as The Chieftan and his Brains Trust of fellow inmates try to govern themselves against a backdrop of prison gossip, rumour, misinformation and ever-changing rules. John Pancras Orau was born in Pallisa, Eastern Uganda. He quit priestly training to join the Ugandan Air Force but as President Amin was swept from power his career was cut short. After spending over two years in prison, he worked for Uganda's New Vision daily newspaper.

It is shocking that although just one per cent of children are taken into care by local authori-ties, almost 30 per cent of prisoners have been in care. Ben Ashcroft's heart-rending account of abandonment, loneliness and rejection in family life, the care system and beyond begins at age nine and ends with him turning his life around after being moved from pillar to post, crime, drugs, 'going missing' and custody. Ten years on, he works to motivate young people from similar backgrounds to believe that they can do the same; that whatever life throws at them they should "Never, ever, give up". It is also a warning to parents, professionals and carers alike: to listen to what young people have to say, to make time for and reassure them and to recog-nise the often small but important things that make a difference in the bewildering world of growing-up.

To date, knowledge of the everyday world of the juvenile correction institution has been extremely sparse. Compassionate Confinement brings to light the challenges and complexities inherent in the U.S. system of juvenile corrections. Building on over a year of field work at a boys' residential facility, Laura S. Abrams and Ben Anderson-Nathe provide a context for contemporary institutions and highlight some of the system's most troubling tensions. This ethnographic text utilizes narratives, observations, and case examples to illustrate the strain between treatment and correctional paradigms and the mixed messages regarding gender identity and masculinity that the youths are expected to navigate. Within this context, the authors use the boys' stories to show various and unexpected pathways toward behavior change. While some residents clearly seized opportunities for self-transformation, others manipulated their way toward release, and faced substantial challenges when they returned home. Compassionate Confinement concludes with recommendations for rehabilitating this notoriously troubled system in light of the experiences of its most vulnerable stakeholders.

He was a suspected Cold War spy. She became the glamorous KGB double agent in a Bond movie. When a prisoner writes to a movie star, the best he can hope for is a signed photo. But when Alex wrote to the glamorous Fiona Fullerton she was beguiled by the artistry of his letters and poems. In this heartfelt memoir, Fiona Fullerton recalls-for the first time-her 12 year correspondence with Prisoner 789959 Alexander Alexandrowicz -including his wise counsel about her marriage, divorce and career at the forefront of cinema, TV and theatre. Based on their original letters, the narrative is one of contrasts-about a man in the darkest days of his prolonged incarceration and a woman surrounded by the brightest lights of show business. Shocked by his long sentence, Alex protested his innocence and railed against the system, often from solitary confinement-whilst she roamed the world, a celebrity and a nomad. From this unlikely juxtaposition developed the friendship at the centre of this book. The true story of how two people from social extremes forged a 30 year bond of friendship against all odds. It also tells of how they came to rely on each other and the author's search for him after he disappeared. 'Have you ever heard of Nadejda Philaretovna von Meck? She and Tchaikovsky were corresponding for years, they never met-and yet he produced his finest work for her. My finest work shall be for you... It is you alone who has given me strength while I have been in prison, the strength to restore lost and dying hope into burning resolution'. 'Yes, the bond between us will get stronger, Alex. It will never die now. I'll always be here when you need me. I need you too, don't forget, so together we'll muddle through'. Reviews 'What a lovely, lovely book... compelling, gripping, moving, insightful': Erwin James, Guardian correspondent. Author Fiona Fullerton was one of Britain's most well known and versatile actresses, starring in movies, television and West End theatres, holding a high profile media presence for over 20 years. She then became a Property Columnist, writer and property investment guru, reaching a vastly different audience. Foreword Edward Fitzgerald CBE QC is one of the UK's leading lawyers specialising in criminal law, public law and international human rights law. He has featured in many leading cases at home and abroad. He was Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year in 2009, Silk of the Year in 2005 and winner of The Times Justice Human Rights Award in 1998.

What do you reckon to our Prisons? A waste of time - just universities of crime - more like 3* hotels - food better than at home - more drugs on those Landings than on our streets - sentences too short, don't even fit the crime. These people are criminals and should be punished: that should teach them - they are released far too soon and come out worse than they went in. Lock them up and throw away the key. We are safer when they are Inside: we can get on with our lives. So goes the common opinion: include gyms, football fields, TVs and mobile phones and we turn away in disgust. It's much harder if you have been at the receiving end of crime, your heart weighed down with grief or your anger like an imminent volcanic eruption as you scream for justice and revenge.

