Recommended Reading
The Rise and Fall of California’s Radical Prison Movement
1994, Stanford University Press
Eric Cummins
This is a history of the California prison movement from 1950 to 1980, highlighting the role that prison reading and writing played in the creation of radical inmate ideology in those years. This was an extraordinary era in the California prisons, one that saw the emergence of a highly developed, radical convict resistance movement inside prison walls, fuelled at times by remarkable prisoners like Caryl Chessman, Eldridge Cleaver or George Jackson, and by groups of inmates like the Black Muslims or the Black Panther Party. The book traces the rise and fall of the prisoners' movement, ending with the inevitable bloody confrontation between prisoners and the state and the subsequent prison administration crackdown. He also discusses how such writings as Chessman's Cell 2455, Cleaver's Soul on Ice, and Jackson's Soledad Brother reached far beyond prison walls to influence opinion, events, and policy.
Skull in the Ashes: Murder, a Gold Rush Manhunt, and the Birth of Circumstantial Evidence in America
2013, University of Iowa Press
Peter Kaufman
On a February night in 1897, the general store in Walford, Iowa, burned down. The next morning, townspeople discovered a charred corpse in the ashes. At first, it seemed to be a tragic accident mitigated just a bit by the owner Frank Novak’s foresight in buying generous life insurance policies to provide for his family. But soon an investigation turned up evidence suggesting that the dead man might not be Novak. Relying upon newly developed forensic techniques, investigators gradually built a case implicating Novak in the murder.
Skull in the Ashes recounts a veteran detective’s determined trek over icy mountain paths and dangerous river rapids to raw Yukon Territory in a quest to track down Frank Novak. Peter Kaufman gives readers a fascinating glimpse into forensics, detective work, trial strategies, and prison life at the close of the nineteenth century.
Fourth City: Essays from the Prison in America
2014, Michigan State University Press
Doran Larson, ed.
At 2.26 million, incarcerated Americans not only outnumber the nation’s fourth-largest city, they make up a national constituency bound by a shared condition. Fourth City: Essays from the Prison in America presents more than seventy essays from twenty-seven states, written by incarcerated Americans chronicling their experience inside. Directly confronting the images of prisons and prisoners manufactured by popular media, so-called reality TV, and for-profit local and national news sources, Fourth City recognizes American prisoners as primary witnesses to the largest prison system on earth.
Inside This Place, Not of It: Narratives from Women's Prisons
2011, McSweeney's (Voice of Witness)
Robin Levi and Ayelet Waldman, eds.
In their own words, the thirteen narrators in this book recount their lives leading up to incarceration and their experiences inside. Together, their testimonies illustrate the harrowing struggles for survival that women in prison must endure. Inside This Place, Not of It addresses social justice issues surrounding women in prison, empowering incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women to share the stories that have previously been silenced.
One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana
2003, Twin Palms Publishers
Deborah Luster and C.D. Wright
In 1998, photographer Deborah Luster and poet C.D. Wright set out to produce a record of Louisiana's prison population through image and text. One Big Self is a document to ward off forgetting, an opportunity for those inmates to present themselves as they would be seen, bringing what they own or borrow or use: work tools, objects of their making, messages of their choosing, their bodies, themselves. The photographer has been commissioned, in a sense, by the inmates to make portraits for their loved ones—trying to ensure a balance between photograph and subject, to connect the viewer, whether mother, child, friend, or stranger, to the prisoner. The view is inherently personal.
Prison Exposures: First Photographs Inside Prison by a Convict
1959, Chilton Company
Robert Neese
In the late 1950s, Iowa State Penitentiary inmate Robert Neese wrote and photographed Prison Exposures: First Photographs Inside Prison by a Convict. Published in 1959 in Philadelphia, the site of early Quaker prison reform, this book illustrates life inside the historic Iowa State Penitentiary at Fort Madison, IA. The author of the imagery and extensive supporting text, Neese was inmate-photographer on the staff of the (at the time) monthly prison journal, the Presidio. The book is a must-read for those interested in the history of Iowa prisons and for students of both literature and photography.
Juvenile in Justice
2012, Richard Ross Photography
Richard Ross
Winner of the 2012 Best News and Documentary Photography Award from the American Society of Magazine Editors for a selection published in Harper’s Magazine, the photographs in Juvenile in Justice open our eyes to the world of the incarceration of American youth. The nearly 150 images in this book were made over 5 years of visiting more than 1,000 youth confined in more than 200 juvenile detention institutions in 31 states. These riveting photographs, accompanied by the life stories that these young people in custody shared with Ross, give voice to imprisoned children from families that have no resources in communities that have no power. With essays by Ira Glass of National Public Radio’s This American Life and Bart Lubow, Director of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Juvenile Justice Strategy Group.
Is It Safe?