Understandable: but we must beware lest we lock ourselves up in the high-walled prison of our minds and emotions - throwing away that key.

Both prisons need a rethink before true release and reconciled living are possible. Discipline Inside Jail: - Yes, but cruelty only worsens a situation already bad enough. The facilities that grate with you can work towards change for those who choose that route. You say you feel safer now they' are Inside: the hole they left will soon be filled by others. Do you hope for a peaceful, reconciled life? Not yet, maybe: one day But most of these people will be released back into society: then what?

This book is a must read for anyone connected with prisons, perhaps especially for those who turn a blind eye, a deaf ear - through fear or not realising how redemptive involvement can be.

Originally published as a series on Reality Sandwich and The Huffington Post, Exile Nation is a work of "spiritual journalism" that grapples with the themes of drugs, prisons, politics, and spirituality through Shaw's personal story. In 2005, Shaw was arrested in Chicago for possession of MDMA and was sent to prison for one year. Shaw not only looks at the current prison system and its many destructive flaws, but also at how American culture regards criminals and those who live outside of society. He begins his story at Chicago's Cook County Jail, and uses its sprawling, highly corrupt infrastructure to build upon his overarching argument. This is an insider's look at the forgotten or excluded segments of our society, the disenfranchised lifestyles and subcultures existing in what Shaw calls the "exile nation." They are those who lost some or all of their ability to participate in the full opportunities of society because of an arrest or conviction for a non-violent, drug-related, or "moral" offense, those who cannot participate in the credit economy, and those with lifestyle choices that involve radical politics and sexuality, cognitive liberty, and unorthodox spiritual and healing practices. Together they make up the new "evolutionary counterculture" of the most significant epoch in human history.

"Buried Lives" offers the first critical examination of the experience of imprisonment in early America. These interdisciplinary essays investigate several carceral institutions to show how confinement shaped identity, politics, and the social imaginary both in the colonies and in the new nation. The historians and literary scholars included in this volume offer a complement and corrective to conventional understandings of incarceration that privilege the intentions of those in power over the experiences of prisoners.
Considering such varied settings as jails, penitentiaries, almshouses, workhouses, floating prison ships, and plantations, the contributors reconstruct the struggles of people imprisoned in locations from Antigua to Boston. The essays draw upon a rich array of archival sources from the seventeenth century to the eve of the Civil War, including warden logs, petitions, execution sermons, physicians' clinical notes, private letters, newspaper articles, runaway slave advertisements, and legal documents. Through the voices, bodies, and texts of the incarcerated, "Buried Lives" reveals the largely ignored experiences of inmates who contested their subjection to regimes of power.

Jere Van Dyk was on the wrong side of the border. He and three Afghan guides had crossed into the tribal areas of Pakistan, where no Westerner had ventured for years, hoping to reach the home of a local chieftain by nightfall. But then a dozen armed men in black turbans appeared over the crest of a hill.

"Captive" is Van Dyk's searing account of his forty-five days in a Taliban prison, and it is gripping and terrifying in the tradition of the best prison literature. The main action takes place in a single room, cut off from the outside world, where Van Dyk feels he can trust nobody--not his jailers, not his guides (who he fears may have betrayed him), and certainly not the charismatic Taliban leader whose fleeting appearances carry the hope of redemption as well as the prospect of immediate, violent death.

Van Dyk went to the tribal areas to investigate the challenges facing America there. His story is of a deeper, more personal challenge, an unforgettable tale of human endurance.

IRA Jailbreaks 1918-1921 features the factual accounts of 25 daring rescues, rescue attempts and jailbreaks which raised the morale of nationalist Ireland and brought world-wide ridicule and discredit on the prison and internment camp systems in Britain and Ireland. With stories of their resistance to the degrading criminal code by the political prisoners, the hunger strikes and jail riots, the savage beatings and punishments the prisoners suffered during their incarceration, their accounts offer a window on the world of the men who fought and were imprisoned during the struggle for Ireland's independence. Here is history documented by the men who made it.