2008, Prison University Project
Essays by students in the San Quentin College Program, Photographs by Heather Rowley, Edited by Jennifer Scaife
Students from the College Program at San Quentin wrote the personal essays featured in this book. Self-disclosure takes courage in any writing workshop, for unveiling personal experiences can cause writers to feel vulnerable, sometimes even unsafe. Sharing a personal essay in prison--where people often guard their feelings and their memories closely, where privacy and physical safety are rarely taken for granted--can be a life-altering act. The photographs in Is It Safe? were taken by Heather Rowley, who was intensely conscious that in photographing men who are continually under surveillance, her camera held the potential for even further intrusion. Rowley aims to take pictures that allow students to present a self to the camera that they are proud of. These photos are collaborations between the inmates' ideas and Rowley's vision.
In For Life: A Convict's Story
1953, Norton
Tom Runyon
This memoir written by Tom Runyon, a lifer in Iowa State Penitentiary, offers a unique glimpse into a pivotal period at Iowa's first prison. A passionate reporter, editor, and columnist for ISP's Presidio magazine, Runyon recounts his life before and during his life sentence. The book includes nuanced character sketches of fellow inmates and describes Runyon's initially grudging, but ultimately mutually respectful, bonds with former ISP wardens Percy Lainson and John Bennett.
Crossing the Yard: Thirty Years as a Prison Volunteer
2007, University of Arizona Press
Richard Shelton
Richard Shelton began organizing creative writing workshops behind bars in 1970, and in this gritty memoir he offers up a chronicle of reaching out to forgotten men and women—and of creativity blossoming in a prison environment. He tells of published students such as Paul Ashley, Greg Forker, Ken Lamberton, and Jimmy Santiago Baca who have made names for themselves through their writing instead of their crimes. Crossing the Yard is a rare story of a teacher's professional fulfillment—and a testament to the transformative power of writing.
Reading is My Window: Books and the Art of Reading in Women’s Prisons
2010, University of North Carolina Press
Megan Sweeney
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 diminished prison libraries and restricted opportunities for reading. Sweeney illuminates the resourceful ways in which prisoners educate and empower themselves through reading. Incarcerated 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.
Fiona Tan: Correction
2004, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
Fiona Tan, with contributions from Tessa Jackson, Katharina Sykora, Lisa Phillips, Robert Fitzpatrick, Ann Philbin, Francesco Bonami, Joel Snyder
Artist Fiona Tan works somewhere in between the still photograph and the moving picture. In her "moving photographs," the before and after of the captured image is revealed; that which lies outside the frame crawls in. Her 2005 exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary art in Chicago, titled Correction, includes several hundred filmed portraits of prisoners and prison guards, a multitude of citizens whom society seemingly prefers to lock away and keep out of sight. Consistent with Tan's earlier work, Correction incorporates sociological and anthropological principles into an exploration of medium-specific concerns. This exhibition book gives the reader an inside look at the artist's process and her experience of filming the project in carceral facilities.
Disguised As A Poem: My Years Teaching Poetry at San Quentin
2000, Northeastern
Judith Tannenbaum
In stirring and intimate prose, Judith Tannenbaum details the challenges, rewards, and paradoxes of teaching poetry to maximum-security inmates convicted of capital crimes. Recounting how she and her students shared profound and complicated lessons about humanity and life both inside and outside San Quentin's walls, Tannenbaum tells provocative stories of obsession, racism, betrayal, despair, courage, and beauty. Contrary to the growing public perception of prisoners as demons, the men in this poetry class—Angel, Coties, Elmo, Glenn, Richard, Spoon—emerge not as beasts or heroes but as human beings with expressive voices, thoughts, and feelings strikingly similar to the free.
Shakespeare Behind Bars: The Power of Drama in a Women's Prison
2001, St. Martin's Press
Jean Trounstine
In this gripping account, Jean Trounstine who spent ten years teaching at Framingham Women's Prison in Massachusetts, focuses on six inmates who, each in her own way, discover in the power of great drama a way to transcend the constraints of incarceration. Shakespeare Behind Bars is a uniquely powerful work that gives voice to forgotten women, sheds a compassionate light on a dark world, and proves the redemptive power of art and education.
The Prison Library Primer: A Program for the Twenty-First Century
2009, Scarecrow Press
Brenda Vogel
In The Prison Library Primer: A Program for the Twenty-First Century, Brenda Vogel addresses the unique challenges facing the prison librarian. This practical guide to operating and promoting a correctional library focuses on the basic priorities: collection development; location, space planning, and furnishing suggestions; information on court decisions and legislation affecting prisoners' rights. This volume also includes an information-skills training curriculum, sample administration policies, essential digital and print sources, and community support resources.
Teaching the Arts Behind Bars
2003, Northeastern
Rachel Marie-Crane Williams
America's two million incarcerated men, women, and youth live in a hidden, isolated world filled with depression, anxiety, hostility, and violence. But the nation's soaring prison population has not been forgotten by a dedicated network of visual artists, writers, poets, dancers, musicians, and actors who teach the arts in correctional settings.
This anthology compiles the narratives of several accomplished arts-in-corrections teachers who share their personal experiences, philosophies, and bittersweet anecdotes, as well as practical advice, survival skills, and program evaluation guidelines.
Teaching the Arts Behind Bars is an invaluable tool for artists, program administrators, and corrections professionals, and a testament to the power of creative expression in promoting communication, positive social interaction, inner healing, and self-esteem.