In April 1981, two white Texas prison officials died at the hands of a black inmate at the Ellis prison farm near Huntsville. Warden Wallace Pack and farm manager Billy Moore were the highest-ranking Texas prison officials ever to die in the line of duty. The warden was drowned face down in a ditch. The farm manager was shot once in the head with the warden's gun. The man who admitted to killing them, a burglar and robber named Eroy Brown, surrendered meekly, claiming self-defense. In any other era of Texas prison history, Brown's fate would have seemed certain: execution. But in 1980, federal judge William Wayne Justice had issued a sweeping civil rights ruling in which he found that prison officials had systematically and often brutally violated the rights of Texas inmates. In the light of that landmark prison civil rights case, Ruiz v. Estelle, Brown had a chance of being believed. The Trials of Eroy Brown, the first book devoted to Brown's astonishing defense, is based on trial documents, exhibits, and journalistic accounts of Brown's three trials, which ended in his acquittal. Michael Berryhill presents Brown's story in his own words, set against the backdrop of the chilling plantation mentality of Texas prisons. Brown's attorneys-Craig Washington, Bill Habern, and Tim Sloan-undertook heroic strategies to defend him, even when the state refused to pay their fees. The Trials of Eroy Brown tells a landmark story of prison civil rights and the collapse of Jim Crow justice in Texas.

'When you are suspended by a rope you can recover, but every time I see a rope I remember. If the light goes out unexpectedly in a room, I am back in my cell.' Binyam Mohamed, Prisoner #1458. For eight years the American naval base at Guantanamo Bay on Cuba has been home to hundreds of men, all Muslim, all detained in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on suspicion of varying degrees of complicity or intent to carry out acts of terror against American interests. Labelled 'the worst of the worst', most of these men were guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Many fell prey to a US military policy of paying bounty money for anyone the Pakistani secret service, border guards or village leaders on both sides of the blurred Afghan-Pakistan border considered a possible or potential 'suspect', thereby becoming currency in the newly defined 'War on Terror'. Held in legal limbo for years and repeatedly interrogated, almost all have been released without charge and only a very few have been tried in the special military commissions set up for the purpose. Guantanamo: If the light goes out illustrates three experiences of home: at Guantanamo naval base, home to the American community; in the camp complex where the detainees have been held; and in the homes where former detainees, never charged with any crime, find themselves trying to rebuild lives. These notions of home are brought together in an unsettling narrative, which evokes the process of disorientation central to the Guantanamo interrogation and incarceration techniques. It also explores the legacy of disturbance such experiences have in the minds and memories of these men.

A unique and telling insight into life in a claustrophobic and sometimes violent atmosphere. An ideal primer on women's issues within the penal system. With 8 pages of colour illustrations.

Follows forty juvenile male offenders, from their first-time admissions to the Ohio system through their incarceration and reentry into the community. The author conducted three lengthy interviews with each of these youth over a period of two and a half years. These interviews bring alive their attitudes and day-to-day prison experiences, as well as the intricate connections between life on the inside and life on the outside. Status is key to everyday life in prison, and it is often played out in demonstrations of masculinity, misogyny, and violence. Some gangs and some ""area codes"" (as the old neighborhoods are called) are seen as tougher than others and are given more respect. Even letters from family members and girlfriends are important signs of whether a prisoner matters: one young man says, ""I'd write letters every day to people to beg 'em to write me back."" Another reports, ""There would be people in there writing girls, saying, hey, write me this nasty letter of things we're going to do and things we did. And they'd write back with these letters. And now he'll get to walk around with his letter bragging, like, hey, check this out. These are the kind of girls I got."" Incarcerated youth also work hard at impression management. Coping with prison requires a young man to present one face to fellow prisoners and another to the authorities who will decide his release date. The author pays substantial attention to the programs youth are offered, including those focusing on education, anger management, job training, and parenting skills. Another section looks at contact between incarcerated youth and the outside world, including a discussion of the impact of incarceration on families. Based on her extensive knowledge of policies in other states, the author also provides a broad overview of the juvenile justice system nationally, describing how the system is organized, administered, and funded. Readers are taken through the juvenile justice process from conviction through parole with special attention paid to new state initiatives and sentencing structures.|Locked Up, Locked Out follows forty juvenile male offenders, from their first-time admissions to the Ohio system through their incarceration and re-entry into the community. The author conducted three lengthy interviews with each of these youth over a period of two and a half years. These interviews bring alive their attitudes and day-to-day prison experiences, as well as the intricate connections between life on the inside and life on the outside. Status is key to everyday life in prison, and it is often played out in demonstrations of masculinity, misogyny, and violence. Some gangs and some ""area codes"" (as the old neighborhoods are called) are seen as tougher than others and are given more respect. Even letters from family members and girlfriends are important signs of whether a prisoner matters: one young man says, ""I'd write letters every day to people to beg 'em to write me back."" Another reports, ""There would be people in there writing girls, saying, hey, write me this nasty letter of things we're going to do and things we did. And they'd write back with these letters. And now he'll get to walk around with his letter bragging, like, hey, check this out. These are the kind of girls I got."" Incarcerated youth also work hard at impression management. Coping with prison requires a young man to present one face to fellow prisoners and another to the authorities who will decide his release date. The author pays substantial attention to the programs youth are offered, including those focusing on education, anger management, job training, and parenting skills. Another section looks at contact between incarcerated youth and the outside world, including a discussion of the impact of incarceration on families. Based on her extensive knowledge of policies in other states, the author also provides a broad overview of the juvenile justice system nationally, describing how the system is organized, administered, and funded. Readers are taken through the juvenile justice process from conviction through parole with special attention paid to new state initiatives and sentencing structures.

Follows forty juvenile male offenders, from their first-time admissions to the Ohio system through their incarceration and reentry into the community. The author conducted three lengthy interviews with each of these youth over a period of two and a half years. These interviews bring alive their attitudes and day-to-day prison experiences, as well as the intricate connections between life on the inside and life on the outside. Status is key to everyday life in prison, and it is often played out in demonstrations of masculinity, misogyny, and violence. Some gangs and some ""area codes"" (as the old neighborhoods are called) are seen as tougher than others and are given more respect. Even letters from family members and girlfriends are important signs of whether a prisoner matters: one young man says, ""I'd write letters every day to people to beg 'em to write me back."" Another reports, ""There would be people in there writing girls, saying, hey, write me this nasty letter of things we're going to do and things we did. And they'd write back with these letters. And now he'll get to walk around with his letter bragging, like, hey, check this out. These are the kind of girls I got."" Incarcerated youth also work hard at impression management. Coping with prison requires a young man to present one face to fellow prisoners and another to the authorities who will decide his release date. The author pays substantial attention to the programs youth are offered, including those focusing on education, anger management, job training, and parenting skills. Another section looks at contact between incarcerated youth and the outside world, including a discussion of the impact of incarceration on families. Based on her extensive knowledge of policies in other states, the author also provides a broad overview of the juvenile justice system nationally, describing how the system is organized, administered, and funded. Readers are taken through the juvenile justice process from conviction through parole with special attention paid to new state initiatives and sentencing structures.|Locked Up, Locked Out follows forty juvenile male offenders, from their first-time admissions to the Ohio system through their incarceration and re-entry into the community. The author conducted three lengthy interviews with each of these youth over a period of two and a half years. These interviews bring alive their attitudes and day-to-day prison experiences, as well as the intricate connections between life on the inside and life on the outside. Status is key to everyday life in prison, and it is often played out in demonstrations of masculinity, misogyny, and violence. Some gangs and some ""area codes"" (as the old neighborhoods are called) are seen as tougher than others and are given more respect. Even letters from family members and girlfriends are important signs of whether a prisoner matters: one young man says, ""I'd write letters every day to people to beg 'em to write me back."" Another reports, ""There would be people in there writing girls, saying, hey, write me this nasty letter of things we're going to do and things we did. And they'd write back with these letters. And now he'll get to walk around with his letter bragging, like, hey, check this out. These are the kind of girls I got."" Incarcerated youth also work hard at impression management. Coping with prison requires a young man to present one face to fellow prisoners and another to the authorities who will decide his release date. The author pays substantial attention to the programs youth are offered, including those focusing on education, anger management, job training, and parenting skills. Another section looks at contact between incarcerated youth and the outside world, including a discussion of the impact of incarceration on families. Based on her extensive knowledge of policies in other states, the author also provides a broad overview of the juvenile justice system nationally, describing how the system is organized, administered, and funded. Readers are taken through the juvenile justice process from conviction through parole with special attention paid to new state initiatives and sentencing structures.

Women prisoners gain insight and inspiration through their creative reading practices. Drawing on extensive interviews with ninety-four women prisoners, Megan Sweeney examines how incarcerated women use available reading materials to come to terms with their pasts, negotiate their present experiences, and reach toward different futures. Foregrounding the voices of African American women, Sweeney analyzes how prisoners read three popular genres: narratives of victimization, urban crime fiction, and self-help books. She outlines the history of reading and education in U.S. prisons, highlighting how the increasing dehumanization of prisoners has resulted in diminished prison libraries and restricted opportunities for reading. Although penal officials have sometimes endorsed reading as a means to control prisoners, Sweeney illuminates the resourceful ways in which prisoners educate and empower themselves through reading. Given the scarcity of counseling and education in prisons, Sweeney argues that women use books to make meaning from their experiences, to gain guidance and support, to experiment with new ways of being, and to maintain connections with the world.